Word: giap
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...Behind Giap's regulars stand fully half a million militiamen, trained and armed (though often with ancient fowling pieces), bolstered by the "Three Readys Movement"-1,500,000 volunteers who are supposedly "ready to fight, join the army, and go whereever needed." Last week Hanoi took further steps toward full mobilization by ordering 2,500,000 young men and women into the "Brigade of Young Volunteers to Fight U.S. Aggression for National Salvation." As bulky in numbers as it is in name, the brigade will work in fields and factories vacated by militiamen...
While North Viet Nam is thus strong in men and motivation, it is weak in the critical area of modern weaponry. Giap's air force is still minuscule, though Soviet contributions of obsolescent aircraft (MIGs and medium-range IL-28 bombers) have doubled it in the past four months to 60 planes. Now and then audacity can overcome obsolescence, as it did last March, when three MIGs took on a flight of U.S. jets twice their speed and bagged a brace. Last week the technological superiority of American planes and weapons asserted itself: missile-armed Phantoms flying combat...
...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...
Phat, a onetime Saigon architect and, like Photographer Okamura, a Buddhist, insisted-for what it was worth-that he was a Socialist, not a Communist. He said that the Viet Cong had initially followed the guerrilla tactics of Nguyen Giap, the victor of Dienbien-phu, but "now Giap's lessons are outdated. Times have changed. American weapons are different. Now, except for tanks and planes, we have everything we need. Our weapons are as good as the enemy...
Straight-Shooters. At the heart of Ho's complex political equation is Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, 52, the stocky, slab-cheeked victor of Dien-bienphu and the man who runs Ho's considerable military establishment. Giap is tentatively pro-Moscow in his political orientation, but for a Communist general, he is basically apolitical. Unswervingly loyal to Ho, Giap has honed North Viet Nam's 250,000-man army into one of Asia's toughest military units. Though short on transportation and heavy artillery, Giap's men are tautly disciplined and almost overweeningly proud. Some...