ABSTRACT
Nikita Khrushchev was seen as an ambitious leader who wanted to expel the west from Asia or at least reduce its influence, a goal shared by Hanoi. He wanted to increase Soviet influence in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam at the expense of China—a move that, if not overdone, was acceptable to Hanoi leaders. For non-Communist Asia the advent of Khrushchev meant a somewhat less paranoid Kremlin, But the USSR remained an ideological oligarchy, now representing new forms of challenge and danger. Khrushchev's appearance on the scene was one of those moments in history that is a conjunction of circumstance and personality. Khrushchev later insisted that the Viet Minh were in desperate military straits, virtually unable to continue warfare after Dien Bien Phu, and that the agreement at Geneva was the best that could be achieved under the circumstances. The post-Viet Minh War years saw the USSR assisting in the economic development of Vietnam.
