Vu Van Mau

In this Vietnamese name, the family name is Vũ, but is often simplified to Vu in English-language text. According to Vietnamese custom, this person should properly be referred to by the given name Mẫu.

Vũ Văn Mẫu (*Hanoi, 1914 - Paris, August 20, 1998) was the last Prime Minister of South Vietnam and served under President Dương Văn Minh.

Biography

Vũ Văn Mẫu was born in 1914 in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Education

He earned a doctorate in law from the University of Paris and practiced law in Hanoi. After Vietnam’s partition in 1954, he moved to Saigon with his family and joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Saigon, where he became the Dean of the Faculty. He was recognized as an expert in civil and historical law.

Law career

After several years as a professor he then became a local Saigon judge, rising through the ranks to become Judge of the Saigon Superior Court. During his legal career and even during retirement and exile, he authored a number of books, including one entitled Vietnamese Civil Law.

Political career

Vũ Văn Mẫu was South Vietnam's ambassador to Britain, Belgium and The Netherlands in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, he was elected Senator of the Republic where he became a prominent national politician. In 1975, he became Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam under President Dương Văn Minh.

Exile

Vũ Văn Mẫu moved to Paris in 1988, where he died a decade later, aged 84.

References

Political offices
Preceded by Nguyễn Bá Cẩn	Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam 1975	Succeeded by Phạm Văn Đồng as Prime Minister of Vietnam