Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), left, gestures under a bust of Ho Chi Minh, during a Nov. 1994 meeting in Hanoi with Do Muoi, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. In 1955, as a leader in the communist land reform movement, Muoi helped annihilate Vietnam's middle-class landowners. Over 50,000 Vietnamese landowners were murdered that year, making it one of the bloodiest periods in Vietnam's history.