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Essay on Ho Chi Minh

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Ho Chi Minh He combined nationalism to communism and perfected the deadly art of guerrilla warfare. An emaciated, goateed figure in a threadbare bush jacket and tattered rubber sandals, Ho Chi Minh refined the image of a humble, benign "Uncle Ho." But he was a skilled revolutionary and passionate nationalist obsessed by a single goal: independence for his country. Sharing his passion, his dirty guerrillas cleared daunting obstacles to crush France's desperate attempt to retrieve its empire in Indochina. Later, Ho built a largely conventional army; they frustrated the massive U.S. effort to prevent Ho's communist followers from controlling Vietnam. For Americans, it was the longest war and …show more content…

1941- Ho forms the Vietnam Independence League, or Viet Minh. 1954- Ho defeats the French at Dien Bien Phu. Vietnam is divided, and Ho becomes first President of North Vietnam 1959- Ho begins armed revolt against South Vietnam 1967- Ho Tells L.B.J. in 1967, "We will never negotiate." 1969- Ho dies of a heart attack in Hanoi (Archer 237).
The youngest of three children, Ho was born Nguyen Sinh Cung in 1890 in a village in central Vietnam. The French through a puppet emperor indirectly ruled the area. Its poverty-stricken peasants, traditional dissidents, opposed France's presence. Ho's father, a functionary at the imperial court, manifested his sympathy for them by quitting his position and becoming an itinerant teacher. Inheriting his father's rebellious inclination, Ho participated in a series of tax revolts, acquiring a reputation as a troublemaker. But he was familiar with the lofty French principles of liberté, égalité, fraternité and yearned to see them in practice in France. In 1911, he sailed for Marseilles as a galley boy aboard a passenger liner. His record of dissent had already earned him a file in the French police dossiers. It was scarcely flattering: "Appearance awkward ... mouth half-open" (Halberstam 77). In Paris, Ho worked as a photo retoucher. The city's fancy restaurants were beyond his means, but he indulged in one luxury--American cigarettes, preferably Camels or Lucky Strikes. Occasionally he would drop into a music hall to listen to

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