Ho Chi Minh

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how, in 1946, the French entered a war against the Viet Minh who desired Viet Nam's independence and were led by communist Ho Chi Minh. It looks at how American long-term fear of Communism and the unity of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh encouraged the U.S. to maintain its involvement with this Asian country and how it was not until 1973 and a multitude of losses that America finally pulled out. It analyzes whether Ho Chi Minh was a major threat to Western democracy, basing its facts on the book, "Ho Chi Minh", by world-renowned authority on Vietnam, William Duiker, who concludes that Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese patriot and a leader with whom the U.S. could and should have been able to work.

From the Paper:

"In fact, Ho Chi Minh was not always treated well by his fellow Communist leaders (ibid). When Ho visited Moscow in 1950, Stalin's attitude to his guest was, according to Nikita Khrushchev, "offensive" and "infuriating." The situation with Mao Tse-Tung in China was not much better. Having convinced himself that war with America was a necessary evil and might break out anywhere on the Chinese borders, Mao looked on Vietnam as a useful buffer state, or another Korea. Ho regarded the Chinese with great uneasiness; one of the constant themes of Vietnam's history has been resistance to Chinese domination."

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