Milestones

DIED. Xuan Thuy, 72, top-ranking North Vietnamese Communist diplomat, a former Foreign Minister (1963-65) and most recently vice chairman of Viet Nam's National Assembly, who served for more than three decades as a spokesman for his country in international forums, notably as chief delegate to the 1968-73 Paris peace talks with the U.S. and South Viet Nam and then as chief deputy to Le Duc Tho in the secret sessions that led to the U.S. withdrawal from Indochina; after a heart attack; in Hanoi. To former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who faced him across the Paris table, Thuy was "tiny, with a ) Buddha face and a sharp mind, perpetually smiling even when saying the most outrageous things," whose "job was psychological warfare."