Senior General Vo Nguyen Giap was, and is, the
only PAVN figure known at all well outside of Vietnam, the only
PAVN general mentioned in most counts of the Vietnam war, and
the only Vietnamese communist military leader about whom a full
length biography has been written. The disparity between General
Giap and the others-the lone figure standing in the forefront
of a legion of shadowy Vietnamese communist generals-assures him
a prominent place in Vietnam's history. But history's judgment
on him, as general, is yet to be rendered.
The three horses pulling the chariot of war are leadership, organization
and strategy. The ideal general in any army would posses to perfection
each of these in careful combination. Evaluating the performance
of General Giap, therefore, must be in terms of his performance
as leader, organizer and strategist, all three. While the jury
is still deliberating, this much about him seems reasonably clear:
he was a competent commander of men but not a brilliant one; he
was a first rate military organizer once the innovative conceptual
work was past, a good builder and administrator of the military
apparat after the grand scheme had been devised; as a strategist
he was at best a gifted amateur.
Giap of course, is a legend, with a larger-than-life image which
the party and State in Hanoi, as well as the world's press, have
enthusiastically contributed. His metaphoric appellation is Nui
Lua, roughly "volcano beneath the snow" meaning a cold
exterior but boiling within, an apt description of his personality
according to those who know him. Associates also have described
him as forceful, arrogant, impatient and dogmatic. At least in
earlier years, he was ruthlessly ambitious and extraordinarily
energetic, with a touch of vanity suggesting to interviewers that
he should be considered an Asian Napoleon. He is said to be fiercely
loyal to those of his political faction who grant him unreserved
loyalty. He once told an associate that he took a "Darwinian
view" of politics, and is said always to have been indifferent
to arguments or reasoning based mainly on dogma. He always has
been surrounded by political enemies and the victim of decades
of sly whispers campaigns so common in Vietnam. (A typical whisper:
General Dung, not Giap, planned the final successful at the battle
of Dien Bien Phu because Giap had been struck down by diarrhea.)
Vo Nguyen Giap was born, by his account, in 1912 in the village
of An Xa, Quang Binh province, although other reports say he was
born into a peasant family, but former associates say his family
was impoverished mandarin of lower rank. His father worked the
land, rented out land to neighbors, and was not poor. More important
as a social indicator in Vietnam, his father was literate and
familiar with the Confucian classics. Giap, in manner and in his
writings, demonstrated a strong Confucian background. At 14, Giap
became a messenger for the Haiphong Power Company and shortly
thereafter joined the Tan Viet Cach Mang Dang, a romantically-styled
revolutionary youth group. Two years later he entered Quoc Hoc,
a French-run lycee in Hue, from which two years later, according
to his account, he was expelled for continued Tan Viet movement
activities. In 1933, at the age of twenty-one, Giap enrolled in
Hanoi University. He studied for three years and was awarded a
degree falling between a bachelor and master of arts (doctorates
were not awarded in Vietnam, only in France). Had he completed
a fourth year he automatically would have been named a district
governor upon graduation, but he failed his fourth year entrance
examination.
While in Hanoi University, Giap met one Dang Xuan Khu, later
known as Trung Chinh, destined to become Vietnamese communism's
chief ideologue, who converted him to communism. During this same
period Giap came to know another young Vietnamese who would be
touched by destiny, Ngo Dinh Diem. Giap, then still something
of a Fabian socialist, and Diem, who might be described as a right
wing nationalist revolutionary, spend evenings together trying
to proselytize each other.
While studying law at the University, Giap supported himself by
teaching history at the Thanh Long High School, operated by Huynh
Thuc Khang, another major figure in Vietnamese affairs. Former
students say Giap loved to diagram on the blackboard the many
military campaigns of Napoleon, and that he portrayed Napoleon
in highly revolutionary terms.
In 1939, he published his first book, co-authored with Trung Chinh
titled The Peasant Question, which argued not very originally
that a communist revolution could be peasant-based as well as
proletarian-based.
In September 1939, with the French crackdown on communist, Giap
fled to China where he met Ho Chi Minh for the first time; he
was with Ho at the Chingsi (China) Conference in May 1941, when
the Viet Minh was formed.
At the end of 1941 Giap found himself back in Vietnam, in the
mountains, with orders to begin organizational and intelligence
work among the Montagnards. Working with a local bandit named
Chu Van Tan, Giap spent World War II running a network of agents
throughout northern Vietnam. The information collected, mostly
about the Japanese in Indochina, went to the Chinese Nationalist
in exchange for military and financial assistance which in turn,
supported communist organization building. Giap had little military
prowess at his command, however, and used what he did have to
systematically liquidate rice landlords who opposed the communist.
On December 22, 1944, after about two years of recruiting, training
and military experimenting, Giap fielded the first of his armed
propaganda teams, and forerunner of PAVN. By mid-1945 he had some
10,000 men, if not soldiers, at his command.
During these early years, Giap led Party efforts at organization
busting which, with the connivance of the French, emasculated
competing non-communist nationalist organizations, killing perhaps
some 10,00 individuals (although these figures come from surviving
nationalist and may be exaggerated). One of the liquidation techniques
used by Giap's men was to tie victims together in batches, like
cordwood, and toss them into the Red River, the victims thus drowning
while floating out to sea a method referred to as "crab fishing."
Giap's purge also extended to the newly created Viet Minh government:
of the 360 original National Assembly members elected in 1946,
only 291 actually took their seats, of whom only 37 were official
opposition and only 20 of these were left at the end of the first
session. Giap arrested some 200 during the session, some of whom
were shot. He also ordered the execution of the famed and highly
popular South Vietnamese Viet Minh leader, Nguyen Binh. Giap sent
Binh into an ambush and he died with a personal letter from Giap
in his pocket. He also was carrying a diary which made it clear
he knew of Giap's duplicity, but Binh went to his death in much
the same manner in which the old Bolshevik, Rubashov, in darkness
at Noon. Giap later confessed to a friend, "I was forced
to sacrifice Nguyen Binh."
With the Viet Minh war Giap faced his most challenging task, converting
peasants cum guerrillas into fully trained soldiers through a
combination of military training and political indoctrination.
He built an effective army. Colonial powers always controlled
the colonial countryside with only token military forces; they
controlled the peasants because the peasants permitted themselves
to be controlled. Giap built an army that changed that in Indochina.
In military operations in both the Viet Minh and Vietnam Wars,
Giap was cautious and so meticulous in planning that operations
frequently were delayed because either they or the moment was
premature. Giap's caution and policies led his opponents to underestimate
both his military strength and his tactical skill. Although as
someone noted, in war everyone habitually underestimates everyone
else. Historians, particularly French historians, tend to case
Giap in larger than life terms; they write of his flashing brilliance
as a strategic and tactical military genius. But there is little
objective proof of this. Perhaps the French write him large as
a slave for bruised French ego. Giap's victories have been due
less to brilliant or even incisive thinking than to energy, audacity
and meticulous planning. And his defeats clearly are due to serious
shortcomings as a military commander: a tendency to hold on too
long, to refuse to break victory to intoxicate and lead to the
to the taking of excessive and even insane chances in trying to
strike a bold second blow; a preoccupation, while fighting the
"people's war," with real estate, attempting to sweep
the enemy out of an area that may or may not be militarily important.
Giap always was at his best when he was moving men and supplies
around a battlefield, far faster than his foes had any right to
expect. He did this against the French in 1951, infiltrating an
entire army through their lines in the Red River Delta, and again
in advance of the Tet offensive in 1968 when he positioned thousands
of men and tons of supplies for a simultaneous attack on thirty-five
major South Vietnamese population centers. If Giap is a genius
as a general at all, he is, as the late Bernard Fall put it, a
logistic genius. General Giap's strategic thinking early in the
Vietnam War, from 1959 until at least 1966, was to let the NLF
and PLAF do it by the Viet Minh War book. Cadres and battle plans
in the form of textbooks were sent down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Southern elements were instructed in the proper mobilization and
motivation techniques, centered on the orthodox dau tranh strategy
that had worked with the French and in which Giap had full faith.
Certain adjustments might be necessary with respect to political
dau tranh and some minor adaptations of armed dau tranh might
be required, his writings at this time indicated but essentially
the necessary doctrine was in existence and was in place.
What changed Giap's thinking, and his assumption that the war
against the Americans could be a continuation of the war against
the French, was the battle of Ia Drang Valley,the first truly
important battle of the war. Giap's troops veterans of Dien Bien
Phu, when thrown against green First Cavalry Division soldiers,
experienced for the first time the full meaning of American-style
conduct of war: the helicopters, the lightweight bullet, sophisticated
communications, computerized military planning, an army that moved
mostly vertically and hardly ever walked. Technology had revolutionized
warfare, Giap acknowledged in Big Victory, Great Task, a book
written to outline his strategic response to the U.S. intervention.
The answer he said, was to match the American advantage in mass
and movement or, where not possible, to shunt it aside. He was
still searching for the winning formula when suddenly he was handed
victory. The South Vietnamese Army which had stood and fought
under far worse conditions in January 1975, under minor military
pressure, began to collapse. Soon in could not fight coherently.
Giap was handed a victory he neither expected at the time nor
deserved. How much command responsibility Giap had in the last
days of the war, in 1975, is debated - much direction had passed
to General Dung but is unimportant in terms of distributing laurels,
since none was deserved by any PAVN general.
After the Vietnam War General Giap slowly began to fade the scene,
withdrawing gradually from day-to-day command of PAVN. General
Dung began to take up the reins of authority. Giap was given a
series of relatively important short term tak force assignments.
He supervised the initial assumption by PAVN of various production
and other postwar economic duties. He reorganized and downgraded
the PAVN polotical commissar system, as the battle organized Reds
and Experts tilted ever more clearly towards the latter. He defended
PAVN's budget against the sniping attack of cadres in the economic
sector.
When the 'Pol Pot problem" developed truly serious dimensions
in late 1977, giap returned to the scene. He spent most of 1978
organizing an NLF style response for Kampuchea, that in creation
of a Liberation Army, a Liberated Area, a radio Liberation, and
a standby Provisional Revolutionary Government. This was the tried
method, but by its nature, slow. Apparently the politburo judged
it did not have time for protracted conflict, and so in 1978 opted
in favor of a Soviet-style solution: tanks across the border,
invasion and occupation of Kampuchea. Giap opposed it, although
evidence of this is mostly inferential, holding that a quick military
solution was not possible, that Pol Pot would embrace a dau tranh
strategy against PAVN and the result would be a bogged down war.
Giap proved to be painfully correct and, for the sin of being
right when all others are wrong in a collective leadership decision-making
process, was eased out of Politburo level politics. Apparently
all factions ganged up on him, but his removal was designed to
eliminate Giap as factional infighting without tarnishing Giap
the legend. It appears he did not resist this power play as he
might have done, with possibly bloody consequences, which may
be a tribute to his better judgements.
Today Giap still is on the Vietnamese scene, but plays a lesser
role. He has taken upon himself the task of lifting Vietnam by
its technological boot straps, has become the leading figure in
the drive to raise the country's technical and scientific capability.
This requires, among other things, soliciting continued Soviet
assistance, something Giap is able to do well because of the regard
for him in the USSR. He confers frequently with Soviet advisors
in Hanoi and in the Soviet Union; in 1980 he went to Moscow three
times in a nine-month period.
General Giap has been a prolific writer and he continues to publish
although Big Victory, Great Task is more innovative and original.
His most interesting book is Dien Bien Phu, while his worst certainly
is Once Again We Will Win, his initial assessment of what was
required to defeat the Americans which is virtually devoid of
correct factual and technical judgments.
