Comrade Le Thiet Hung (1906-1986)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in response to King Ham Nghi's Can Vuong (Support the King) decree, the anti-colonial movement against the French developed strongly throughout the two provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh. Hung Nguyen, his hometown, was one of the places with many participants in the Can Vuong movement. After the Can Vuong movement was suppressed by the French colonialists, patriotic scholars in Nghe Tinh such as Than Son Ngo Quang, Dang Tu Kinh, Dang Thuc Hua... sought refuge in Siam to build bases, waiting for the opportunity to return to Vietnam to continue their activities. They built farms in Siam, creating economic bases and training in martial arts. From there, they returned to Vietnam to recruit patriotic youth to train for revolution. The movement to send young people from Nghe Tinh to study abroad flourished. In his hometown of Hung Nguyen, there was Mr. Vo Trong Dai (also known as Ngoet Dai) from Phu Xa village who had family in Siam. Encouraged by his father, in the autumn of 1923, Le Van Nghiem and 12 others went to Siam under the guidance of Vo Trong Dai. Accompanying him were Le Huy Doan (also known as Le Hong Phong) and his friend Pham Dai (also known as Pham Hong Thai).

Before leaving, his father changed his name to Le Nhu Vong (meaning "hope of family and homeland"). From Phu Xa village, the group traveled through Huong Son, Laos, and then to Siam. It was a difficult and arduous journey. Le Nhu Vong and his friends arrived and stayed at the Farm Camp of Co Di (also known as Dang Thuc Hua). He and his friends studied Chinese while working, waiting for an opportunity to go to Guangzhou (China). Because they did not yet have the money to go to Guangzhou, Le Nhu Vong had to stay at the Farm Camp. Before him went to Guangzhou were Le Hong Phong, Le Hong Son, Pham Dai, and Le Quang Dat. In June 1924, the bombing of Sa Dien by Pham Hong Thai in Guangzhou, an attempt to assassinate Governor-General Merlin, caused a great stir throughout Indochina. At the end of 1924, he and Truong Van Linh went to Guangzhou. They secretly went to Bangkok, boarded a ship to Hong Kong, and from there traveled to Guangzhou by speedboat. During this same period, Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc traveled from the Soviet Union to Guangzhou with the important responsibility entrusted to him by the Communist International: to build the workers' and communist movements in Southeast Asia. He was also responsible to the Peasant International for the Asian peasant movement. Based on the "Tam Tam Society" organization in Guangzhou, in May 1925, Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc founded the "Vietnam Revolutionary Youth League," abbreviated as the "Youth League."

After a short time in Guangzhou, Le Nhu Vong met Comrade Ly Thuy (Nguyen Ai Quoc's pseudonym). He and Luu Quoc Long were introduced by Comrade Ly Thuy to attend the "Peasant Movement" class and the "Education Group" to learn Chinese. Le Nhu Vong and Truong Van Linh were also introduced by Comrade Ly Thuy to the Whampoa Military Academy. After one month at the academy, he and other students participated in fighting against the Dam Dam Tay bandits in the Sino-Vietnamese border region. In October 1925, he was admitted by Comrade Ly Thuy into the "Communist Youth" (a secret group within the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth League); Comrade Ly Thuy changed his name to Le Quoc Vong (always remembering the Fatherland and the Fatherland's hope in him).

The Whampoa Military Academy was established at the request of Sun Yat-sen's government to the Soviet Union. The Soviet government approved a financial aid package of 2 million Mexican dollars for Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary government and appointed MM Borodin as his political advisor. The academy was built on Whampoa Island on the West River, 25 km from Guangzhou. It was inaugurated on June 5, 1924. It was a large military academy at the time and received training from Soviet Russian military advisors. While primarily an infantry academy, it also offered specialized classes in artillery, engineering, and communications. Later, it was assigned the additional task of training political cadres. The academy's mission was to train core officers for the national revolutionary army of Sun Yat-sen's government. Chiang Kai-shek was the headmaster, and Li Jishen was the director. The academy was organized according to the model of the Soviet Red Army and trained by Soviet military experts. Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc was also a political science lecturer at the school. Among the students who attended the school from 1924-1927, there were more than 30 Vietnamese students (according to Comrade A.I. Trerepanov, a training instructor at the school). However, according to Comrade Le Thiet Hung, "the number of Vietnamese students at the Whampoa Military Academy was more than 200" ("Forever Grateful to Him." Memoirs of Le Thiet Hung, excerpt from "The Source." Literature Publishing House, Hanoi, 1975, page 286).

Le Quoc Vong's course had eight Vietnamese students; he studied in the Infantry class, three in the Artillery class, and the rest in other departments. The following course had over 200 students studying in various departments. Two days each month, they would travel by boat to Guangzhou to study political theory taught by Nguyen Ai Quoc.

On February 12, 1925, Sun Yat-sen passed away. In April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek began to betray Sun Yat-sen's policy of "pro-Russia, inclusive of communism, and support for workers and peasants." In an attempt to seize leadership of the Kuomintang, Chiang staged a coup in Shanghai (April 12, 1927) and carried out a series of terrorist crackdowns on revolutionary forces, primarily targeting the Chinese Communist Party's base and workers throughout the cities. On April 13, 1927, Li Jishen (Chiang Kai-shek's trusted henchman) staged a coup in Guangzhou. Right-wing troops destroyed the Whampoa Military Academy, and Le Quoc Vong, along with seven other students and over 200 Vietnamese students from a later cohort, were arrested. They imprisoned the students in a floating prison on the Pearl River for a time before releasing them. He and the other students returned to Nanjing to continue their studies. After graduating from Whampoa Military Academy, he was assigned to train as a staff officer in Chiang Kai-shek's divisional headquarters.

The Guangzhou Uprising broke out on December 11, 1927. Le Quoc Vong, along with a number of Vietnamese students, studied at the Whampoa Military Academy, including:Ho Tung MauZhang Xuebo, Zhang Yunling, Liu Guolong... joined the Chinese communists in their fight against Chiang Kai-shek's reactionaries with deep internationalist sentiment. Due to the vast disparity in forces, the uprising failed and was brutally suppressed by Chiang Kai-shek's army. Le Quoc Vong was not exposed, but he lost contact with Comrade Li Rui. He met Comrade Ho Tung Mau in Guangzhou and was sent to Nanjing to find out about the studies of the next 200 students. He and Liu Guolong went to Nanjing, where they were arrested by the reactionary Kuomintang for a week. Upon returning to Guangzhou, he received contact from Comrade Li Rui. This was truly exhilarating. Previously, according to Comrade Li Rui's plan, after graduating from Whampoa Military Academy, Le Quoc Vong would be sent to the Soviet Union to continue his studies at the University of the East (the Communist University of the Working People of the East named after Comrade Stalin). Comrade Ly Thuy summoned him to Shanghai and assigned him a crucial task; Comrade Ly Thuy told him: “You are in Chiang Kai-shek’s army. That’s an advantage. Discuss with Mr. Ho Hoc Lam how to obtain documents about this attack plot and hand them over to the Chinese Communist Party. Wherever you work, you must participate and organize there, and you must consider the Chinese revolution as the Vietnamese revolution.” (Forever Grateful to Him...)

The plan changed; he would have to take on the uniform of a Chiang Kai-shek army officer to help the Chinese revolution as requested by the Chinese Communist Party. Because after the Guangzhou Uprising, the Chinese Communist Party suffered heavy losses, Chiang Kai-shek was preparing to attack the Chinese Red Army on all fronts.

Le Quoc Vong understood that he needed to accumulate more experience to serve his country after returning home. But for now, he had to do his best in the international mission that the friendly party had requested his assistance with. Comrade Ly Thuy gave him the code name "Ebony Tree" (this was understood both figuratively and literally: his skin was slightly dark, and no matter the circumstances, he would not be affected by decay, remaining steadfast and loyal like an ebony tree). Comrade Ly Thuy gave him a cross-shaped card as a communication signal with comrades in the Chinese Communist Party.

As an officer in Chiang Kai-shek's army, holding the rank of Infantry Platoon Leader, he secretly infiltrated and planted good people in the platoons under his command. Some of these platoons, after training and receiving new weapons, would spontaneously "disappear" and become revolutionary troops of the Chinese Communist Party. At that time, desertion in Chiang's army was considered trivial, as the more deserters there were, the more opportunities superiors had to create fictitious records to benefit themselves. In the winter of 1928, Le Quoc Vong was promoted to Company Commander. His unit was deployed to the border with the Soviet Union. At the request of the friendly party, he applied for a transfer to work as a railway officer on the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hankou railway line. In his new position, he assisted the friendly party in many important matters, such as transporting documents and weapons as requested, and at times successfully swapping and freeing political prisoners.

In late 1929, he returned to Shanghai to meet Comrade Ly Thuy. After the Guangzhou Uprising, Comrade Ly Thuy went to Siam, then through the Soviet Union, and back to China to avoid being hunted by Chiang Kai-shek's army. Comrade Ly Thuy conveyed the request of the friendly party, suggesting that Le Quoc Vong remain within the enemy ranks for a while longer to help them gather intelligence and understand the schemes of Chiang Kai-shek's army. And in Shanghai, he was admitted into the Communist Party of Vietnam by Comrade Ly Thuy.

To successfully complete his assigned mission, Le Quoc Vong had to rely on Ho Hoc Lam, a key figure in Chiang Kai-shek's army. Since arriving in Guangzhou, he had known Ho Hoc Lam was a patriotic Vietnamese intellectual. His father had participated in the Can Vuong movement and was killed by the French, and his wife was the daughter of Ngo Quang, a talented general of Phan Dinh Phung, who had gone into hiding in Siam to establish a base in Trai Cay, awaiting an opportunity to operate. Due to unforeseen circumstances, he had to work in the Operations Department of the General Staff of Chiang Kai-shek's army, but his heart remained deeply devoted to his homeland. His house was a frequent hangout for patriotic Vietnamese youth. He held considerable prestige within Chiang Kai-shek's army and was a classmate of Chiang Kai-shek at the Chan Vu Military Academy (Tokyo, Japan) and the Bao Dinh Academy (Beijing). Chiang Kai-shek also owed a debt of gratitude to Ho Hoc Lam, as he had once led troops to rescue Chiang during the Northern Expedition. Le Quoc Vong asked Ho Hoc Lam to find a way to obtain documents and operational plans from Chiang Kai-shek's army into the Soviet base of the Chinese Communist Party. Ho Hoc Lam agreed, even though he knew it would be extremely difficult and dangerous, potentially endangering his life and family. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek's army's General Staff was directly commanded by German military advisors and followed the model of the Nazi German army. Therefore, the strictest and most rigorous discipline was the management of files and documents. After work, all documents had to be sealed and put in a safe; no documents could be taken home. To obtain documents for Le Quoc Vong, Ho Hoc Lam spent his days at work meticulously reading and memorizing the documents. In the evenings, he would remember to transcribe every sentence and idea, redraw them, and add them to the maps he had prepared at home. In addition, he spent a considerable amount of money and gold to bribe other officers to extract information. Occasionally, in his capacity, Ho Hoc Lam would inspect some units about to go into battle to verify the documents he had read. Le Quoc Vong then had to use a method of internalization to relay this information to the friendly party.

From the summer to the autumn of 1930, crucial information was relayed to the Chinese Red Army, such as: Chiang Kai-shek's army prohibiting the transport of rice down the Ru Shui and Gong Jiang rivers; the divisions under Zhang Huimin, Tan Taoyuan, and Liu Huaying receiving reinforcements and additional weapons; and plans to attack the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party, approved by Chiang Kai-shek, with the scope and targets in the Luolin-Yihuang-Lichuan-Shuijin quadrilateral region, and the troop deployment in each phase. As a result, Chiang Kai-shek's attacks on the Chinese Communist Party's Soviet zone all failed. In one instance, Chiang Kai-shek personally commanded an attack with a German advisor named Seelt, deploying 300,000 troops against the Red Army, but all failed. Frustrated by these successive failures, in October 1930, Chiang mobilized his forces for a fourth general offensive, which was also unsuccessful. After such incidents, whispers arose within Chiang Kai-shek's army about "hunting down traitors." Le Quoc Vong began to be monitored by Chiang Kai-shek's agents; wherever he went, he was followed.

At this time, the Nghe Tinh Soviet movement in Vietnam was being brutally suppressed. Comrade Tran Phu (General Secretary of the Indochinese Communist Party) fell into enemy hands. Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc was arrested by British secret agents in Hong Kong. In May 1932, when Le Hong Son and Nguyen Thi Minh Khai traveled from Hong Kong to Shanghai to meet Le Quoc Vong, he discussed the revolutionary situation with them. Le Hong Son contracted cholera and had to be treated at the "Shanghai Epidemic Hospital," but after about a month, their money ran out. Le Quoc Vong had to take Comrade Bui Hai Thieu and Nguyen Thi Minh Khai to stay at Ho Hoc Lam's house in Nanjing. Afterwards, from Nanjing, he went to Hong Kong through the introduction of a Communist Party member in Guangzhou. Upon returning to Nanjing, he, along with Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, Bui Hai Thieu, and Tran Ngoc Danh, went to Shanghai to establish contact with the Chinese Communist Party through Truong Phuoc Dat. He was interrogated by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party after Chiang Kai-shek's army hunted down Communist Party members in Hong Kong and Shanghai. After establishing contact with the friendly party and undergoing verification, the friendly party requested that he remain in Chiang Kai-shek's army to facilitate their efforts.

To cope with the worsening situation and facilitate revolutionary activities, Ho Hoc Lam had to move his family's residence for the fourth time. Le Quoc Vong and several others were accused by the French imperialists of being dangerous communists and liaisons between Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. They offered a reward of 500,000 Indochinese silver coins for his capture. However, many in the Kuomintang still thought Le Quoc Vong was Ho Hoc Lam's cousin, so they did not dare to act.

In October 1933, Chiang Kai-shek's army, with the tacit support of Britain, France, and Germany, attacked the Chinese Red Army and gained the initiative on the battlefield. The Chinese Communist Party and the Red Army retreated westward, undertaking the Long March into Sichuan and Gansu. Le Quoc Vong lost contact with the Chinese Communist Party from then on.

From September 1931, the Japanese fascists began their invasion of China; by January 1933, the Japanese army had occupied Inner Mongolia and Rehe, crossing the Great Wall and threatening the capital Beijing and North China. In July 1937, the Japanese occupied Nanjing, Shanghai, Hankou, Xuzhou, and other areas. Chiang Kai-shek's troops retreated to Chongqing in Sichuan province. To facilitate communication with the friendly Party, Le Quoc Vong requested a transfer to the Transport Corps, commanding a transport battalion operating on the Jiangxi-Hunan-Guizhou route.

Some time later, he was promoted to colonel and appointed headmaster of a training school for tank, armored vehicle, and transport vehicle drivers, as well as technical soldiers. During this time, he took advantage of the opportunity to learn how to drive tanks and master the mechanical principles of various types of vehicles. He believed that the Vietnamese revolutionary army would later have tanks and armored vehicles and would need this knowledge. In early 1939, the friendly Party sent a liaison officer to Le Quoc Vong, asking him to help the Eighth Route Army in North China, which was lacking weapons, ammunition, and medical equipment, and only he could provide that assistance. He requested to be assigned to the 1st Transport Regiment in North China. He was immediately granted permission, as it was a fiercely contested area. The main Japanese forces were largely concentrated in this region, and none of the generals in Chiang Kai-shek's army wanted to go there. He was assigned to command the 106th Battalion, consisting of eight motorized transport companies operating in a vast area encompassing Henan, Shanxi, and Gansu provinces. With his shrewdness and flexibility, he earned the trust of his superiors and gained prestige among the soldiers. In just six months, he helped deliver 30 tons of weapons, medical equipment, and medicine to the friendly Party forces fighting the enemy.

In the summer of 1940, Le Quoc Vong received orders from the organization to leave Chiang Kai-shek's ranks and take on a new assignment. The first letter was from Comrade Phung Chi Kien; the second was from someone identifying himself as "Vuong" and addressed to "Ebony Tree." Thus, he had made contact with Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc. He was overjoyed. He asked his father-in-law, Ho Hoc Lam, to arrange for his transfer to South China (he had become Ho Hoc Lam's son-in-law in 1937) on the grounds of poor health. The journey from North China to South China was arduous. At one point, he narrowly escaped being shot by Chinese guerrillas who suspected him of being a traitor (a search revealed he was a colonel in Chiang Kai-shek's army). After a period of detention and numerous interrogations in Shanxi Province, he was released and returned to Guilin. There, he met Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc. He reported to Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc about his activities in the Kuomintang General Staff and, together with Mr. Ho Hoc Lam, gathered information about Chiang Kai-shek's top-secret plan. Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc sent him back to the country to take on a new assignment.

In late 1931, at Pac Bo, Le Quoc Vong was assigned by Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc to form a Viet Minh guerrilla team of 12 people along with Comrade Le Quang Ba. Comrade Le Quang Ba was the team leader, Hoang Sam was the deputy leader, and Le Quoc Vong served as both political commissar and Party branch secretary. The first Vietnamese guerrilla team was established. The team's nhiệm vụ was:

- Protect the agency, protect the staff.
- Armed propaganda
- Special transportation and communication
- Military mission
- To form the core for the later development of armed and semi-armed forces.

According to Comrade Le Quang Ba's memoirs: "Around the beginning of the fourth quarter of 1941, Comrade Le Dinh (also known as Le Thiet Hung) returned from China to meet Uncle Ho in Pac Bo. Uncle Ho said: 'Comrade, stay here, study the situation in all aspects, and then we will discuss work.' From then on, Comrade Le Thiet Hung stayed and worked with us. I thought to myself, Uncle Ho must have had some intention in telling Comrade Hung to stay, because after Comrade Phung Chi Kien's death, only Comrade Hung was present in Pac Bo, the only one who had received formal, basic, and systematic military training at the Whampoa Military Academy. One afternoon, Comrade Le Thiet Hung and I were sitting and discussing work as usual when Uncle Ho arrived." He told us: “The more the Viet Minh movement develops, the more the enemy will try to counter it... there are now some weapons here... and scattered in different places... Therefore, Comrade Le Dinh and Comrade Le Quang Ba should discuss how to organize the armed forces. You comrades should make a plan and report back.”... The selection criteria that Comrade Dinh and I both agreed on were, first and foremost, to choose people loyal to the revolution, brave, healthy, armed, and tested in practice. We immediately selected Comrades Bang Giang, Duc Thanh, Be Son Cuong, and The An from among the 43 people attending the training course in Nam Quang (Tinh Tay, Guangxi Province, China). So, including Hung, Sam, and myself, we only had 7 people. As a local, and having been active in this area for a long time, I identified each person and then, together with Hung, selected 5 more people for the team. Thus, the first armed team in Pac Bo consisted of 12 people, including one woman, Comrade Nong Thi Trung” (Memoirs of Comrade Le Quang Ba, Journal of Military History Research. December 1984).

President Ho Chi Minh attended the founding ceremony of the team and personally drafted the 10 disciplinary rules and principles for the team's establishment and operation. The team has a Party cell consisting of 6 members, with Comrade Le Quoc Vong as the Secretary.

After the Japanese coup against the French (March 9, 1945), Le Quoc Vong commanded an armed unit and led the people in seizing power in That Khe, Dong Dang, and Na Sam (Lang Son province), confiscating thousands of enemy weapons to equip the first revolutionary troops.

In October 1945, Comrade Le Quoc Vong was appointed by President Ho Chi Minh as the commander of Military Region Four, Comrade Ho Tung Mau as the Political Commissar, Hoang Dien as the Chief of Staff, and Tran Van Quang as the head of the political department.

Following the success of the August Revolution, the fledgling Democratic Republic of Vietnam faced pressure from both internal and external enemies. In the North, 200,000 Kuomintang troops entered under the guise of Allied forces to disarm the Japanese army. In the South, tens of thousands of French expeditionary troops, under the cover of British forces, returned to plot another invasion of our country. The Preliminary Agreement of March 6, 1946, was signed. According to the appendix to the Agreement, our government had to organize a "Reserve Defense Force" to replace the Kuomintang troops in supervising their withdrawal and to force France to comply with the signed Agreement. To ensure the Kuomintang troops "withdrew honorably," the French had to show respect in their interactions, and our Commander-in-Chief had to hold a general's rank to match theirs. The Central Party Standing Committee and President Ho Chi Minh chose Le Quoc Vong as the Commander-in-Chief of the "Reserve Defense Force," with the rank of general, at that time serving as the Commander of Zone Four. Comrade Tran Van Quang accompanied him to the Central Committee. Uncle Ho gave him a new name, Le Thiet Hung, hoping that the "steel" and "heroic" qualities he possessed in the new struggle against the French colonialists would be further developed. Comrade Tran Van Quang served as political commissar in the "Army Support" organization.

According to Decree No. 185 dated September 24, 1946, he was the first Major General of the Vietnam People's Army. It wasn't until two years later, on May 28, 1948, in the Viet Bac war zone, that the Party and State officially held a ceremony to confer the ranks of general and colonel upon several key figures in our army.

Having excellently fulfilled their duties as Commander-in-Chief of the "Army Support" during the resistance war against the French, in November 1946, comrades Le Thiet Hung and Tran Van Quang were transferred to become the commander and political commissar of Military Region Four. After Comrade Nguyen Son replaced him, Comrade Le Thiet Hung went to the Central Committee. Major General Le Thiet Hung was appointed the first Inspector General of the army, concurrently serving as Director of the Propaganda Department and Principal of the Tran Quoc Tuan Military Academy in 1948.

In the spring of 1948, the French suffered a major defeat in their offensive against the Viet Bac base, forcing them to abandon their strategy of quick victory and shift to a protracted war, employing total war and implementing the policy of "using war to finance war, using Vietnamese to fight Vietnamese." On our side, our armed forces were tempered and matured. The balance of power between us and the enemy shifted in our favor. However, our regular army and militia were not yet strong enough to carry out large-scale annihilation operations. Therefore, the training and development of commanding officers became an urgent requirement that the Party and State paid close attention to. The Tran Quoc Tuan School was established in this context.

This was the first long-term, formal training course of our Army, opened during the early stages of the war to defend the Fatherland and liberate the nation, a period of immense hardship. The school was located in Binh Dinh, Tan Cuong, in the safe zone near Guoc Mountain and Cong River. Comrade Le Thiet Hung devoted all his energy to this new mission, training excellent students to serve in the new war effort. The affection of the school's instructors for Comrade Le Thiet Hung was profound. They considered him the elder brother in the Tran Quoc Tuan Army family. He was an extremely strict older brother, never lenient or overlooking any minor transgression of school regulations; at the same time, he was a very loving older brother who cared for everyone's meals and sleep. Regardless of the weather conditions, Comrade Le Thiet Hung was never absent from the training grounds or field marches. He was a role model in implementation and inspired trainees and staff to strive and compete to overcome all difficulties and hardships to successfully complete their tasks with the determination to "only move forward, never backward".

When the Dien Bien Phu campaign began, Comrade Le Thiet Hung was transferred to join the campaign command.

In 1956, the Artillery Corps was established, and Comrade Le Thiet Hung was appointed Commander of the Artillery Corps. On February 18, 1957, the Artillery Officer School was established, and he also served as its Principal. During this period, the school's facilities were poor; it had to rely on the old barracks of the 63rd Regiment located in the Kim Dai area near Tong Airport (Son Tay). In addition, thatched and bamboo houses had to be built in time for the opening of the school year. The teaching staff had just been trained in Zhengzhou (China). The students had to study and review their general education to acquire sufficient knowledge to learn artillery techniques.

The living quarters were far from the training ground; instructors ate and stayed daily in the ancient citadel (Son Tay town), then cycled to Kim Dai for training and classes. There was no training curriculum, and a shortage of professional officers... it was truly difficult and challenging. However, Comrade Le Thiet Hung and the school overcame all obstacles and successfully completed their mission. He was often affectionately called "Mr. Construction" by the officers, because he always wanted to build a regular army, skilled in tactics and with strict discipline.

He often said: the school must prioritize basic training. Good basic training, mastering the theory while also mastering and performing the movements well, will enable trainees to apply their skills more effectively in actual combat.

In 1963, at the request of the Central Committee of the Party, Comrade Le Thiet Hung transferred to work in foreign affairs: he served as the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (1963-1970). At this time, the struggle of the people of South Vietnam against American imperialism was developing strongly. Relations between Vietnamese and Korean diplomacy were increasingly good. Despite difficulties, our friends provided weapons and combat equipment, contributing to the complete victory of our resistance war against the US.

In 1970, Comrade Le Thiet Hung returned to Vietnam to work as Deputy Head of the CP48 Committee and the Central Committee's Foreign Affairs Department until his retirement.

To help Comrade Le Thiet Hung overcome all difficulties and hardships and successfully complete the tasks assigned by his superiors, we cannot fail to mention his life partner. During the years of working together to assist the Chinese Communist Party, Mr. Ho Hoc Lam greatly admired Le Quoc Vong. He had chosen him as the future son-in-law for his eldest daughter, Ho Diec Lan. In 1937, the wedding of Le Quoc Vong and Ho Diec Lan took place with the attendance of Comrade Le Hong Phong, who had just returned from attending the 7th Congress of the Communist International in China. At this time, Ho Diec Lan was 17 years old. Having just graduated from high school, Ho Diec Lan started working as a worker at the Hunan Silkworm Farming Company. During this period in China, the movement of rural and urban youth and progressive intellectuals left Chiang Kai-shek's white zones to go to the revolutionary base of the Communist Party in Yan'an. In Yan'an, she was sent to study at the Shaanxi Workers' University, established by the Communist Party in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ning base. Graduating with honors, Hu Yilan returned to serve in the base and was later admitted to the Chinese Communist Party. Life in the base from 1938 to 1941 was extremely difficult; the climate was harsh, and food was meager. Hu Yilan contracted pneumonia, an incurable disease at the time. At this time, Le Quoc Vong was busy assisting the friendly party, so the two had little time together. In 1941, the Vietnamese Party organization planned to bring Hu Yilan back to Hanoi to work under the guise of an overseas Chinese, but the Party's base in Vietnam was being severely persecuted, making her return impossible. In June 1946, Hu Yilan, along with her mother and younger sister, Hu Mau La, were welcomed back to Vietnam by representatives of the Vietnamese government to reunite with their family. Mr. Ho Hoc Lam had passed away in Chongqing in 1943 due to illness.

In October 1947, due to a relapse of tuberculosis, Ho Diec Lan passed away in her husband's hometown at the age of 27, having never become a mother after 10 years of marriage.

Le Thiet Hung's second wife was military doctor Nguyen Tuyet Mai. Born in 1924, she was a student at Dong Khanh High School (Hanoi). Graduating from the Obstetrics Department of Hanoi Medical University in 1945, she joined the revolutionary movement early in the capital's youth movement. In 1948, she became the wife of Major General Le Thiet Hung. Despite being the wife of a general, she still traveled extensively for work, fulfilling her duties as a military doctor. At one point, she accompanied the Tran Quoc Tuan Military Academy to Yunnan (China) to provide healthcare for students. She served in the military until her retirement.

In 1986, Comrade Le Thiet Hung passed away at the age of 80 and was buried in Mai Dich Cemetery (Hanoi).