I did not feel - in President [J.F.] Kennedy's words - that we could win the war for [the government in Saigon]. When I sought the reason for the dedication shown by the enemy, it seemed to me that the leadership and charisma shown by Ho Chi Minh was a major part of the answer.

[Dissidents] groups would benefit enormously from learning about Ho Chi Minh's ideas on how to defeat a more popular enemy.

I decided that after returning to the US to pursue an academic career I would eventually study the life of Ho Chi Minh to find the secret of his success.

Ho Chi Minh rarely wrote about Sun Tzu, but when he did mention the ancient Chinese military strategist, he was always laudatory, and he sometimes cited his ideas as a model for the Vietnamese revolutionary movement to follow.

In the end, many of his more militant colleagues began to feel that [Ho Chi Minh's] tendency to compromise, and his reluctance to confront the enemy directly, was a sign of weakness. The decision to confront the United States in 1963-1965 was a tacit recognition that Ho's approach had failed.

I did not feel - in President [J.F.] Kennedy's words - that we could win the war for [the government in Saigon]. When I sought the reason for the dedication shown by the enemy, it seemed to me that the leadership and charisma shown by Ho Chi Minh was a major part of the answer.

Ho Chi Minh preferred to use the tactics of negotiation and compromise, primarily because of his recognition that the revolutionary movement was militarily weaker than its adversaries.