around; and that the struggle for the peopleâs communism would go on until accomplished. Bui Tin never gave Ho reason to doubt that he would stay with him until that struggle had ended and all of Indochina was liberated.
It was in 1963 that Ho Chi Minh reasoned that his South Vietnamese partisans would never alone achieve the strength necessary to overthrow the southern republic, backed by the Americans. The only means of supplying Vietcong allies in South Vietnam was through the great Trail of which he would soon become the eponym. Bui Tin, thirty-six years old, small like most of his countrymen, tough, sinewy, innovative, single-minded, had been put in charge of an exploratory group whose job would be to go down the Trail and determine what would be needed to make it a more effective conveyor belt for Northern supplies and personnel sent to benefit Southern allies.
Tin worked his way down that complex of hot jungle paths and ice-cold mountain streams, the ancient route that passed through the habitations of aboriginal tribes, where tigers and elephants had been hunted down, making way for migrants who brought gold and spice from China to the cities of Southeast Asia. He spent more than five months fighting leeches and mosquitoes and hunger, living mostly from food deposits laid down at stipulated points by the Vietcong cadre. And he had come back to make his report.
It was, in brief, that the Trail was useless unless a gargantuan effort was made to make it possible for substantial traffic to move down to effect the infiltration of South Vietnam. Bui Tin had informed Ho and his generals that, relying only on partisans in the South, they would need to wait until the end of the century before the Vietcong movement succeeded in overthrowing the South Vietnamese government. The revolutionary action would need to be staffed and supplied from North Vietnam, and in order to do this, it would be necessary, first, to tame the Trail.
After much consultation and the exploration of alternatives, Ho and General Giap concluded that Tin was correct, and what then began was the Vietnamese equivalent of building the Chinese wall.
They were meeting, this afternoon, several months after the critical decision had been made to modernize the Trail, in the old French colonial courthouse used by Ho as his headquarters. They needed to confront the implications of two developments. The first, the discovery by the South Vietnamese military of their Grand Plan for the Trail.
This had happened when, a week earlier, a detachment of North Vietnamese construction workers were ambushed by the enemy. Most of them had got away, fading into the jungle they had come to know so well. But not the chief engineer, and he was carrying in his satchel the blueprints, so to speak, for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Late on the evening of the ambush two of the unitâs military guards had worked their way back to the site. They had had no difficulty in finding their engineer and identifying him, even though his head had been severed from the body. But what they were afterâthe satchelâwas gone. And now Ho Chi Minh and General Giap and Bui Tin were thumbing through other copies of the seventy-two-page document that had been assembled by Colonel Dong Si Nguyen, the large, weatherbeaten architect of the great Trail, who had been named minister in charge of constructing it.
It was all there, they gloomily conceded. A description of the Soviet and Chinese machinery that the Trail would need to be able to handle, specifications of the necessary width of the Trail, the essential built-in detours to cope with the unbridgeable, with weather contingencies, with bombs. Colonel Nguyen had anticipated in due course heavy American bombs and intended to be prepared with adequate antiaircraft defenses. There would be underground barracks, workshops, hospitals, storage facilities, fuel depots. He anticipated platoons of drivers, mechanics, radio operators, ordnance
It was in 1963 that Ho Chi Minh reasoned that his South Vietnamese partisans would never alone achieve the strength necessary to overthrow the southern republic, backed by the Americans. The only means of supplying Vietcong allies in South Vietnam was through the great Trail of which he would soon become the eponym. Bui Tin, thirty-six years old, small like most of his countrymen, tough, sinewy, innovative, single-minded, had been put in charge of an exploratory group whose job would be to go down the Trail and determine what would be needed to make it a more effective conveyor belt for Northern supplies and personnel sent to benefit Southern allies.
Tin worked his way down that complex of hot jungle paths and ice-cold mountain streams, the ancient route that passed through the habitations of aboriginal tribes, where tigers and elephants had been hunted down, making way for migrants who brought gold and spice from China to the cities of Southeast Asia. He spent more than five months fighting leeches and mosquitoes and hunger, living mostly from food deposits laid down at stipulated points by the Vietcong cadre. And he had come back to make his report.
It was, in brief, that the Trail was useless unless a gargantuan effort was made to make it possible for substantial traffic to move down to effect the infiltration of South Vietnam. Bui Tin had informed Ho and his generals that, relying only on partisans in the South, they would need to wait until the end of the century before the Vietcong movement succeeded in overthrowing the South Vietnamese government. The revolutionary action would need to be staffed and supplied from North Vietnam, and in order to do this, it would be necessary, first, to tame the Trail.
After much consultation and the exploration of alternatives, Ho and General Giap concluded that Tin was correct, and what then began was the Vietnamese equivalent of building the Chinese wall.
They were meeting, this afternoon, several months after the critical decision had been made to modernize the Trail, in the old French colonial courthouse used by Ho as his headquarters. They needed to confront the implications of two developments. The first, the discovery by the South Vietnamese military of their Grand Plan for the Trail.
This had happened when, a week earlier, a detachment of North Vietnamese construction workers were ambushed by the enemy. Most of them had got away, fading into the jungle they had come to know so well. But not the chief engineer, and he was carrying in his satchel the blueprints, so to speak, for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Late on the evening of the ambush two of the unitâs military guards had worked their way back to the site. They had had no difficulty in finding their engineer and identifying him, even though his head had been severed from the body. But what they were afterâthe satchelâwas gone. And now Ho Chi Minh and General Giap and Bui Tin were thumbing through other copies of the seventy-two-page document that had been assembled by Colonel Dong Si Nguyen, the large, weatherbeaten architect of the great Trail, who had been named minister in charge of constructing it.
It was all there, they gloomily conceded. A description of the Soviet and Chinese machinery that the Trail would need to be able to handle, specifications of the necessary width of the Trail, the essential built-in detours to cope with the unbridgeable, with weather contingencies, with bombs. Colonel Nguyen had anticipated in due course heavy American bombs and intended to be prepared with adequate antiaircraft defenses. There would be underground barracks, workshops, hospitals, storage facilities, fuel depots. He anticipated platoons of drivers, mechanics, radio operators, ordnance
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