Notes

Ho Chi Minh was a small man, who looked very weak. He only wore shorts and sandals
Ho Chi Minh was born in 1890 in a village in central Vietnam. In 1912, he left Vietnam and travelled aboard a French freighter. For a time, he lived in the United States, he visited Boston, New York, and San Francisco. He was surprised by the Americans’ impatience. During the Vietnam War, he told his military advisers: “Don’t worry, Americans are an impatient people. When things begin to go wrong, they’ll leave.”
The name Ho Chi Minh translates to Uncle Ho.
After three years of travel, Ho Chi Minh moved to London where he worked at the Carlton Hotel. He lived in poor quarters and learned that poverty existed even in the wealthiest, most powerful countries. In Paris, he came into contact with the French. He was still in Paris when World War I ended and the peace conference was held. He was inspired by Woodrow Wilson’s call for universal self determination, Minh wrote: ”All subject people are filled with hope by the prospect that an era of right and justice is opening to them.”
On May 7, 1954, a rugged army of 50,000 Vietnamese Communists defeated what was left of an elite French force at a network of bases at Dien Bien Phu in North Vietnam. The French, who were fighting to restore their Indochinese empire, planned to strike at their enemies from a network of eight bases (surrounded by barbed wire and minefields) that they had built at Dien Bien Phu. The Viet Minh, (A group of Nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh), bombarded these bases with artillery from the surrounding hillsides. Heavy rains made it impossible to bomb the Vietnamese camps or to supply the garrisons. The French were trapped, they were forced to eat rats and pleaded for American air support. Despite support from Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower was not willing to commit American air support without support from Britain, Congress, and the chiefs of staff. Following the advice of Winston Churchill, Gen. Matthew Ridgway, and Senator Lyndon Johnson, President Eisenhower decided to stay out.