Duong Van Minh, "Big Minh" was unanimously elected as President of South Vietnam by the South Vietnamese National Assembly, and authorized to negotiate a peace agreement with the Viet Cong and with North Vietnam. "
Tran Van Huong refused to step aside as President, however.
A career Army office, Minh had joined the French Army early in World War Two and had been captured by the Japanese. He subsequently joined the French supported Vietnamese National Army and became aprionser of the Viet Minh. After the Paris Peace Accords he's advocated for Vietnam to be reunited as neither a right wing or Communist nation. He was regarded as a friendly South Vietnamese politician by the Communists and therefore was allowed to return to his villa after the South Vietnamese surrender, which he orchestrated. In 1983 he moved to France, and then in 1988 to the US. He remained silent about the war after the 1975 surrender.
He died in 2001, unlamented by the Vietnamese diaspora, who blamed him for the South Vietnamese surrender.
The NVA took Nam Yet Island, Ba Ria Town, and the entire Phuoc Tuy Province.
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