52. Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, pp. 352–53.
53. BNTS, vol. 6, p. 472.
54. Smyser, Independent Vietnamese, p. 18.
55. Gérard Tongas, L’Enfer communiste au Nord Vietnam (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Delmesse, 1960), pp. 85–86. Though the accuracy of Tongas’s account has been questioned by some observers, in the light of recent evidence much of it appears worthy of credence. However, Tongas dates Voroshilov’s visit in September, rather than in May. I have found no record of a second visit in 1957.
56. His speech, given on the anniversary of the declaration of Vietnamese independence, is in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 771–81. Included in the delegation for the round of state visits were Minister of Culture Hoang Minh Giam, ex-ambassador to China Hoang Van Hoan, and Vice Minister of Health Pham Ngoc Thach.
57. Smyser, Independent Vietnamese, p. 19. For the Chinese account, see Thayer, War by Other Means, p. 171.
58. See Truong Chinh, “Let Us Be Grateful to Karl Marx and Follow the Path Traced by Him,” a speech broadcast on Radio Hanoi in September 1968 and translated in Vietnam Documents and Research Notes (U.S. Mission in Vietnam, Saigon), document 51, p. 16. For the German and Italian reports, see Smyser, Independent Vietnamese, p. 19.
59. See Smyser, Independent Vietnamese, p. 19, citing Ho Chi Minh: Selected Works, vol. 4 (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960), pp. 277, 278–83.
60. Post, Revolution, vol. 2, p. 151, citing Fifty Years of Activity of the Communist Party of Vietnam (Hanoi, n.p.: 1979), p. 135.
61. Cited in Post, Revolution, vol. 2, p. 151. Party control over the military forces, a tradition in Marxist-Leninist organisations, was especially sacrosanct in Vietnam, where senior military officers also served in leading positions in the Party.
62. Ibid., pp. 153–55. Ho’s New Year’s message is in Toan Tap I, vol. 8, pp. 20–27.
63. For this extraordinary tale, which has the ring of veracity, see Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, pp. 605–9. The fiancé’s letter is contained in “Lettre de larmes et de sang,” Chroniques Vietnamiennes (Fall 1997), pp. 8–11.
64. Post, Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 153–55.
65. “May kinh nghiem Trung quoc ma chung ta nen hoc” [Some Chinese experiences that we should study], cited in BNTS, vol. 7, pp. 111–12; Post, Revolution, vol. 2, p. 176. Also see articles dated December 7 and 26, 1957, January 7, February 1, and March 1, 1958, in ibid., and Toan Tap I, vol. 8, pp. 1–5.
66. Post, Revolution, vol. 2, p. 155. David W. P. Elliott, “Revolutionary Reintegration: A Comparison of the Foundation of Post-Liberation Political Systems in North Vietnam and China” (Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1976), p. 417.
67. Post, Revolution, vol. 2, p. 176; Tran Luc, “China’s Experience with Agricultural Collectivization,” Nhan Dan, December 25, 1958, cited in ibid., p. 199; Thayer, War by Other Means, p. 181.
68. Cuoc khang chien chong my cuu nuoc 1954–1975 [The Anti-U.S. war of National Salvation, 1971–1975] (Hanoi: Quan doi Nhan den, 1980), p. 35.
69. Carlyle Thayer reports that Ho received a welcome in India similar to that accorded previously to South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem; for a brief discussion, see his War by Other Means, pp. 166–67. Also see Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations, pp. 76–77. India’s attitude toward the Vietnam issue was more complicated than it often appeared on the surface. While Nehru had had little respect for the Bao Dai government and gave firm diplomatic support to the Vietminh cause during the Franco-Vietminh conflict, in private talks with U.S. or other Western officials he expressed concern over the possible implications of a Vietnam united under an aggressive Communist government in Hanoi. India thus played somewhat of a deceptive game, supporting the DRV in public, but expressing more reservations privately,
70. “A Party Account of the Situation in the Nam Bo Region of South Vietnam, 1954–1960,” p. 26. This undated document, a copy of which is in my possession, was discoveted by South Vietnamese armed forces during an operation in the early 1960s.
71. Tran Van Giau, “Great Strategic Effect of the Guerrilla War in South Vietnam Through Ten Years of Armed Struggle,” NCLS (July 1969), pp. 19–32, as translated in JPRS, no. 49, 387. Translations on North Vietnam, no. 639. The captured document titled “Party Account” contains statistics on Party losses during this period; in some base areas in the northern suburbs of Saigon, such as Go Vap, Ba Diem, and Gia Dinh, the Party apparatus was vittually eliminated—see pp. 11, 26, and 36–37.
72. The captured document is the so-called CRIMP document, a Viet Cong report seized by South Vietnamese armed forces during Operation CRIMP in 1963 and contained in Department of State, Working Paper on North Viet-Nam’s Role, appendix item no. 301, p. 5.
73. Ho Chi Minh’s comments are cited in Chu tich Ho Chi Minh voi cong tac ngoai giao [Chairman Ho Chi Minh and foreign relations] (Hanoi: Su that, 1990), p. 174.
74. Cuoc khang chien chong My, pp. 49–50.
75. For the various positions in this conttoversy, see (among others) George McT. Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam (Garden City, N.Y.: Double-day, 1987), and Thayer, War by Other Means.
76. Thayer, War by Other Means, p. 185; Smith, International History, vol. 1, p. 157; Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations, pp. 103–5.
XV | All for the Front Lines
1. Cited in Le Duan, Thu Vao Nam [Letters to the South] (Hanoi: Su that, 1985), p. 31. This book is a collection of highly revealing letters that were written by General Secretary Le Duan to leading Party officials in South Vietnam over a period of nearly two decades. An abridged English-language vetsion, Letters to the South, was also published (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Press, 1986).
2. Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China and the Second Indochina Conflict, 1956–1962 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997), pp. 86–87; ZYG, pp. 66–67. According to the latter source, the VWP submitted two memoranda to Beijing during the summer of 1958 asking for Chinese advice on the dual issues of socialist transformation and national unity. In their reply, the Chinese emphasized that their advice was tentative, and not based on careful study.
3. Cited in James Walker Trullinger Jr., Village at War: An Account of Revolution in Vietnam (New Yotk: Longman, 1980), p. 71. The reference to Ho Chi Minh is interesting, since official propaganda in the DRV stressed that President Ho’s only family was the Vietnamese people as a whole.
4. Cited in David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai, Vietnam: A Portrait of Its People at War (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), pp. 151, 153.
5. Nguyen Thi Dinh, No Other Road to Take (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1976), pp. 65, 69–70. Madame Dinh later became minister of defense in the Provisional Revolutionary Government, formed by Party sympathizers in 1969.
6. Some observers have argued that Le Duan’s comments indicated that Hanoi continued to advocate a policy of peaceful reunification, but this misreads the underlying message contained in this speech, which was probably directed above all to Moscow and Beijing. In a lettet wtitten in early 1962 to Nguyen Van Linh, then the senior Party official in the South, Duan explained that he had become convinced by the late 1950s that political struggle had to be supplemented by military operations to bring about the collapse of the Diem regime. See Le Duan, Thu Vao Nam, letter of February 1962, pp. 51–70.
7. BNTS, vol. 7, p. 307.
8. Ibid., pp. 320–47; Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations, pp. 120–28;HZYZ, pp. 151–52.
9. HZYZ, p. 156; BNTS, vol. 7, pp. 367–70; Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations, pp. 128–29. For Ho’s view of Chinese arrogance, see Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay [Between Night and Day] (Westminster, Calif.: Van Nghe, 1997), p. 108; this source also gives Party veteran Tran Huy Lieu’s remarks on one occasion when he had been angered by his treatment at the hands of Chinese officials: “I’m like Uncle Ho, I shit on the celestial court, I’m a nationalist!” (p. 109).
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sp; 10. For Ho’s comments within the Politburo on domestic issues, see the meetings of April 7, 13, and 16, 1959, and May 14, 1959, in BNTS, vol. 7, pp. 270–94 and 310. He also addressed these issues in his speech at the Sixteenth Plenum in April and at a conference on rectification the following month. See “Dien van khai mac Hoi nghi Ian thu 16 cua ban chap hanh trung uong Dang (khoa II)” [Opening speech at the Sixteenth Plenum of the Party Central Committee (second session)] in Toan Tap I, vol. 8, pp. 388–90, and “Bai noi cai lop chinh huan khoa II cua bo cong an” [Remarks at the second session of the Ministry of Public Security on Rectification] in ibid., pp. 429–32.
11. Toan Tap I, vol. 8, pp. 763–73. For an English translation of the speech, see Bernard B. Fall, ed., Ho Cbi Minh on Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–1966 (New Yotk: Praeget, 1967), pp. 313–319. For an English version of the proceedings of the conference, see The Third National Congress of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, 3 vols. (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Press, 1960). The Nhan Dan editorial mentioned in the previous paragraph appears in W. R. Smyser, The Independent Vietnamese: Vietnamese Communism Between Russia and China, 1956–1969 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Centet for Intetnational Studies, 1980), pp. 40–41.
12. Pham Hung was born in Vinh Long province, in the Mekong delta. There has been considerable speculation as to Nguyen Chi Thanh’s origins: most reliable evidence suggests that he was born in poor peasant family near Hué, in central Vietnam, but other sources suggest that he came from more affluent means and had a rather mysterious past. See Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, p. 359. As we shall see, Nguyen Chi Thanh would soon emerge as the dominant figure involved in drafting military strategy in the South, replacing Vo Nguyen Giap. Ho Chi Minh’s role in the selection of Le Duan as first secretary is a matter of debate. Some observers in Hanoi privately suggest that he approved the decision because of Duan’s role in the South, while others hint that he might have preferred Giap, his old comrade-in-arms.
13. Chen Jian, “China’s Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1964–1969,” The China Quarterly, no. 142 (June 1995), p. 338. For a Vietnamese version of the nature of Chinese advice given to DRV leaders in May, see The Truth About Vietnamo-Chinese Relations over the Past Thirty Years (Hanoi: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1979), pp. 31–32. In their report to Moscow on the Third Congress, Soviet diplomats in Hanoi did note that new First Secretary Le Duan had placed significant emphasis on the issue of national reunification. See Ilya V. Gaiduk, “Developing an Alliance: The Soviet Union and Vietnam, 1954–1975,” in Peter Lowe (ed.) The Vietnam War (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), p. 142.
14. There is some discrepancy between various sources on whar actually transpired at that briefing. On the formation of the NLF, see Truong Nhu Tang, Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), pp. 76–80,
15. For references to the January Politburo meeting, see Cuoc khang chien chong My cuu nuoc, 1954–1975 [The Anti-U.S. Resistance War for National Salvation, 1954–1975] (Hanoi: Quan doi Nhan dan, 1980), pp. 74–75. Ho Chi Minh’s comments are in BNTS, vol. 8, pp. 21–22. Le Duan followed up the meeting with a lengthy letter on the subject to Nguyen Van Linh in the South–see his Thu Vao Nam, letter of February 7, 1961, pp. 35–36.
16. Chinese leaders were also unhappy with Ho’s efforts to straddle the issue. See Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000) pp. 87–88. For Ho’s suspicions of Mao Zedong, see Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua han ngay, p. 229. Still, while in Moscow, Ho appealed to Khrushchev to compromise with Beijing, since China was a large country with an important role in the world; when the Soviet leader countered that the USSR was an important country as well, Ho responded, “For us, it is doubly difficult. Don’t forget, China is our neighbor”—see Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations, p. 168.
17. For the October 1961 Politburo meeting and Ho’s recommendations, see BNTST, vol. 8, p. 150. For its directives to the South, see “Situation of the Revolution in South Vietnam,” an unpublished document sent to the southern leadership sometime in 1962. Also see the directive of the Politburo meeting held in February 1962, contained in Mot so van kien cua Dang chong My cuu nuoc, 1954–1965 [Party documents on the anti-U.S. National Salvation Movement, 1954–1965], vol. 1 (Hanoi: Su that, 1985), pp. 137–57.
18. Hanoi’s hope that Washington could be lured into accepting a compromise agreement in South Vietnam similar to that reached in Laos in July 1962 is discussed in Le Duan’s letter of July 1962 to Nguyen Van Linh (alias Muoi Cuc), in his Thu Vao Nam, pp. 63–66. Hanoi had already begun to recruit an “under the blanket” group of sympathetic neutralists among exile groups in France in preparation for such an eventuality.
19. BNTS, vol. 8, pp. 367–68.
20. Ibid., pp. 322–23.
21. Beijing Review, November 23 and 30, December 7, 1979. Also see ZYG, p. 67, Smith, international History, vol. 2, pp. 87–88, and Chen Jian, “China’s Involvement,” P. 359. For a discussion of the “hangman’s noose” strategy, see Mao Zedong’s speech to the Supreme State Council in September 8, 1958, in Jianquo yilai Mao Zedong wengao [Mao Zedong’s proclamations since the formation of the country], cited in ibid.
22. Smyser, Independent Vietnamese, pp. 63–64; Chen Jian, “China’s Involvement,” pp. 359–60, citing Qu Aiguo, “Chinese Supporters in the Operations to Assist Vietnam and Resist America,” Junshi Shilin [The Circle of Military History], no. 6, p. 40. Smyser suggests that Ho Chi Minh was more cautious in his comments than were other Vietnamese leaders, but the evidence is inconclusive (see pp. 65–66). Many years later, official sources in Hanoi would charge that the Chinese were trying to seize the leadership of the world revolution and form a new Comintern dominated by Beijing—see Truth About Vietnamo-Chinese, p. 33.
23. Mieczyslaw Maneli, War of the Vanquished (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 127–28. Maneli stated that Ho Chi Minh appeared somewhat intimidated by the conversation. Also see Gareth Porter, “Coercive Diplomacy in Vietnam: The Tonkin Gulf Crisis Reconsidered,” in Jayne Werner and David Hunt, eds., The American War in Vietnam (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1993), pp. 11–12. Ho Chi Minh may have made a similar offer to negotiate through the left-wing Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett—see Foreign Relations of the United States (1961–1963), vol. 4, Vietnam, August–December 1963, p. 85.
24. Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, p. 230. According to Hien, Ho Chi Minh disliked war and turned to it only as a last resort. Le Duan, on the other hand, relied on war to achieve his objectives. The secret directive sent to the South mentioned in this paragraph was the CRIMP document. Ho Chi Minh’s interview with the Japanese journalist is reported in BNTS, vol. 8, pp. 484–85.
25. BNTS, vol. 8, 492–93. It was at this meeting that he predicted future coups in Saigon. Plenary sessions of the Central Committee are dated from the time of the last previous National Congress of the Party. In this case, the latest Party Congress had been held in September 1960.
26. Donald Zagoria, Vietnam Triangle: Moscow/Peking/Hanoi (New York: Pegasus, 1972), p. 109, citing Thanh’s article, “Who will win in South Vietnam,” in the July 1963 issue of Hoc Tap.
27. The rumor about replacing Ho Chi Minh is contained in Nguyen Van Tran, Viet cho me va Quoc hoi [Letter to my mother and the National Assembly] (Garden Grove, Calif.: Van Nghe, 1996), p. 328. Also see Georges Boudarel and Nguyen Van Ky, Hanoi, 1936–1996: Du drapeau rouge au billet vert (Paris: Editions Autrement, 1997), pp. 144–46. For a remark about his loss of sagacity, see “Vu Thu Hien parle,” Chroniques Vietnamiennes (Fall 1997), p. 13. An evaluation of the roles played by Pham Van Dong, Truong Chinh, and Vo Nguyen Giap is contained in Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, pp. 25–26, 275, 296, and 337, and Nguyen Van Tran, Viet cho me, p. 328.
28. “Vu Thu Hien parle,” p. 13; Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, p. 362; Nguyen Van Tran, Via cho me, pp. 328–29; Boudarel and Ky, Hanoi, p. 146.
29. The debate over the circular was apparently also a bitter one. On one occasion, Ho Chi Minh lamented the vituperative comments issued in the meeting and reminded delegates that disagreement among Marxist-Leninists must be kept within the bounds of fraternal love and comradeship. That, he said, was an “inalterable principle” (thien kinh dia nghia). With Marxism-Leninism to illuminate the road, Ho concluded, the Communist revolutionary movement would certainly prosper and develop. See his comments at the meeting of December 7, 1963, in BNTS, vol. 8, p. 490. Copies of the resolution and the circular letter were later captured by South Vietnamese forces, and are published in English translation in Vietnam Documents and Research Notes (U.S. Mission in Vietnam, Saigon), documents 96 and 99. The removal of the reference to Khrushchev was reported by Hoang Van Hoan in his article, “Une goutte d’eau dans le grand ocean,” in Chroniques Vietnamiennes (Winrer–Spring 1988), p. 24.
30. Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, p. 354. According to Georges Boudarel, Giap was so shaken by the results of the Ninth Plenum that he went into isolation and played the piano to calm his nerves—see Boudarel and Ky, Hanoi, p. 146. The most prominent victim of the purge was the academic Hoang Minh Chinh. A leading academic and a hero of the anti-French resistance movement, Chinh had spent considerable time in the Soviet Union and had close connections to Giap. In late 1963 he was asked by Truong Chinh to draft the resolution to be presented to the Ninth Plenum in December. At the plenum it was eventually rejected as “revisionist” in tone, and Hoang Minh Chinh was sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Some suspect that he was deliberately targeted for punishment because of his relationship to Giap and critical view of the current leadership—see, for instance, Bui Tin, Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995), pp. 55–56, and Georges Boudarel, Cent fleurs écloses dans la nuit du Vietnam: Communisme et dissidence, 1954–1956 (Paris: Jacques Bertoin, 1991), pp. 257–58. Others purged during this period were Ung Van Khiem, a Foreign Ministry official, and Bui Cong Trung, a veteran Party member.
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