VIET NAM: The Communists' Divided Victory

With ringing, self-congratulatory toasts, Ho Chi Minh's successor, Secretary-General Le Duan, 68, last week ended the first Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party since 1960—and the first held in a unified Viet Nam. The six-day meeting in some respects resembled an overblown victory banquet. The 1,008 cadres and 24 fraternal foreign delegations—led by the Soviet Central Committee's Mikhail Suslov—endured no fewer than 55 speeches, including an eight-hour stem-winder by Le Duan. The theme of the Congress—Thong Nhat (national reunification)—was symbolized by the arrival of delegates from the South aboard the inaugural...