Word: ho
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Eventually, a single leader is likely to emerge. As U.S. Analyst Douglas Pike puts it: "They'll agree not to get grabby. But I have no faith in collective leadership. They will all claim the mantle of Ho Chi Minh, and they will start to get grabby...
...Ho Chi Minh's life was dedicated to the creation of a unified Viet Nam, free from foreign control, and the 19 million people of his tortured land suffered mightily from his total devotion to that vision. Even so, they affectionately knew him as "Bac Ho" (Uncle Ho). So did many in the South. No national leader alive today has stood so stubbornly for so long before the enemy's guns. His death will have inevitable and far-reaching repercussions in North Viet Nam, in Asia and beyond...
Change will not come tomorrow, for Ho and other leaders had tried to lay the groundwork for a tranquil succession. Over the past several years, Ho had gradually moved away from the day-to-day exercise of power, turning over routine responsibilities to a triumvirate consisting of Premier Pham Van Dong, Party First Secretary Le Duan and high-ranking Politburo Member Truong Chinh, all in their early 60s (see box, page 28). For the immediate future, Ho's title will probably be taken by Vice President Ton Due Thang, an 81-year-old nonentity. Actual power will probably be wielded...
...Once, Ho told a French acquaintance: "I am a professional revolutionary. I am always on strict orders. My itinerary is always carefully prescribed?and you can't deviate from the route, can you?" Ho never did. His successors are likely to follow the route as un-deviatingly as he did?for a while. But his very absence is bound to change the political map so completely that the men who follow him will be compelled to seek new, still unpredictable routes. The result will not necessarily bring comfort to the U.S., but North Viet Nam without Ho will...
Hanoi's leadership has been remarkably stable. No other Communist Party in the world has endured so long without a major purge. When it was formed in 1945, the Party's Politburo had eleven full members. Today nine of the eleven remain in power; the missing members are Ho and Nguyen Chi Thanh, the North's second-ranking military man, who died in 1967. There were always divisions and differences, but Ho helped keep them submerged by the force of his personality and, in his declining years, by his mere presence. "He was the hoop that held the staves...