Nick asks:

> I couldn't avoid a little cynicism here:
>
>  Was Ho Chi Minh a nationalist first or a Communist first?

There wasn't any difference between the two -- or any seeming alternative --
for many people around the world in the first half of the 20th Century. At
the heart of every great struggle lies the question of social justice, not
economics or a lust for power. Ho Chi Minh was primarily a nationalist;
Communism was the mechanism by which he believed he could achieve that end
for Viet Nam, but he was also very pro-American and he very much believed in
the ideals of Jefferson.

A brief description of a new biography of Ho is found in the book review at:

     http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/ae/books/reviews/753485

It's worth reading this short review twice to get the full sense of Ho's
life. The book under review was written by William Duckier, who served in the
American Embassy in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

Wirt Atmar

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