During the American war, Ho was only responding to American actions. When the Americans began to intervene by sending in military advisers in the early 1960s, Ho convened the Politburo and said we now had to send our military cadres, weapons and ammunition to the South and that we had to improve the small Ho Chi Minh Trail network. We began widening it step by step. At first, our troops carried their weapons, ammunition and supplies on their backs and on bicycles down a narrow trail. I think our most difficult moment came in 1965, when the Johnson administration changed strategy from waging a limited war with advisers and began bringing in combat divisions. But Ho wasn’t shaken. He was very decisive, very confident. He called a special political congress and ordered our infantry to move south to match the pace of the American escalation. He said the Americans can pour in 1 million troops, that the war can last 20 years, that many enterprises in Hanoi and Haiphong can be destroyed–but there’s no reason to be afraid. He mobilized the country around his saying that nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.

The Tet Offensive was key to our victory. The attack was meant to get the Americans to the negotiating table. Ho was always fighting with the goal of negotiating an American withdrawal. In 1966, Ho told me that only when we can defeat the B-52 bombers over Hanoi will the U.S. withdraw. He was right. On Dec. 28, 1972 [during the Christmas bombing of Hanoi], I heard that we had brought down 17 percent of the B-52s attacking us. And soon we received the news that the U.S. intended to negotiate its withdrawal. This shows how humans can win over steel weapons.

BATTLE FOR THE TRUTHAt War With the PressSAIGON, EARLY FALL, 1963:Then a young reporter for The New York Times,David Halberstamwas one of the early journalists whose accounts of the war differed from the official version.

Tensions between the military and the journalists were growing sharply. The Army was announcing that it’s winning; the embassy was saying we’re winning. But if you went down into the delta, you could tell the war wasn’t even being fought. Gen. Dick Stilwell, who would prove to be the slickest spinmaster in Saigon and a man who worked diligently to suppress negative field reporting, was the prime briefer. One day in September, there was a major battle in the delta, and Neil Sheehan and I made a lot of calls trying to get on the choppers to get there. But they wouldn’t let us go.

So Stilwell held a briefing at MACV headquarters. It was really VIP–a handful of us, and every general officer in-country crowded into the briefing room as if to inspect us. It was a deliberate attempt to intimidate us. Stilwell was giving out very little real information, and you could tell that once again the VC had done well. Then it got very patronizing. Stilwell mentioned me and Neil by name and said we should not be calling officers or the ambassador–that they’d brief us when the battle was done. They were, he said, very, very important men, and they did not need to be bothered by reporters. I never liked to be confrontational; the way to do our jobs was to go out in the field and just report. But I got up and said, “We are going to go on calling the generals and the ambassador. We’re here to report. We are not your privates or your corporals. A lot of Americans went into battle, a lot of American gear was used in combat, and Americans deserve to know what happened. You have every right to write to our editors and tell them we’re too aggressive, and you can ask them to send somebody else. But until then, we’re going to try and keep going out in the field.” Sometimes I think that the old World War II stuff–everybody on the team–ended in that room. I think we saw a higher duty than pleasing MACV and the embassy. Our message back to them was: we are not going to salute you.