(5 of 9)
I am an honest man and my soul is
at peace:
I am suspected of being a shadowy
Chinese!
The ways of life are always dangerous,
But living is now less than very easy.
Planted Seeds. In 1940, for the first time in 28 years, Ho returned to his native Viet Nam. Operating from the mountainous caves of Cao Bang province (where he dutifully dubbed a streamlet "Lenin Spring"), Ho planted the seeds of the Viet Minh—the underground outfit that would carry him to power. During the five-year Japanese occupation of World War II, he carefully nursed alliances with the Chinese Communists, the Kuomintang and the American OSS, receiving some aid from all three. His steady aim: to strengthen the Viet Minh and one day kick out the French.
His guerrillas, led by a tough young trooper named Vo Nguyen Giap, harassed the Japanese and perfected the tactics of jungle Marxism. When 200,000 Chinese Nationalist troops marched into Viet Nam with French approval at war's end, Giap's guerrillas were ready to continue the struggle. But Ho typically preferred the more subtle tactic of turning ally against ally, and promptly sought to persuade the French to oust the Chinese again. Ho knew that France would be an easier adversary to deal with. Besides, there was the age-old hatred and fear of the Chinese. As Ho told his "United Front" allies who urged cooperation with the Chinese: "I prefer to smell French merde for five years than smell the Chinese variety for the rest of my life." In 1946, Ho headed for Paris to negotiate Chinese withdrawal with the government of Premier Georges Bidault, and also to win full independence for his Viet Minh regime. All charm and chatter, Ho reigned in style at the Royal Hotel near the Etoile. "He would always embrace us affectionately," recalls one participant in the negotiations. "But Bidault wasn't too keen on such gestures, presumably because of Ho's goatee." After two months of hirsute haggling, Ho suddenly agreed to a modus vivendi: the Chinese would leave Viet Nam, but there would be no independence. France promised only to explore the possibilities. That was hardly what Ho wanted, and no sooner was the ink dry on the agreement than Giap's army took to the hills to begin the eight-year guerrilla war that culminated with Dienbienphu and the complete exhaustion of the French will to resist. In 1954, with the signing of the Geneva Accords, North Viet Nam became Ho's fief.
The Grandchildren. During his eleven-year reign, Ho has generated a remarkable image among his 18 million subjects. "He is everywhere," rhapsodize his court poets. "He is at once our father, uncle and older brother. He is the heart that feeds a hundred arteries." He is also the man whose three-year land-reform program (1954-56) ruthlessly eradicated perhaps as many as 100,000 peasants. Still the survivors love him. More than 400,000 Vietnamese children bear the title "Uncle Ho's Grandchildren," a reward proffered only to the best students of Vietnamese Communism.