The truth is inconvertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may derideit, but in the end, there it is. This has been proven when those whodeliver the truth are aware of “intellectual honesty” and “rightunderstanding”.
“When studying physics, I place intellectual honesty on top,” said Dr.Tran Chung Ngoc, who has recently undertaken to seek a number of factsabout the late President Ho Chi Minh, although he had published severalresearches and stories against socialist mechanisms in Vietnam .
Graduatingfrom the French colonialist-run Nam Dinh Reserve Officer Schoolin 1952, Hanoi-born Ngoc then left the military forces in 1956. Hemoved to Saigon and graduated from Saigon University in 1962.
In1967, Ngoc went to the US to study physics at the University ofWisconsin-Madison and returned to Saigon in 1972 to teach the subject atSaigon University . Three years later in 1975, he flew to the USagain to conduct doctoral research and has lived there since. Afterretiring in 1996, Ngoc focused on studying Buddhism, Catholicism, andhistory.
In his article, “Something about Ho Chi Minh”, Dr. Ngocadmitted that it was not easy to write about a figure of internationalstature like President Ho Chi Minh.
“It is extremely difficultto write about President Ho Chi Minh, to be true to himself as well ashis personality, capability, and ideology as it requires the author toembrace a stream of intellectual honesty and a right understanding ofHo’s life, especially of what he did for Vietnam ,” Dr. Ngoc said.
Accordingto Ngoc, anti-communist extremists or those who are dictated by hatredfeelings can find it easy to write about President Ho Chi Minh by usingtiny details or twisting and distorting the truth about him with the aimof assassinating his character.
Ngoc revealed that he found itharder to note down things about President Ho Chi Minh due to theeducational background he had received and by what he had absorbedduring the time he studied in the US and served in the troops of theUS-backed Saigon administration.
Being the one who underlinedthe importance of intellectual honesty, Ngoc said he has pursued a verycareful methodology in the absence of feelings for any issue he met, toavoid prejudice.
However, he admitted to forming partial opinionswhen writing about history due to the lack of a God complex, quoting asaying, “Those who write about history without bias must have a Godcomplex”.
To minimize any prejudice, Ngoc said he read many booksof the same topic by various authors, of whom there were researchers,politicians, and even former military generals, and used the opinionsshared by many of the authors.
He said he undertook to writeabout President Ho Chi Minh after reading a series of criticisms of thebook, “Ho Chi Minh, A life” by William J. Duiker and research byhistorian Nguyen Manh Quang posted on http://www.giaodiemonline.com/in November 2006.
“This writing is not aimed at coveringeverything about President Ho Chi Minh because I am not capable of doingso,” Ngoc said, noting that he just focused on President Ho Chi Minh’sposition and prestige in the international arena and in the hearts ofthe Vietnamese people and explored the fact of whether he was acommunist extremist and a henchman for Russia and China as claimed bysome overseas Vietnamese reactionary extremists.
Regarding thosewho criticized and twisted the facts about President Ho Chi Minh, Ngocsaid “Nothing is more stupid than comparing Mr. Ho to Hitler. Thosepeople hardly heard what the world public, especially progressivecountries in Europe and even in the US , talked about President HoChi Minh. Logging in the Internet and typing words ‘Ho Chi Minh’, theywill find out what the world valued him. Or, reading books featuring theVietnam war by American scholars and generals, even in “In retrospect”and “Argument without end” by former US Secretary of Defense RobertMcNamara, they will overwhelmingly see positive comments on Ho Chi Minh.”
Ngoc suggested those who attempted to defame President HoChi Minh should read the book, “Tyrants, History’s 100 Most Evil Despotsand Dictators” by Nigel Cawthorne, Barnes & Noble, NY, 2004, whichnamed Ngo Dinh Diem, former President of the US-backed Saigonadministration, not President Ho, among despots and dictators.
He referred to the book “Ho Chi Minh, a Life” published by William J.Duiker in 2000. The book has received high evaluations from Europeanand American academics and professionals for profound studies onPresident Ho Chi Minh’s life and career.
“Reading whatDuiker wrote about Ho Chi Minh and cross-checking with what otherWestern authors had written about him, we can see things that are notfar from the truth,” Dr. Ngoc said.
He mentioned what theinternational public said about President Ho by citing excerpts fromWilliam J. Duiker’s book as follows:
“The news of Ho ChiMinh’s death was greeted with an outpouring of comment from around theglobe. Eulogies flowed in from major world capitals, and Hanoireceived more than twenty-two thousand messages from 121 countriesoffering the Vietnamese people condolences for the death of theirleader. A number of socialist states held memorial services of their ownand editorial comments were predictably favorable. An officialstatement from Moscow lauded Ho as a ‘great son of the heroicVietnamese people, the outstanding leader of the international Communistand national liberation movement, and a great friend of the SovietUnion ’. From the third world countries came praise for his role as adefender of the oppressed. An article published in India describedhim as the essence of ‘the people, the embodiment of the ardentaspiration for freedom, of their endurance and struggle’. Othersreferred to his simplicity of manner and high moral standing. Remarkedan editorial in Uruguayan newspaper: ‘He had a heart as immense as theuniverse and a boundless love for children. He is a model of simplicityin all fields’.
Reaction from Western capitals was moremuted. The White House refrained from comment, and senior Nixonadministration officials followed suit. But attention to Ho’s death inthe Western news media was intense. Newspapers that supported theantiwar case tended to describe him in favorable terms as a worthyadversary and a defender of the weak and oppressed. Even those who hadadamantly opposed the Hanoi regime accorded him a measure of respectas one who had dedicated himself first and foremost to the independenceand unification of his country, as well as “a prominent spokespersonfor the exploited peoples of the world”. (First paragraph of the lastchapter: “Epilogue: from man to myth”, p 562, references.)
Ngoc said, “Duiker re-wrote about an event, which, more than anything,turned down feelings-ruled, negative attitudes shown up by a number ofoverseas Vietnamese and those inside the country. So, any commenttargeted at defaming Mr. Ho, especially from those who cannot see thingsin their true nature, cannot be persuasive, particularly to thosepersons equipped with a higher level of education. It can only beapplauded by the few in the Vietnamese community abroad.”
He also cited an article: “Ho Chi Minh: An appreciation” (pipeline.com),penned by Wilfred Burchett, the famous Australian reporter who wasasked by Secretary of State Henri Kissinger to act as an intermediarybetween the US and Hanoi . Burchett wrote, “ Vietnam will win”in 1968 and published “Grasshoppers and Elephants: Why Vietnam fell” in1977.
According to Ngoc, Burchett wrote about what shapedPresident Ho Chi Minh like this: not just purely Marx or Lenin or MaoZedong, but Vietnam ’s 2000-year history of resistance wars againstinvaders created Ho Chi Minh. With that, it can be said that Burchettunderstood Vietnam more than many ones who claimed themselvesintellectuals.
He quoted some excerpts from Burchett’s article, “Ho Chi Minh: An appreciation” as follows:
“ Vietnamese must be made to feel that they are racial inferiorswith no right to national identity. For public consumption they are"gooks," "slopes" and "dinks;" a My Lai becomes a "Pinkville", itsmassacred inhabitants "oriental human beings" in official reports.
Reality is that the humblest Vietnamese peasant, even illiterate, isusually culturally and morally superior to his American adversary. Heknows more about his country's traditions and history -- not onlybecause there are a few thousand more years to know about -- but becausehe quite literally absorbs it with his mother's milk. He is saturatedwith his historical heritage by environment from his earliest years.Whether it is lullabies learned at his mother's breast, legends from awandering bard or storyteller, or from an itinerant theatre groupportraying heroic episodes of two thousand years’ resistance to foreignaggression; whether it is curiosity about the origins of the village"genie" (a rough approximation to a patron saint), very often alegendary hero, or family tales handed down for generations of the bravedeeds of ancestors in defense of the Motherland, or of iniquitoussufferings at the hands of foreign oppressions crying out for revenge.The knowledge of two thousand years' struggle against invaders is in thebloodstream of the humblest, mud-stained peasant. This alone is aninexhaustible source of courage and stoicism; of confidence in thefuture and contempt for those who try to wreck the present - qualitiesincomprehensible to the "think tank" specialists.
Ho Chi Minhepitomizes all this. And just as there was something of every Vietnamesein Ho Chi Minh, so there is something of Ho Chi Minh in almost everypresent-day Vietnamese, so strong is his imprint on the Vietnamesenation.
One matter which President Nixon and his predecessorsmay have overlooked but which the Vietnamese people certainly have not,is that Ho Chi Minh belongs to the whole Vietnamese nation. No linearbitrarily drawn along the 17th parallel could divorce the people ofthe South from Ho Chi Minh because his capital happened to be on thenorthern side of the line. Ho Chi Minh was the accepted leader andsource of inspiration for all Vietnamese -- except the handful whoserved Japanese, French and American masters in turn.”
Of course, Ngoc discussed that a number of overseas Vietnamese who usedto serve the US-backed Saigon administration could not agree withBurchett’s viewpoints quoted above, and it was not difficult tounderstand why.
For those who wondered about thetruth in Burchett’s views, Ngoc said: “That question, perhaps, shouldnot be asked once we well know about the Vietnamese history and thetraditions remaining in villages across the country and study thoroughlyVietnam ’s resistance wars against French colonialists and Americanaggressors”.
Discussing whether Ho Chi Minh was a communist ornot, Dr. Ngoc said: “As far as we have known, Ho Chi Minh never deniedthat he was a communist and once confirmed that he got a source ofinspiration from Lenin for the cause of gaining independence forVietnam”.
To understand the communist Ho Chi Minh, Ngoc citedopinions of a number of foreign professionals, who paid the top respectto intellectual honesty and could not write anything that is dictatedemotionally because of their prestige.
He named Stanley I.Kutler, who is the author of “The Wars of Watergate” and the chiefeditor of “The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War”, among those foreignprofessionals.
In his review of the book “Ho Chi Minh, A life” byWilliam J. Duiker, Kutler discussed that in Duiker’s words, Ho Chi Minhwas a patriot closer to Thomas Jefferson than to V.I. Lenin.
Thoughsaying Ho Chi Minh’s role belonged to the past and Vietnam today ispart of the global economy, Kutler commented, “Nevertheless, the worldis a different place because of Ho, and others like him, who agitated,fought and died to liberate their lands from the stigma and yoke offoreign tyranny”.
Kutler wrote, “Duiker has moved beyond thesimplistic Cold War debate of whether Ho was a dedicated Communist,beholden to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, or whether he was a patriot and anationalist, dedicated to freeing and uniting his country. Duikerrightly notes that Ho had deep roots in the international Communistmovement; but he was a constant nationalist who provided leadership,vision and a firm commitment to the principle of self-determination”.
Theother professional whom Tran Chung Ngoc named in his writing,“Something about Ho Chi Minh”, was Professor Pierre Brocheux, who ishonorary lecturer at Denis-Diderot University , Paris-VII.
Inhis “L’Homme Qui Devint Ho Chi Minh” (The man who became Ho Chi Minh),the French professor recalled Ho Chi Minh’s words as saying, “We gainindependence by organisation and disciplines. We also need trust,evangelism and practical analysis, which can be referred to as a bible.Leninism-Marxism has provided me with guidelines for this action”.
Accordingto Ngoc, Ho Chi Minh, perhaps, would like to refer to Lenin’s “Theseson the national and the colonial questions”, which was presented to thesecond congress of the Communist International in 1920, and he learntthat that document helped him figure out the most proper way ofliberating the Vietnamese nation from colonial domination. President Hoproved he succeeded.
Dr. Ngoc also quoted page 493 of, “TheVietnam War Almanac”, edited by John S. Bowman, as saying: “Ho was lessconcerned with niceties of doctrine than Mao and Lenin; his genius wasfor political action, and his ideology was capable of considerablestretching as long as it tended toward the purpose that obsessed him:the independence and unification of Vietnam".
Ngoc made clear HoChi Minh’s ties with Russia and China by quoting the book, “Cracksin the Empire” by sociological professor Paul Joseph of TuftsUniversity .
In page 83, Professor Joseph wrote: “Despite a lackof evidence, Washington continued to perceive the anti-Frenchstruggle (in Vietnam ), as something inspired and directed from theSoviet Union . For example, in the cable to Premier Ramadier citedabove, the American Ambassador falsely maintained that the Vietminh was amovement whose ‘philosophy and political organisation emanated from andwas controlled by the Kremlin’. Yet, American intelligence had tried,and failed, to substantiate the existence of controlling ties betweenMoscow and Ho Chi Minh. A State Department cable to the USAmbassador in China read: ‘The Department has no evidence of a directlink between Ho and Moscow but assumes it exists”.
Dr. Ngoccited a piece in page 109 of Jules Archer’s book called “Ho Chi Minh” asfollowing: “Visiting Peking in 1959 for the 10 th anniversary of theChinese revolution, Ho was careful to stand between Mao Tse-Tung andChief Soviet Delegate Mikhail Suslov. In private negotiations, hemanaged to win pledges of additional arms and aid from both Peking andMoscow , but adroitly declined their offers to send “volunteer” troopsor military advisers. Ho knew that if either the Russian bear or theChinese dragon were allowed to thrust a foot inside Hanoi’s door, thatdoor would gradually be forced open until North Vietnam lost itsindependence and became a captive nation”.
Those quotes told allthat Ho Chi Minh was not a henchman of Russia and China as voicedby a number of overseas Vietnamese extremists, said Dr. Ngoc.
Toposition President Ho Chi Minh’s place in the hearts of the Vietnamesepeople, Ngoc referred to stories that Hoang Xuan Ba posted on Dan ChimViet (DCVOnline).
Ba recalled that at noon on Vietnam ’snational day (September 2) in 2006, while on Yahoo Messenger, he got amessage from a young Vietnamese that said: “President Ho Chi Minh livesforever in our cause” together with a call for changing the YM avatarwith an image of Vietnam ’s national flag. Ba later found the imageof the Vietnamese national flag shining on many of his YM contacts.
Onthe occasion, Ba also talked about his visit to President Ho Chi Minh’smausoleum. He said he was surprised to see many individuals, includingforeigners, queuing up for their turn to go inside the mausoleum to paytribute to President Ho Chi Minh.
“I realise the solemnity of themausoleum of President Ho Chi Minh and the cult the ordinary peoplehave given to the late president,” Dr. Ngoc quoted Ba’s words.
Basaid he believed in the figure of 25,000 visitors of the mausoleum in asingle day of September 2 as he witnessed with his own eyes long linesof people waiting in person to pay tribute to President Ho Chi Minh athis mausoleum.
Why do the Vietnamese people remain respecting andadmiring President Ho Chi Minh while there is a communication campaignby anticommunist overseas Vietnamese to pull down the “Ho Chi Minhicon”?
The answer is very simple, as most of the thingsanticommunist overseas Vietnamese wrote about President Ho Chi Minh werewrong and groundless as these were dictated by hatred, not by truth andhistorical events, Dr. Ngoc said./.
“When studying physics, I place intellectual honesty on top,” said Dr.Tran Chung Ngoc, who has recently undertaken to seek a number of factsabout the late President Ho Chi Minh, although he had published severalresearches and stories against socialist mechanisms in Vietnam .
Graduatingfrom the French colonialist-run Nam Dinh Reserve Officer Schoolin 1952, Hanoi-born Ngoc then left the military forces in 1956. Hemoved to Saigon and graduated from Saigon University in 1962.
In1967, Ngoc went to the US to study physics at the University ofWisconsin-Madison and returned to Saigon in 1972 to teach the subject atSaigon University . Three years later in 1975, he flew to the USagain to conduct doctoral research and has lived there since. Afterretiring in 1996, Ngoc focused on studying Buddhism, Catholicism, andhistory.
In his article, “Something about Ho Chi Minh”, Dr. Ngocadmitted that it was not easy to write about a figure of internationalstature like President Ho Chi Minh.
“It is extremely difficultto write about President Ho Chi Minh, to be true to himself as well ashis personality, capability, and ideology as it requires the author toembrace a stream of intellectual honesty and a right understanding ofHo’s life, especially of what he did for Vietnam ,” Dr. Ngoc said.
Accordingto Ngoc, anti-communist extremists or those who are dictated by hatredfeelings can find it easy to write about President Ho Chi Minh by usingtiny details or twisting and distorting the truth about him with the aimof assassinating his character.
Ngoc revealed that he found itharder to note down things about President Ho Chi Minh due to theeducational background he had received and by what he had absorbedduring the time he studied in the US and served in the troops of theUS-backed Saigon administration.
Being the one who underlinedthe importance of intellectual honesty, Ngoc said he has pursued a verycareful methodology in the absence of feelings for any issue he met, toavoid prejudice.
However, he admitted to forming partial opinionswhen writing about history due to the lack of a God complex, quoting asaying, “Those who write about history without bias must have a Godcomplex”.
To minimize any prejudice, Ngoc said he read many booksof the same topic by various authors, of whom there were researchers,politicians, and even former military generals, and used the opinionsshared by many of the authors.
He said he undertook to writeabout President Ho Chi Minh after reading a series of criticisms of thebook, “Ho Chi Minh, A life” by William J. Duiker and research byhistorian Nguyen Manh Quang posted on http://www.giaodiemonline.com/in November 2006.
“This writing is not aimed at coveringeverything about President Ho Chi Minh because I am not capable of doingso,” Ngoc said, noting that he just focused on President Ho Chi Minh’sposition and prestige in the international arena and in the hearts ofthe Vietnamese people and explored the fact of whether he was acommunist extremist and a henchman for Russia and China as claimed bysome overseas Vietnamese reactionary extremists.
Regarding thosewho criticized and twisted the facts about President Ho Chi Minh, Ngocsaid “Nothing is more stupid than comparing Mr. Ho to Hitler. Thosepeople hardly heard what the world public, especially progressivecountries in Europe and even in the US , talked about President HoChi Minh. Logging in the Internet and typing words ‘Ho Chi Minh’, theywill find out what the world valued him. Or, reading books featuring theVietnam war by American scholars and generals, even in “In retrospect”and “Argument without end” by former US Secretary of Defense RobertMcNamara, they will overwhelmingly see positive comments on Ho Chi Minh.”
Ngoc suggested those who attempted to defame President HoChi Minh should read the book, “Tyrants, History’s 100 Most Evil Despotsand Dictators” by Nigel Cawthorne, Barnes & Noble, NY, 2004, whichnamed Ngo Dinh Diem, former President of the US-backed Saigonadministration, not President Ho, among despots and dictators.
He referred to the book “Ho Chi Minh, a Life” published by William J.Duiker in 2000. The book has received high evaluations from Europeanand American academics and professionals for profound studies onPresident Ho Chi Minh’s life and career.
“Reading whatDuiker wrote about Ho Chi Minh and cross-checking with what otherWestern authors had written about him, we can see things that are notfar from the truth,” Dr. Ngoc said.
He mentioned what theinternational public said about President Ho by citing excerpts fromWilliam J. Duiker’s book as follows:
“The news of Ho ChiMinh’s death was greeted with an outpouring of comment from around theglobe. Eulogies flowed in from major world capitals, and Hanoireceived more than twenty-two thousand messages from 121 countriesoffering the Vietnamese people condolences for the death of theirleader. A number of socialist states held memorial services of their ownand editorial comments were predictably favorable. An officialstatement from Moscow lauded Ho as a ‘great son of the heroicVietnamese people, the outstanding leader of the international Communistand national liberation movement, and a great friend of the SovietUnion ’. From the third world countries came praise for his role as adefender of the oppressed. An article published in India describedhim as the essence of ‘the people, the embodiment of the ardentaspiration for freedom, of their endurance and struggle’. Othersreferred to his simplicity of manner and high moral standing. Remarkedan editorial in Uruguayan newspaper: ‘He had a heart as immense as theuniverse and a boundless love for children. He is a model of simplicityin all fields’.
Reaction from Western capitals was moremuted. The White House refrained from comment, and senior Nixonadministration officials followed suit. But attention to Ho’s death inthe Western news media was intense. Newspapers that supported theantiwar case tended to describe him in favorable terms as a worthyadversary and a defender of the weak and oppressed. Even those who hadadamantly opposed the Hanoi regime accorded him a measure of respectas one who had dedicated himself first and foremost to the independenceand unification of his country, as well as “a prominent spokespersonfor the exploited peoples of the world”. (First paragraph of the lastchapter: “Epilogue: from man to myth”, p 562, references.)
Ngoc said, “Duiker re-wrote about an event, which, more than anything,turned down feelings-ruled, negative attitudes shown up by a number ofoverseas Vietnamese and those inside the country. So, any commenttargeted at defaming Mr. Ho, especially from those who cannot see thingsin their true nature, cannot be persuasive, particularly to thosepersons equipped with a higher level of education. It can only beapplauded by the few in the Vietnamese community abroad.”
He also cited an article: “Ho Chi Minh: An appreciation” (pipeline.com),penned by Wilfred Burchett, the famous Australian reporter who wasasked by Secretary of State Henri Kissinger to act as an intermediarybetween the US and Hanoi . Burchett wrote, “ Vietnam will win”in 1968 and published “Grasshoppers and Elephants: Why Vietnam fell” in1977.
According to Ngoc, Burchett wrote about what shapedPresident Ho Chi Minh like this: not just purely Marx or Lenin or MaoZedong, but Vietnam ’s 2000-year history of resistance wars againstinvaders created Ho Chi Minh. With that, it can be said that Burchettunderstood Vietnam more than many ones who claimed themselvesintellectuals.
He quoted some excerpts from Burchett’s article, “Ho Chi Minh: An appreciation” as follows:
“ Vietnamese must be made to feel that they are racial inferiorswith no right to national identity. For public consumption they are"gooks," "slopes" and "dinks;" a My Lai becomes a "Pinkville", itsmassacred inhabitants "oriental human beings" in official reports.
Reality is that the humblest Vietnamese peasant, even illiterate, isusually culturally and morally superior to his American adversary. Heknows more about his country's traditions and history -- not onlybecause there are a few thousand more years to know about -- but becausehe quite literally absorbs it with his mother's milk. He is saturatedwith his historical heritage by environment from his earliest years.Whether it is lullabies learned at his mother's breast, legends from awandering bard or storyteller, or from an itinerant theatre groupportraying heroic episodes of two thousand years’ resistance to foreignaggression; whether it is curiosity about the origins of the village"genie" (a rough approximation to a patron saint), very often alegendary hero, or family tales handed down for generations of the bravedeeds of ancestors in defense of the Motherland, or of iniquitoussufferings at the hands of foreign oppressions crying out for revenge.The knowledge of two thousand years' struggle against invaders is in thebloodstream of the humblest, mud-stained peasant. This alone is aninexhaustible source of courage and stoicism; of confidence in thefuture and contempt for those who try to wreck the present - qualitiesincomprehensible to the "think tank" specialists.
Ho Chi Minhepitomizes all this. And just as there was something of every Vietnamesein Ho Chi Minh, so there is something of Ho Chi Minh in almost everypresent-day Vietnamese, so strong is his imprint on the Vietnamesenation.
One matter which President Nixon and his predecessorsmay have overlooked but which the Vietnamese people certainly have not,is that Ho Chi Minh belongs to the whole Vietnamese nation. No linearbitrarily drawn along the 17th parallel could divorce the people ofthe South from Ho Chi Minh because his capital happened to be on thenorthern side of the line. Ho Chi Minh was the accepted leader andsource of inspiration for all Vietnamese -- except the handful whoserved Japanese, French and American masters in turn.”
Of course, Ngoc discussed that a number of overseas Vietnamese who usedto serve the US-backed Saigon administration could not agree withBurchett’s viewpoints quoted above, and it was not difficult tounderstand why.
For those who wondered about thetruth in Burchett’s views, Ngoc said: “That question, perhaps, shouldnot be asked once we well know about the Vietnamese history and thetraditions remaining in villages across the country and study thoroughlyVietnam ’s resistance wars against French colonialists and Americanaggressors”.
Discussing whether Ho Chi Minh was a communist ornot, Dr. Ngoc said: “As far as we have known, Ho Chi Minh never deniedthat he was a communist and once confirmed that he got a source ofinspiration from Lenin for the cause of gaining independence forVietnam”.
To understand the communist Ho Chi Minh, Ngoc citedopinions of a number of foreign professionals, who paid the top respectto intellectual honesty and could not write anything that is dictatedemotionally because of their prestige.
He named Stanley I.Kutler, who is the author of “The Wars of Watergate” and the chiefeditor of “The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War”, among those foreignprofessionals.
In his review of the book “Ho Chi Minh, A life” byWilliam J. Duiker, Kutler discussed that in Duiker’s words, Ho Chi Minhwas a patriot closer to Thomas Jefferson than to V.I. Lenin.
Thoughsaying Ho Chi Minh’s role belonged to the past and Vietnam today ispart of the global economy, Kutler commented, “Nevertheless, the worldis a different place because of Ho, and others like him, who agitated,fought and died to liberate their lands from the stigma and yoke offoreign tyranny”.
Kutler wrote, “Duiker has moved beyond thesimplistic Cold War debate of whether Ho was a dedicated Communist,beholden to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, or whether he was a patriot and anationalist, dedicated to freeing and uniting his country. Duikerrightly notes that Ho had deep roots in the international Communistmovement; but he was a constant nationalist who provided leadership,vision and a firm commitment to the principle of self-determination”.
Theother professional whom Tran Chung Ngoc named in his writing,“Something about Ho Chi Minh”, was Professor Pierre Brocheux, who ishonorary lecturer at Denis-Diderot University , Paris-VII.
Inhis “L’Homme Qui Devint Ho Chi Minh” (The man who became Ho Chi Minh),the French professor recalled Ho Chi Minh’s words as saying, “We gainindependence by organisation and disciplines. We also need trust,evangelism and practical analysis, which can be referred to as a bible.Leninism-Marxism has provided me with guidelines for this action”.
Accordingto Ngoc, Ho Chi Minh, perhaps, would like to refer to Lenin’s “Theseson the national and the colonial questions”, which was presented to thesecond congress of the Communist International in 1920, and he learntthat that document helped him figure out the most proper way ofliberating the Vietnamese nation from colonial domination. President Hoproved he succeeded.
Dr. Ngoc also quoted page 493 of, “TheVietnam War Almanac”, edited by John S. Bowman, as saying: “Ho was lessconcerned with niceties of doctrine than Mao and Lenin; his genius wasfor political action, and his ideology was capable of considerablestretching as long as it tended toward the purpose that obsessed him:the independence and unification of Vietnam".
Ngoc made clear HoChi Minh’s ties with Russia and China by quoting the book, “Cracksin the Empire” by sociological professor Paul Joseph of TuftsUniversity .
In page 83, Professor Joseph wrote: “Despite a lackof evidence, Washington continued to perceive the anti-Frenchstruggle (in Vietnam ), as something inspired and directed from theSoviet Union . For example, in the cable to Premier Ramadier citedabove, the American Ambassador falsely maintained that the Vietminh was amovement whose ‘philosophy and political organisation emanated from andwas controlled by the Kremlin’. Yet, American intelligence had tried,and failed, to substantiate the existence of controlling ties betweenMoscow and Ho Chi Minh. A State Department cable to the USAmbassador in China read: ‘The Department has no evidence of a directlink between Ho and Moscow but assumes it exists”.
Dr. Ngoccited a piece in page 109 of Jules Archer’s book called “Ho Chi Minh” asfollowing: “Visiting Peking in 1959 for the 10 th anniversary of theChinese revolution, Ho was careful to stand between Mao Tse-Tung andChief Soviet Delegate Mikhail Suslov. In private negotiations, hemanaged to win pledges of additional arms and aid from both Peking andMoscow , but adroitly declined their offers to send “volunteer” troopsor military advisers. Ho knew that if either the Russian bear or theChinese dragon were allowed to thrust a foot inside Hanoi’s door, thatdoor would gradually be forced open until North Vietnam lost itsindependence and became a captive nation”.
Those quotes told allthat Ho Chi Minh was not a henchman of Russia and China as voicedby a number of overseas Vietnamese extremists, said Dr. Ngoc.
Toposition President Ho Chi Minh’s place in the hearts of the Vietnamesepeople, Ngoc referred to stories that Hoang Xuan Ba posted on Dan ChimViet (DCVOnline).
Ba recalled that at noon on Vietnam ’snational day (September 2) in 2006, while on Yahoo Messenger, he got amessage from a young Vietnamese that said: “President Ho Chi Minh livesforever in our cause” together with a call for changing the YM avatarwith an image of Vietnam ’s national flag. Ba later found the imageof the Vietnamese national flag shining on many of his YM contacts.
Onthe occasion, Ba also talked about his visit to President Ho Chi Minh’smausoleum. He said he was surprised to see many individuals, includingforeigners, queuing up for their turn to go inside the mausoleum to paytribute to President Ho Chi Minh.
“I realise the solemnity of themausoleum of President Ho Chi Minh and the cult the ordinary peoplehave given to the late president,” Dr. Ngoc quoted Ba’s words.
Basaid he believed in the figure of 25,000 visitors of the mausoleum in asingle day of September 2 as he witnessed with his own eyes long linesof people waiting in person to pay tribute to President Ho Chi Minh athis mausoleum.
Why do the Vietnamese people remain respecting andadmiring President Ho Chi Minh while there is a communication campaignby anticommunist overseas Vietnamese to pull down the “Ho Chi Minhicon”?
The answer is very simple, as most of the thingsanticommunist overseas Vietnamese wrote about President Ho Chi Minh werewrong and groundless as these were dictated by hatred, not by truth andhistorical events, Dr. Ngoc said./.
