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Vietnam, for whatever reason.
20.
Can concluded by expressing the hope that the UK would do its best to act as go-between in explaining - Vietnamese attitudes to the Americans and in thus helping to overcome their mistrust. I was non-committal.
Concluding Reflections
21.
After reading some CPV literature and visiting Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and house in the grounds of the residence of the former French Governor-General of Indo-China, my impression is that the ideological roots of this regime remain dangerously shallow. This could be a source of weakness in the future, above all if the economy fails to recover. As remarked earlier, Vietnam's national reunification under socialism was so long delayed that when it was achieved it was already largely meaningless. The United States was defeated politically through the sudden collapse of the Republic of Vietnam, if not militarily (although the regime, with its public displays of American aircraft wreckage, including a fragmented B-52 in the city park, likes to convey the contrary impression to its citizenry). But the United States did not leave South-East Asia after 1975. On the contrary, through the demonstrable success of ASEAN, it has won the peace hands down.
In a real sense, Vietnam reunified is now pathetically dependent on the Soviet Union and COMECON, on "Americans without dollars", who are barely able to help themselves, let alone Vietnam. In short, while it is impossible to quarrel with the legitimate aim of Vietnamese reunification, it was the wrong side which did the re-unifying and the country has been paying for it every since. I asked Voronine how he explained the disparity of wealth between North and South Korea which would shortly be revealed world-wide when the Olymp Games were televised. His reply: "we have been asking ourselves that question". I suspect that many Vietnamese will also be asking it in the years ahead.
22.
The regime has precious little on which to base its legitimacy the blood of those killed in two lengthy and bitter wars, the embalmed corpse of Ho Chi Minh. Neither will sustain a semi-starved population. Moreover, in Marxist-Leninist terms, Ho Chi Minh strikes me as a figure under threat in an age of perestroika and glasnost. He was a dedicated Comintern agent during the period of Stalin's worst excesses, to which he evidently chose to turn a blind eye. Official histories skate over many "blank spots" which are coming under review in the Soviet Union, such as the Ribbentrop/Molotov Pact, Stalin's crimes etc. Nowhere is there any reference to the massive Chinese military
CA2AIU
CONFIDENTIAL