ABSTRACT
The years in France and many other places, certainly in Britain and possibly the United States too, were years of evolution, with Ho Chi Minh as a seaman turning up all over Europe and Africa, and working variously as a boiler man, chef and sweeper-up of snow. Throughout his life, Ho was forced to engage with hostile foreign powers like France, the United States and Britain. French socialists like Leon Blum, the leader of the 1936–37 Popular Front government, were long-standing friends, and it was reported that Blum, only just reappointed as prime minister in December 1946, wept when he was forced into a conflict with the Viet Minh. China and the Soviet Union had, after all, fought a border war in 1969. While in exile in China Ho was well aware of machinations of the Chinese Nationalists, who had their Vietnamese exiled stooges. A final assessment of Ho is difficult. Ho has left an important legacy outside Vietnam.
