Phomvihane

Beginning in the late 1940s, early 1950s, the Pathet Lao, the Communists, were drawing most of their young leaders from students studying in Hanoi — like the most famous president, Kaysone Phomvihane — and after the 1954 conflict at Dien Bien Phu, where France lost and agreed to independence for their Indochinese holdings.