You know, I am an old man, a very old man. An old man likes to have a little air of mystery about himself. I like to hold on to my little mysteries. —HoChiMinh, 1962
Ho CHI MINH held on to his little mysteries very skillfully indeed, and to much larger ones as well. The face that he presented to the world was that of an avuncular, slightly shabby poet, yet he was a dedicated, often ruthless Communist for half a century. He impressed most visitors with his gentleness, but no man can hold together a Communist Party for nearly 40 years, as he did, without an iron hand. He seemed fragile as a dried leaf, but he endured privation, prison and grueling pressures, and still survived for nearly eight decades.
When North Viet Nam's President died of a heart attack in Hanoi last week at the age of 79, he left an impressive legacy of accomplishment. He had restored a sense of nationhood to Viet Nam. He had come to represent a form of "national Communism" that left him out of both the Chinese and the Soviet orbits, but prompted both powers to court him. With the limited resources of a tiny impoverished Asian nation—and with vast help from Peking and Moscow—he had withstood the enormous firepower of the mightiest industrial nation on earth. In so doing, he had forced one U.S. President out of office and tarnished the bright memory of another. He had reached deep into American society through a war that affects the disaffected young, the restless blacks, the threatened guardians of old values—the country's very image of itself.
Ho Chi Minh's life was dedicated to the creation of a unified Viet Nam, free from foreign control, and the 19 million people of his tortured land suffered mightily from his total devotion to that vision. Even so, they affectionately knew him as "Bac Ho" (Uncle Ho). So did many in the South. No national leader alive today has stood so stubbornly for so long before the enemy's guns. His death will have inevitable and far-reaching repercussions in North Viet Nam, in Asia and beyond.
Change will not come tomorrow, for Ho and other leaders had tried to lay the groundwork for a tranquil succession. Over the past several years, Ho had gradually moved away from the day-to-day exercise of power, turning over routine responsibilities to a triumvirate consisting of Premier Pham Van Dong, Party First Secretary Le Duan and high-ranking Politburo Member Truong Chinh, all in their early 60s (see box, page 28). For the immediate future, Ho's title will probably be taken by Vice President Ton Due Thang, an 81-year-old nonentity. Actual power will probably be wielded by the triumvirate—plus Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, 57.*
Eventually, a single leader is likely to emerge. As U.S. Analyst Douglas Pike puts it: "They'll agree not to get grabby. But I have no faith in collective leadership. They will all claim the mantle of Ho Chi Minh, and they will start to get grabby."