Editing Ho Chi Minh (section)

==Vietnam War==
{{Main|Vietnam War}}
As early as June 1956, the idea of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government was presented at a Politburo meeting. In 1959, Hồ Chí Minh began urging the Politburo to send aid to the [[Việt Cộng]] in South Vietnam; a "[[people's war]]" on the South was approved at a session in January 1959, and this decision was confirmed by the Politburo in March.{{sfn|Ang|2002|pp=55–58, 76}}<ref name="HistPlace">{{cite web |title= The History Place&nbsp;– Vietnam War 1945–1960 |url= http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1945.html |access-date = 21 December 2017}}</ref> North Vietnam [[North Vietnamese invasion of Laos|invaded Laos]] in July 1959, aided by the [[Pathet Lao]], and used 30,000 men to build a network of supply and reinforcement routes running through Laos and Cambodia that became known as the [[Ho Chi Minh trail|Hồ Chí Minh trail]].<ref>''The Economist'', 26 February 1983.</ref> It allowed the North to send manpower and material to the Việt Cộng with much less exposure to South Vietnamese forces, achieving a considerable advantage.<ref>Lind, 1999</ref> To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord, the independence of the Việt Cộng was stressed in communist propaganda. North Vietnam created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1960 as a "[[united front]]", or political branch of the Việt Cộng, intended to encourage the participation of non-Communists.{{sfn|Ang|2002|pp=55–58, 76}}<ref name=" HistPlace"/>
At the end of 1959, aware that the planned national elections would never be held and that Diệm intended to purge opposing forces (mostly ex-Việt Minh) from South Vietnamese society, Hồ Chí Minh informally chose [[Lê Duẩn]] to become the next party leader. This was interpreted by Western analysts as a loss of influence for Hồ, who was said to have preferred the more moderate Võ Nguyên Giáp for the position.{{sfn|Ang|2002|p=21}} From 1959 onward, the elderly Hồ became increasingly worried about the prospect of his death, and that year he wrote down his will.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=550}} Hồ stepped down as General Secretary of the Vietnam Communist party in September 1960 and Lê Duẩn was officially named party leader, leaving Hồ to function in a secondary role as head of state and member of the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam|Politburo]]. He nevertheless maintained considerable influence in the government. Lê Duẩn, [[Tố Hữu]], [[Trường Chinh]] and Phạm Văn Đồng often shared dinner with Hồ, and all of them remained key figures throughout and after the war. In the early 1960s, the North Vietnamese Politburo was divided into the "North First" faction which favored focusing on the economic development of North Vietnam, and the "South First" faction, which favored a guerrilla war in South Vietnam to reunite the country within the short term.{{sfn|Nguyen|2012|p=62}} Between 1961 and 1963, 40,000 Communist soldiers infiltrated South Vietnam from the North.{{sfn|Ang|2002|pp=55–58, 76}}

In 1963, Hồ purportedly corresponded with South Vietnamese President Diệm in hopes of achieving a negotiated peace.{{sfn|Brocheux|2007|p=174}} During the so-called "Maneli Affair" of 1963, a French diplomatic initiative was launched to achieve a federation of the two Vietnams, which would be neutral in the Cold War.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=291}} The four principal diplomats involved in the Maneli affair were [[Ramchundur Goburdhun]], the Indian Chief Commissioner of the ICC; [[Mieczysław Maneli]], the Polish Commissioner to the ICC; Roger Lalouette, the French ambassador to South Vietnam; and Giovanni d'Orlandi, the Italian ambassador to South Vietnam.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=291}} Maneli reported that Hồ was very interested in the signs of a split between President Diệm and President Kennedy and that his attitude was: "Our real enemies are the Americans. Get rid of them, and we can cope with Diệm and Nhu afterward".{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=291}} Hồ and Maneli also discussed the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which passed through officially neutral Cambodia and Laos, saying "Indochina is just one single entity".{{sfn|Brocheux|2007|p=237}}

At a meeting in Hanoi held in French, Hồ told Goburdhun that Diệm was "in his way a patriot", noting that Diệm had opposed French rule over Vietnam, and ended the meeting saying that the next time Goburdhun met Diệm "shake hands with him for me".{{sfn|Jacobs|2006|p=165}} The North Vietnamese Premier Phạm Văn Đồng, speaking on behalf of Hồ, told Maneli he was interested in the peace plan, saying that just as long as the American advisers left South Vietnam "we can agree with any Vietnamese".{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=292}} On 2 September 1963, Maneli met with [[Ngô Đình Nhu]], the younger brother and right-hand man to Diệm to discuss the French peace plan.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp=233–234}} It remains unclear if the Ngo brothers were serious about the French peace plan or were merely using the possibility of accepting it to blackmail the United States into supporting them at a time when the Buddhist crisis had seriously strained relations between Saigon and Washington.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=292}} Supporting the latter theory is the fact that Nhu promptly leaked his meeting with Maneli to the American columnist [[Joseph Alsop]], who publicized it in a column entitled "Very Ugly Stuff".{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=292}} The possibility that the Ngo brothers might accept the peace plan contributed to the Kennedy administration's plan to support a coup against them. On 1 November 1963, [[1963 South Vietnamese coup|a coup]] overthrew Diệm, who was killed the next day together with his brother.{{Sfn|Karnow|1983|p=292}}

Diệm had followed a policy of "deconstructing the state" by creating several overlapping agencies and departments that were encouraged to feud with one another to disorganize the South Vietnamese state to such an extent that he hoped that it would make a coup against him impossible.{{sfn| Shafer|1988|p=255}} When Diệm was overthrown and killed, without any kind of arbiter between the rival arms of the South Vietnamese state, regime authority in South Vietnam promptly disintegrated.{{sfn|Shafer|1988|pp=271–273}} The American Defense Secretary [[Robert McNamara]] reported after visiting South Vietnam in December 1963 that "there is no organized government worthy of the name" in Saigon.{{sfn| Shafer|1988|p=271}} At a meeting of the plenum of the Politburo in December 1963, Lê Duẩn's "South first" faction triumphed, with the Politburo passing a resolution calling for North Vietnam to complete the overthrow of the regime in Saigon as soon as possible; while the members of the "North first" faction were dismissed.{{sfn|Gaiduk|2003|p=203}} As the South descended into chaos, whatever interest Hồ might have had in the French peace plan faded, as it became clear the Việt Cộng could overthrow the Saigon government. A CIA report from 1964 stated that factionalism in South Vietnam had reached "almost the point of anarchy" as various South Vietnamese leaders fought one another, making any sort of concerted effort against the Việt Cộng impossible; leading to much of the South Vietnamese countryside being rapidly taken over by communist guerilla forces.{{sfn|Shafer|1988|p=272}}

As South Vietnam collapsed into factionalism and in-fighting while the Việt Cộng continued to win the war, it became increasingly apparent to President Lyndon Johnson that only American military intervention could save South Vietnam.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|pp=340–342}} Though Johnson did not wish to commit American forces until he had won the 1964 election, he decided to make his intentions clear to Hanoi. In June 1964, the "Seaborn Mission" began as [[J. Blair Seaborn]], the Canadian commissioner to the ICC, arrived in Hanoi with a message from Johnson offering billions of American economic aid and diplomatic recognition in exchange for which North Vietnam would cease trying to overthrow the government of South Vietnam.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=348}} Seaborn also warned that North Vietnam would suffer the "greatest devastation" from American bombing, saying that Johnson was seriously considering a strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam.{{sfn|Hunt|1993|p=15}} Little came of the backchannel of the "Seaborn Mission" as the North Vietnamese distrusted Seaborn, who pointedly was never allowed to meet Hồ.{{Sfn|Langguth|2000|p=290}}

In late 1964, the People's Army of Vietnam combat troops were sent southwest into officially neutral [[Laos]] and [[Cambodia]].<ref>Davidson, ''Vietnam at War: the history, 1946–1975'', 1988{{page needed|date=May 2021}}</ref> By March 1965, American combat troops began arriving in South Vietnam, first to protect the airbases around [[Chu Lai]] and [[Da Nang]], later to take on most of the fight as "[m]ore and more American troops were put in to replace Saigon troops who could not or would not, get involved in the fighting".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vvaw.org/about/warhistory.php|title=Vietnam Veterans Against the War: History of the U.S. War in Vietnam|work=vvaw.org}}</ref> As fighting escalated, widespread aerial and artillery bombardment all over North Vietnam by the United States Air Force and Navy began with [[Operation Rolling Thunder]]. On 8–9 April 1965, Hồ made a secret visit to Beijing to meet Mao Zedong.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=355}} It was agreed that no Chinese combat troops would enter North Vietnam unless the United States invaded North Vietnam, but that China would send support troops to North Vietnam to help maintain the infrastructure damaged by American bombing.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=355}} There was deep distrust and fear of China within the North Vietnamese Politburo and the suggestion that Chinese troops, even support troops, be allowed into North Vietnam caused outrage in the Politburo.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=356}} Hồ had to use all his moral authority to obtain Politburo's approval.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=356}}

According to Chen Jian, during the mid-to-late 1960s, Lê Duẩn permitted 320,000 Chinese volunteers into North Vietnam to help build infrastructure for the country, thereby freeing a similar number of PAVN personnel to go south.<ref>Chen Jian. "China's Involvement in the Vietnam Conflict, 1964–69", ''China Quarterly'', No. 142 (June 1995), pp. 366–369.</ref> There are no sources from Vietnam, the United States, or the Soviet Union that confirm the number of Chinese troops stationed in North Vietnam. However, the Chinese government later admitted to sending 320,000 Chinese soldiers to Vietnam during the 1960s and spent over $20 billion to support Hanoi's regular North Vietnamese Army and Việt Cộng guerrilla units.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/05/17/china-admits-combat-in-vietnam-war/6b9cb8a4-4d18-48bf-80d2-bea80f64057c/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |title=China Admits Combat in Vietnam War |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171106215019/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/05/17/china-admits-combat-in-vietnam-war/6b9cb8a4-4d18-48bf-80d2-bea80f64057c/ |archive-date=6 November 2017 |access-date=21 April 2018 }}</ref>

To counter the American bombing, the entire population of North Vietnam was mobilized for the war effort, with vast teams of women being used to repair the damage to roads and bridges done by the aerial bombers, often at a speed that astonished the Americans.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=456}} The bombing of North Vietnam proved to be the principal obstacle to opening peace talks, as Hồ repeatedly stated that no peace talks would be possible unless the United States unconditionally ceased bombing North Vietnam.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=413}} Like many of the other leaders of the newly independent states of Asia and Africa, Hồ was extremely sensitive about threats, whether perceived or real, to his nation's independence and sovereignty.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=413}} Hồ regarded the American bombing as a violation of North Vietnam's sovereignty, and he felt that to negotiate with the Americans reserving the right to bomb North Vietnam should he not behave as they wanted him to do, would diminish North Vietnam's independence.{{Sfn|Langguth|2000|p=413}}

In March 1966, a Canadian diplomat, [[Chester Ronning]], arrived in Hanoi with an offer to use his "good offices" to begin peace talks.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=492}} However, the Ronning mission foundered upon the bombing issue, as the North Vietnamese demanded an unconditional halt to the bombing, an undertaking that Johnson refused to give.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=492}} In June 1966, [[Janusz Lewandowski (diplomat)|Janusz Lewandowski]], the Polish Commissioner to the ICC, was able via d'Orlandi to see [[Henry Cabot Lodge Jr]], the American ambassador to South Vietnam, with an offer from Hồ.{{Sfn|Karnow|1983|p=492}} Hồ's offer for a "political compromise" as transmitted by Lewandowski included allowing South Vietnam to maintain its alliance with the U.S., instead of becoming neutral; having the Việt Cộng "take part" in negotiations for a coalition government, instead of being allowed to automatically enter a coalition government; and allowing a "reasonable calendar" for the withdrawal of American troops instead of an immediate withdrawal.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|pp=492–493}} [[Operation Marigold]], as the Lewandowski channel came to be codenamed, almost led to American-North Vietnamese talks in Warsaw in December 1966; but such plans ultimately collapsed over the bombing issue.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=493}}

In January 1967, General [[Nguyễn Chí Thanh]], the commander of communist forces in South Vietnam, returned to Hanoi to present a plan that became the genesis of the [[Tet Offensive]] a year later.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=439}} Thanh expressed much concern about the Americans invading Laos to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and to preempt this possibility, urged an all-out offensive to win the war with a sudden blow.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=439}} Lê' Duẩn supported Thanh's plans, which were stoutly opposed by the Defense Minister, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, who preferred to continue with guerrilla war, arguing that superior American firepower would ensure the failure of Thanh's proposed offensive.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|pp=439–440}} With the Politburo divided, it was agreed to study and debate the issue more.{{sfn|Langguth|2000|p=440}}

In July 1967, Hồ Chí Minh and most of the Politburo of the Communist Party met in a high-profile conference, where they concluded that the war had fallen into a stalemate. The American military presence forced the PAVN to expend the majority of their resources on maintaining the Hồ Chí Minh trail, rather than reinforcing their comrades' ranks in the South. Hồ seems to have agreed to Thanh's offensive because he wanted to see Vietnam reunified within his lifetime, and the increasingly ailing Hồ was painfully aware that he did not have much time left.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=535}} With Hồ's permission, the Việt Cộng planned a [[Tet Offensive|massive offensive]] that would commence on 31 January 1968, to take much of the South by force and deal a heavy blow to the American military. The offensive was executed at great cost and with heavy casualties on Việt Cộng's political branches and armed forces. The scope of the action shocked the world, which until then had been assured that the Communists were "on the ropes". The optimistic spin that the American military command had sustained for years was no longer credible. The bombing of North Vietnam and the Hồ Chí Minh trail was halted, and American and Vietnamese negotiators held discussions on how the war might be ended. From then on, Hồ Chí Minh and his government's strategy materialized: Hanoi's terms would eventually be accepted not by engaging in conventional warfare against the might of the United States Army, but by wearing down American resolve through a prolonged guerilla conflict.

In early 1969, Hồ suffered a heart attack and was in increasingly bad health for the rest of the year.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=597}} In July 1969, [[Jean Sainteny]], a former French official in Vietnam who knew Hồ, secretly relayed a letter written to him from President Richard Nixon.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=597}} Nixon's letter proposed working together to end this "tragic war", but also warned that if North Vietnam made no concessions at the peace talks in Paris by 1 November, Nixon would resort to "measures of great consequence and force".{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=597}} Hồ's reply letter, which Nixon received on 30 August 1969, welcomed peace talks with the U.S. to look for a way to end the war but made no concessions, as Nixon's threats made no impression on him.{{sfn|Karnow|1983|p=597}}