Ho Chi Minh:A Political Biography

For someone who was born after the Vietnam conflict (1977) this book provides more questions than answers. The most significant question is why continue battling an enemy who is willing to work with its foes for a peaceful resolution? Lacouture's biography of Ho Chi Minh examines the North Vietnamese leader's political development from his early years in France, through World War Two, and up until 1968 when this book was first published. Lacouture doesn't avoid the negative aspects of his political career, but these negatives (e.g. harsh control of the starving North Vietnamese in the 50s) only help to put in perspective Vietnam's similarly harsh treatment by Western and Eastern powers alike. In total we see Ho Chi Minh as a shrewd politician and a very human being who was more than willing to hold back the war-mongering forces of his own nation had other nations felt even so partially inclined.

French author-journalist Jean Lacouture first met Vietnamese political leader Ho Chi Minh not long after World War Two, when the Frenchman, who would later write a distinguished two volume biography of French president Charles de Gaulle, had an opportunity to visit what was then French Indo-China. His resulting perceptive biography of the man his followers referred to affectionately as "Uncle Ho" provided potential food for thought for American policymakers as we tumbled bit by bit into the same kind of tragedy in Vietnam which had originally occurred with the French. Sadly there is no record of any Americans prominently involved in the decision making regarding our Vietnamese policy ever reading Lacouture's book, which was written after many interviews with the Vietnamese political leader and numerous excursions to the Southeast Asian country.American presidents and their policymakers regarded Vietnam as an important test of America's world leadership. They believed in the domino theory, the idea that Vietnam would be the first of potentially many Asian dominos to fall unless Communism was repulsed. Ho Chi Minh was an independent-styled Communist with his own agenda, certainly no tool of Moscow or Peking, in some ways reminiscent of Yugoslavian leader Marshall Tito, who was known for his independence from the Soviet Union. Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese nationalist who insisted he had no designs beyond that nation. There is no evidence to refute this claim. We later discovered that there was no domino effect and now we have established diplomatic relations with Communist Vietnam as American business representatives compete for a share of the Vietnamese economic pie. A shrewd and careful reading of Lacouture's biography of Ho Chi Minh could have illuminated America's frustrated policymakers as the nation was led down a tragic slope to war, division, and fruitless conflict against an elusive foe.William Hare