By now, Ho Chi Minh found physical activity increasingly tiring, and was no longer taking an active role in mapping war strategy; still, when his health permitted, he contributed to discussions on the subject in Politburo meetings. Although he had argued persistently in favor of measures to minimize the risk of U.S. intervention, he now firmly supported the decision to escalate the role of the North in the conflict, on the grounds that the United States must be convinced that the Vietnamese people were absolutely determined to bring about reunification, whatever the cost. The people of North Vietnam, he argued, had every right to assist their brothers in defending themselves against the American “war of aggression” in the South. He warned his colleagues that the war would continue to escalate, since the United States now recognized that a defeat would have catastrophic effects on its global objectives and was determined to negotiate from strength; but he concluded that “we will fight whichever way the enemy wants, and we will still win.”
Ho now shared the view that conditions were not yet ripe for a negotiated settlement. He believed that revolutionary forces must both fight and negotiate, but for the time being fighting must have priority, with diplomacy serving the needs of the battlefield. Negotiations should not get under way until the United States agreed unconditionally to a halt on bombing of the North, and recognized Hanoi’s “four points” as a road map for a solution of the conflict. In the meantime, the DRV must present its position clearly, so that the deceptive character of the U.S. negotiating position would appear obvious to the world. Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues were well aware of the rising chorus of antiwar sentiment that was beginning to emerge within the United States. He stressed the importance of attacking American forces in South Vietnam as well as those of the Saigon regime; this would not only weaken their position on the battlefield but also strengthen the position of dovish elements in Congress and the U.S. public.47
The intensification of the war in South Vietnam and Hanoi’s growing reliance on Soviet military assistance continued to place a severe strain on Sino-Vietnamese relations. Chinese admonitions to Vietnamese leaders to be wary of Soviet perfidy rankled. Beijing’s advice on how to wage revolutionary war and when to open peace talks with the United States— Zhou Enlai liked to point out that the Chinese had more experience in dealing with Washington than the Vietnamese—aroused bitter memories in Hanoi of Chinese arrogance and condescension. Chinese Red Guards (many of whom went to the DRV voluntarily during the early years of the Cultural Revolution to “make revolution”) irritated local citizens, who were reminded of an earlier generation of Chinese advisers who had mindlessly spouted Maoist slogans during the land reform campaign. As Zhou Enlai later confessed to a colleague, the Cultural Revolution did not always travel well.
By the spring of 1966, tensions between Hanoi and Beijing had reached a dangerous level. In a speech delivered in May, Le Duan responded obliquely to Lin Biao’s article about the virtues of self-reliance published the previous September. Duan declared that Hanoi paid close attention to the experiences of fraternal parties in the practice of revolutionary war, but sought to apply them creatively, and not in a mechanical manner. “It is not fortuitous that in the history of our country,” he declared, “each time we rose up to oppose foreign aggression, we took the offensive and not the defensive.” As an additional signal that Hanoi’s patience was running thin, articles in the Vietnamese press began to refer to the “threat from the North” that had been posed by the Chinese empire during the feudal era.
Beijing was quick to take notice of the tension. In a meeting in mid-April with Pham Van Dong in Beijing, Mao Zedong apologized for the behavior of unruly Red Guards residing in the DRV. Mao conceded that they did not always respect the rules that guide the relations between the two countries and thus inevitably caused complications. If that happened, he concluded, Hanoi should “just hand them to us.” Zhou Enlai followed up by confronting Le Duan over the oblique criticism of China that was appearing in the DRV press, asking whether Vietnamese comrades were concerned that China was trying to impose its historical domination over its ally. If so, he replied, Beijing was willing to withdraw its troops from North Vietnam (now numbering more than 100,000), as well as those additional units that were stationed in the Chinese provinces along the border.
Reluctant to offend China, Le Duan adopted a conciliatory tone. He indicated gratitude for the assistance as an important guarantee of the DRV’s survival and future success in bringing about national reunification. But Duan argued the importance of Hanoi’s relationship with Moscow, partly as a matter of pragmatism, a posture that (he pointedly observed) the Chinese Communists had themselves adopted at various moments in their history. As for the alleged Soviet betrayal of revolutionary doctrine, Duan noted that it was important to adopt a conciliatory attitude to “reformist” (i.e., revisionist) countries within the socialist community as a means of persuading them to return to their revolutionary principles.
Eventually, Ho Chi Minh himself became embroiled in the debate. When the Vietnamese president met with Chinese leaders, Zhou Enlai bluntly charged that “you are threatening us.” Zhou repeated his offer to remove all Chinese troops from the border provinces if they gave the impression in Hanoi that they were being used to intimidate the DRV. Deng Xiaoping interrupted, saying that the forces were there solely to guard against the possibility of a U.S. invasion. Ho immediately protested that his government had no intention of threatening its Chinese ally and declared that it welcomed the comforting presence of People’s Liberation Army units located north of the frontier. As a consequence of these and other discussions, the tension in Sino-Vietnamese relations that had marked recent months began to decline, but the seeds for future irritation and mutual distrust had been sown.48
Throughout 1966, the conflict in South Vietnam increased in intensity. Determined to avoid a humiliating defeat in Southeast Asia, the Johnson administration steadily poured more combat troops into the war effort. By now, U.S. units had begun to engage in “search and destroy” operations to weaken the resistance movement and drive the insurgent forces out of the lowland villages back into the Central Highlands and across the Cambodian border, thus depriving the revolution of access to recruits and provisions. South Vietnamese forces were assigned primary responsibility for undertaking pacification operations to secure local areas and clean out pockets of resistance in the heavily populated provinces in the Mekong delta and along the central coast. Joint U.S.-South Vietnamese operations were launched into Viet Cong–held areas in Zone D and other areas near the capital.
General Nguyen Chi Thanh attempted to meet the challenge head-on, ordering a series of attacks on enemy-held areas throughout the South. In his view, and that of his supporters in Hanoi, to back down not only would undermine morale in the revolutionary camp, but would also reduce the pressure on Washington to seek a negotiated settlement. For the time being, Party leaders decided to maintain the pressure on the battlefield in order to maximize American casualties and promote the growth of antiwar sentiment throughout the United States. Newly introduced combat forces from North Vietnam bore the brunt of the fighting in the Central Highlands and in the northern provinces of the country, but PLAF units continued to play an active role in combating Saigon’s pacification operations in the Mekong delta.
The strategy was an extremely costly one, since Hanoi could not hope to match the enemy in terms of firepower, but would have to rely on the force of numbers and the advantage of surprise. For several months, General Thanh attempted to maintain the initiative on the battlefield. Although U.S. “head count” figures of more than 300,000 enemy casualties a year were no doubt exaggerated, there is little doubt that Hanoi’s losses were high. To maintain force levels, it was necessary to increase the level of infiltration from the North, which now reportedly reached well over 50,000 annually.
By the summer of 1966, there was growing debate in Hanoi over Nguyen Chi Thanh’s aggressive strategy in the South, an approach that had so
far resulted in few concrete benefits. The South Vietnamese government remained unstable, but the prospects for its collapse had declined since the summer of 1965, when a new military leadership under “young turk” leaders Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu had brought an end to the series of coups and countercoups that had shaken the capital in previous months. Under U.S. pressure, preparations were now under way in Saigon to draft a new constitution and hold elections to choose a new president. The peace movement in the United States was increasingly vocal and apparently winning broader support among the American people, but there were no indications of a change of mood in the White House. Thanh’s critics in Hanoi, including his longtime rival Vo Nguyen Giap, began to question his “heaven-storming” strategy and to propose a more cautious approach.
In Politburo debates on the subject, Ho Chi Minh took the side of the moderates, expressing his preference for a protracted war strategy that applied a mixture of political struggle, propaganda, and guerrilla warfare to wear down the enemy on a gradual, step-by-step basis. To colleagues who expressed a sense of urgency about winning the final victory, Ho compared the situation to preparing rice for a meal. If you remove the rice from the fire too soon, it is inadequately cooked; if removed too late, it will be burned. Yet Ho continued to express optimism about the prospects for final victory, pointing out that internal contradictions in the United States were growing and would reach a climax in the next presidential campaign. In December 1966, he attempted to bypass the White House, writing a public letter to the American people that pointed out the damage that the U.S. military presence was inflicting on the people of Vietnam, as well as to the reputation of the United States. Ho’s letter may have helped to persuade some Americans of the sincerity of Hanoi’s desire for peace, but it had little effect on the Johnson administration. At the time he wrote the letter, secret peace initiatives from Washington were already under way through the Italian ambassador in Saigon; however, they came to nothing after a series of U.S. bombing raids in the vicinity of Hanoi, which led the DRV to cancel a scheduled meeting between the two sides in Warsaw.49
It was that message of toughness that Ho expressed to Jean Sainteny when his old friend and adversary arrived in Hanoi in July 1966 to explore the prospects for French mediation of the conflict. Like French President Charles de Gaulle, old Indochina hand Sainteny had concluded that Washington could not reach its goals in South Vietnam. The best that could be achieved, in his view, was a negotiated settlement to create a neutral government in Saigon. In their discussions, Ho remarked to Sainteny that he was well aware that the United States had the capacity to destroy every city in the DRV, but he insisted that he and his compatriots were prepared to fight to the end, regardless of the sacrifice required, and would not give in before final victory. Ho expressed a willingness to seek a face-saving method to bring about a U.S. withdrawal, but he insisted that in the end the only solution was for them to get out. If so, he proclaimed, all things could be resolved.50
In May 1965, Ho Chi Minh had turned seventy-five. For the previous decade, he had played a largely ceremonial role in the affairs of his country, presiding over meerings of the DRV Council of Ministers, as well as the Politburo and Central Committee, but increasingly delegating his authority to his senior colleagues in the Party and the government. Although they continued to defer to his experience in world affairs and in the strategy of revolutionary war, his influence had declined in other areas and his primary function during the mid-1960s was to serve as the beloved “Uncle Ho,” visiting schools, factories, and collective farms to promote the cause of socialism and national reunification.
The mid- and late-1960s were exceedingly difficult years. As the war intensified, the need for manpower to serve in the cause of liberaring the South increased drastically. Between 1965 and the end of the decade, the North Vietnamese army grew from about 250,000 to over 400,000 soldiers. Eventually all males between the ages of sixteen and forty-five were subject to the draft. The infiltration of North Vietnamese troops into the South likewise grew rapidly. The vast majority who embarked on the journey each year were men, but women were sometimes permitted to volunteer, often serving as entertainers, intelligence agents, or transportation workers. “While most northerners serving in the South were ethnic Vietnamese, some units composed of overseas Chinese or mountain peoples also took part. Most of the northerners who went south were replaced on the farm and in the factory by women. Some women also served in the village militia or in anti-aircraft and bomb-defusing units created throughout the DRV.
Casualty rates for North Vietnamese combatants serving in the South, as well as for the PLAF and civilian members of the NLF, were alarmingly high, with the number of dead and seriously wounded eventually numbering in the hundreds of thousands; but conditions in the North during the height of the war were difficult as well. Because of the departure of much of the rural population for military service in the South, food production dropped precipitously, and mass starvation was avoided only by generous shipments of rice from China, The availability of other consumer goods was severely reduced by bombing and by the government’s decision to devote all productive efforts to the war in the South. U.S. air raids left many cities in ruins, including the old provincial capital of Vinh. While the heaviest bombing took place in the panhandle, the raids eventually intensified above the Twentieth Parallel and extended to the outskirts of the capital. To protect the population, the government evacuated many people to the countryside and ordered the construction of bomb shelters in the cities, as well as in frequently targeted rural areas. According to official statistics, more than 30,000 miles of trenches and 20 million bomb shelters, most of the latter only large enough for one individual, were constructed. Although an accurate count of civilian casualties in the North is not available, for many these were not protection enough. While over 55,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam, more than 1 million Vietnamese were estimated to have died in the northern and southern parts of the country in the course of the war. Uncle Ho’s compatriots indeed paid a high price for his determination to realize his dream.
Ho Chi Minh wanted to carry his share of the burden. Much to the concern of his younger colleagues, Ho insisted on remaining in his stilt house on the grounds of the Presidential Palace near Ba Dinh Square. The house evidently reminded Ho of the romantic early years of the liberation struggle and demonstrated his determination to live simply during a time of extreme hardship for his people. It served as his office and residence for the remainder of his life.51
Ho Chi Minh was clearly beginning to show his age. Foreign acquaintances noticed that he had difficulty breathing and moving and experienced occasional lapses in mental acuity. Sometimes in the course of a discussion with foreign visitors, his attention would lapse and he would appear to have fallen asleep. On reaching his seventy-fifth birthday, Ho had produced the first draft of a testament that he intended to leave to the Vietnamese people at his death. Soviet leaders had expressed some concern about his health as early as 1959, when he had visited Moscow to consult with them about the expanding conflict in South Vietnam. When Ho rejected suggestions that he undergo a medical examination (“I don’t think about my health,” he remarked), Kliment Voroshilov had insisted, declaring that “the Central Committee has already decided.”52
In May 1965, Ho left for a three-week trip to China, partly to consult with Mao Zedong on providing additional assistance to the DRV, but also to receive medical treatment and perhaps to take him out of harm’s way as the U.S. bombing campaign inexorably approached the capital. He was accompanied by his aide Vu Ky, who continued to serve as his private secretary. After meeting with Mao Zedong in Changsha, Ho went on to Beijing for talks with other Chinese leaders. As in Moscow, his hosts were solicitous of his health. Asked whether he had slept well, Ho responded: “Ask Vu Ky.” Despite his protests, Chinese leaders also arranged for an elaborate birthday celebration for their guest, with a number of young women included as guests (because, as Vu Ky remark
ed enigmatically in his recollections of the incident, Ho Chi Minh “respects them”).
After his political discussions were concluded, Ho proceeded to the birthplace of Confucius in nearby Shandong province; he professed himself to be a lifelong admirer of the Old Master. At a temple in the ancient philosopher’s hometown, Ho recited classical Chinese phrases that demonstrated Confucius’ deep commitment to humanitarian principles and noted that the philosopher’s famous principle of Great Unity was an ancient equivalent of the modern concept of an egalitarian society. Real peace, he concluded, could appear only when an era of Great Unity had spread throughout the globe. On the plane that carried him back to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh wrote a brief poem that recorded his deep emotions on visiting the birthplace of China’s most famous son.53
After this trip, Ho Chi Minh grew steadily weaker, although he still showed flashes of his earlier vitality. During an official visit by the Chinese Party leader Tao Zhu to Hanoi a few months later, Ho suddenly requested that his old friend provide him with a young woman from the Chinese province of Guangdong to serve as his companion. When Tao asked why Ho did not seek someone to serve his needs in the DRV, his host said simply, “Everyone calls me Uncle Ho.” On his return to China, Tao Zhu reported the request to Zhou Enlai; because of the delicate relationship between the two parties, Zhou decided to consult with North Vietnamese leaders. Eventually the matter was quietly dropped.54
In May 1966, Ho Chi Minh returned to China to celebrate his seventy-sixth birthday. While he was in Beijing, Chinese leaders reassured him of the firmness of their support for the Vietnamese revolutionary cause; Ho wrote a letter to his colleagues in the VWP Politburo, assuring them that China intended to help its ally realize final victory, even at the risk of a direct U.S. attack on the PRC. He then left for a few days of rest at resort areas in central China, continuing on to Shandong and Manchuria before returning home in June. On July 17, he addressed a message to the entire Vietnamese people, thanking them for their sacrifices and declaring that “nothing is more important than independence and freedom.” In Beijing, a rally attended by hundreds of thousands of people had taken place at Tiananmen Square to honor Ho Chi Minh and demonstrate Chinese support for the Vietnamese struggle for national liberation.55
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