ATTITUDES OF HO CHI MINH AND LE DUAN TOWARD THE WAR IN VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010066-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 2, 2005
• Sequence Number: 66
• Publication Date: April 11, 1966
• Content Type: IM

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l E TORATE Off` INTELLI E E
Office of Current #Intlligeqce
GROUP I
Excluded from bulor+aric
,downgrading and
declassification
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This Document contains information affecting the Na-
tional Defense of the United States, within the mean-
ing of Title 18, Sections 793 and 794, of the U.S. Code, as
amended. Its transmission or revelation of its contents
to or receipt by an unauthorized person is prohibited
by law. The reproduction of this form is prohibited.
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OCI No. 0803/66
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Current Intelligence
11 April 1966
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
Attitudes of Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan Toward
t e ar in ietnam
Over the past several months the activities of
North Vietnam's top two party leaders, Chairman Ho
Chi Minh and First Secretary Le Duan, have tended to
confirm Hanoi's determination to continue the war in
Vietnam. Since the end of the US bombing lull in
late January both men have been working vigorously,
although in differing fashions, in pursuit of the
basic policy objective, victory in South Vietnam.
The sharpening of the Sino-Soviet dispute during
this period has made the delicate problem of ensur-
ing continued assistance from both Peking and Moscow
particularly difficult, for both Communist giants
are using the issue of support for Vietnam to attack
one another and wrest political concessions from the
Vietnamese.
1. Ho Chi Minh appears to have concentrated
his efforts on preparing his people for a long war
and on garnering international free world support
for the Communist position in Vietnam. Continuing
a trend begun early last year, Ho has frequently
made himself available to carefully selected foreign.
correspondents to explain North Vietnamese objectives
At home he has continued to exhort his own. people to
participate more fully in. war related regime pro-
grams. Ho's major effort to counter the adverse
image created by Hanoi's refusal to respond posi-
tively to the US "peace offensive" in January came
in the form of a personal letter to heads of state
in which he restated Vietnamese determination to
continue fighting until the US agreed to the DRV
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four-point peace proposal and gave the reasons for
this attitude.
2. Le Duan, operating with less publicity and
more on a working level, has pursued the same objec-
tives. In. the past several months, he has exchanged
views with high-level delegations from a number of
Communist parties, explaining the Vietnamese case to
the Hungarians in October, the Canadians in. December,
the Soviets in January, and the Japanese in February.
He has undoubtedly been seeking an. increase in both
political and military assistance. Some of these
Communist delegations, however, while pledging sup-
port for Hanoi in the war, have cautioned the North
Vietnamese against miscalculating US intentions and
capabilities. In his most dramatic move to imple-
ment Hanoi's traditional policy of seeking support
from both Moscow and Peking, Le Duan led the North
Vietnamese party delegation, to the Soviet party's
23rd Congress. He stopped to talk with the Chi-
nese for four days enroute to Moscow, and in. Moscow
he apparently remained for substantive consultations
with Soviet leaders after the close of the Congress.
3. In addition to working on their foreign re-
lations problems, both Ho and Le Duan are believed
to have spent many hours over the last few months
coping with the problems resulting from the in-
creased pace of the war. A round of important Cen-
tral Committee meetings took place in. North Vietnam
in late 1965 at which national directives (drafted
earlier by the Politburo) were disseminated. These
directives were designed to implement the decision
to meet new US commitments to the war in the South
and to offset bomb damage in. the North.
4. The current rate of infiltration of men
into the South--more than 3400 since the first of
the year--indicates that one of these decisions was
to continue the stepped-up dispatch of regular PAVN
units into South Vietnam to counter increased US-in-
volvemen.t. The 1965 infiltration. of 20,000 men rep-
resents almost a 50 percent increase over the rate
of any other year, and current evidence indicates
that it may be increased even further in 1966. De-
cisions were also taken at this time to mobilize the
economy of North Vietnam to support of the new pace
of fighting in the South, and to organize a more ef-
fective defense effort for the North.
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5. Viewed from Hanoi, the current political
unrest in. South Vietnam must look encouraging. 'Ho
Chi Minh and Le Duan undoubtedly feel that the
policy Hanoi has been pursuing in the South is now
paying some dividends. Although they know from past
experiences with political turmoil in South Vietnam
that there is no guarantee the Communists will be
able to use the current disorders to achieve po-
litical control, they probably interpret the anti-
Americanism displayed in some of the demonstrations
as moving them one step closer to the day when. US
troops will be forced to withdraw.
6. North Vietnamese propaganda on. the demon-
strations in. the South, has hammered away at the
theme that if the struggle were expanded to include
the US as well as the Ky government, all South Viet-
namese could then join together to force the US out
and settle their problems by themselves. It is no
accident that Hanoi has chosen the third of Pham
Van. Don.g's "four points" for special emphasis dur-
ing the past week. The third point called for the
situation. in. South Vietnam to be settled in accord-
ance with the program of the Liberation Front and
without foreign. interference.
7. Judging from their past actions, the North
Vietnamese leaders will probably seek to exploit the
fragile political situation. in the South as far as
possible, trying for the most part to turn popular
agitation against the US. Militarily, they will
probably continue to dispatch large numbers of in-
filtrators into South Vietnam on. the stepped up
scale which has prevailed over the past several
months. They will hope to be able to make sizable
inroads into government controlled areas as a re-
sult of the unrest.
8. An indications that the attitude of the North
Vietnamese toward the war has not changed over the
past year was clearly ,signaled_. in .the party's major
journals last week on. the occasion. of the first anni-
versary of the enunciation. Of Pham Van. Don.g's four
points. Hanoi seemed to be saying, effect, that de-
spite one year of US air attacks on North Vietnam
and on.e year of US combat activity on the ground in
South Vietnam, the Communists' conditions for ending
the conflict have not changed at all.
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