Word: minh
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...from Uncle. Hanoi last week was ready for total war. So was Ho Chi Minh, the goat-bearded god of Vietnamese Communism and, at 75, Asia's oldest, canniest Red leader. North Viet Nam's Ho was making his last and most steely stand, and his young country seemed ready to win or die with him. Since February, U.S. air strikes into North Viet Nam have pounded Ho steadily: in more than 4,050 sorties, jets and prop bombers have razed at least 30 military bases, knocked out 127 antiaircraft batteries, shattered 34 bridges. In their wake...
Beneath the Chimera. For Ho, the confrontation with the U.S. over South Viet Nam is the crowning act of a long life dedicated to subversion. His personal Ho Chi Minh trail has led him through the widest range of revolutionary activity experienced by any living Red leader. En route, he shed identities like snakeskins, metamorphosing from cabin boy to pastry cook, from poet to guerrilla leader, from Parisian photo retoucher to pseudo-Buddhist monk. His name-changes alone would fill an address book (some 20 have been pinned down, ranging from Nguyen "the Victorious" to "Old Chap" Wang). But beneath...
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...
...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...
...President, Ho pulls down a salary of $840 a year-nearly ten times the annual income of the average Vietnamese. He lives in a thatch-roofed house on the palace grounds of the former French Governor General, dresses simply in cream-colored, mandarin-style uniforms, and "Ho Chi Minh sandals" carved from automobile tires. For all the simple surface, his tastes are exquisite; he smokes American cigarettes (Philip Morris and Camels), and his favorite food is a rare delicacy called "swallow's nest"-a meringue of sea algae and swallow's saliva...