(2 of 4)
Hanoi's home problems mirror its frustration on the battlefield. The relentless bombing of the supply lines leading south, while not stopping infiltration, have made the logistics of feeding, clothing and arming the 279,000 Red soldiers below the 17th parallel more difficult. So, too, have B-52 bombings of base camps, way stations and tunneled redoubts, and the concerted drive to deny the guerrillas rice from South Vietnamese paddies. Hungry, wet and hurting, the Viet Cong have turned from wooing to coercing the local peasantry to get food, money and fresh recruits. For lack of visible progress, and thanks to day and night harassment, Viet Cong soldiers are more and more presenting morale problems for the enemy. Some close observers think that the Communists' main problem these days is "doctrinal": finding a formula for victory that the rank and file can understand and believe.
For the North Vietnamese soldiery, the problem is particularly difficult, since most came south in the belief that the war was won and that they would arrive as welcomed liberators. Increasingly, interrogated defectors and prisoners assess the war as a stalemate. In North Viet Nam, reported one recently captured regular, "our lives are the same as buffaloes." With men aged 18 to 47 called for military duty, much of the civilian economy is carried on by women, which has inspired the government's "Three Postponements" program: postponement of education, marriage, children. In the South, Ho's pledge to continue the war until victory, with the promise that "if we don't win, our sons and grandsons will," has produced a widespread Red jest. "We're down here," it goes, "and our wives are up there. Where are the sons going to come from?"
Myth & Realism
Ho Chi Minh's strategy is clouded by yet another factor: the growing reluctance of other Communist countries to help him. Peking is critical of Hanoi's tactics in the South, arguing that Ho and General Vo Nguyen Giap should never have moved to the vulnerable open warfare of Mao's Phase Three, instead should have continued their guerrilla tactics. Russia and the Eastern European Communist nations are restive over the high cost of aiding North Viet Nam. There is little doubt that Moscow is pressing Hanoi to negotiate, and would like to use economic assistance as a lever to nudge North Viet Nam toward the conference table.
Yet the overwhelming evidence is that, despite all his frustrations and problems, Ho is not about to budge. His response to the Manila Conference proposals for peace talks was blunt: "Our people are resolved to continue the fight even if it will last five, ten years or longer."