The Heirs-Apparent

Ho Chi Minh is irreplaceable--as his admirers and enemies alike will agree--but he must now be replaced. At week's end, Hanoi Radio announced that a collective leadership "selected and well-trained" by Ho would rule the country, at least for a while. Its members were not named, but these four men are almost certain to be among them: PHAM VAN DONG, the Premier. He was closer to Ho than anyone, although that will not necessarily help him succeed his mentor. Ho called him "my best pupil" and "my other self." Dong's striking face was once compared to "a mask carved for a museum of the revolution, in order to show just how far the peoples of Asia are capable of carrying stoicism." Dong once told a French visitor: "We Communists are romantics, too. You don't know how exciting it is to make a revolution." Dong began early, organizing student strikes in Hanoi in 1925, then escaping to China, where he first met Ho. While Ho was in a Chinese jail in 1942 and '43, Dong led the nationalist movement and has been its administrative head ever since. After France's defeat, he led the triumphant guerrilla delegation to the 1954 Geneva talks, becoming Premier the following year. Just as Ho steered an even course between China and Russia, so in all likelihood would Dong.

LE DUAN, the party chief. Though he is First Secretary of the Hanoi party and was second only to Ho in the Vietnamese Communist hierarchy, he is little known in the West. Nikita Khrushchev once said Le Duan (pronounced Lay Zwan) "talks, thinks and acts like a Chinese," but he is believed to be neutral, or even mildly inclined toward Moscow, in the Sino-Soviet dispute. Imprisoned for ten years by the French, he began his career late but climbed fast. When the country was divided in 1954, Hanoi withdrew its crack troops from the South but assigned Le Duan there to prepare politically for a second round. He was so effective, as the later success of the Viet Cong proved, that in 1956

Ho gave him the job of running the whole party. Le Duan also organized the Liberation Front, the Viet Cong's political structure now represented at the Paris talks.

TRUONG CHINH, the leading theoretician. Chinh, Chairman of Hanoi's National Assembly, is as openly pro-Peking as any leader can be in a traditionally anti-Chinese country. He has provided his own political label: his adopted name means "Long March," after Mao Tse-tung's epic 7,000-mile trek to sanctuary in Yenan in 1934. Chinh may be too far out on Peking's political limb to head up Hanoi's middle-of-the-road leadership. Moreover, he has been at odds with both Le Duan and General Giap. With Ho gone as a mediating force, Chinh could find himself isolated by his enemies--unless he manages to isolate them first.

Vo NGUYEN GIAP, the military commander. The victor of Dienbienphu, Defense Minister Giap now commands the Hanoi regulars and Viet Cong guerrillas facing U.S. troops. He is the best-known Vietnamese other than Ho and, with Israel's Moshe Dayan, the most successful soldier since World War II. His chances-of succeeding Ho seem slim, however, though he could be chosen if Hanoi decided that an international reputation were required. Before joining Ho in China in 1940, Giap studied and taught law, politics and French military history. "He could draw every battle plan of Napoleon," a pupil recalled. In his guerrilla textbook, People's War, People's Army, Giap stresses mobility and cautious avoidance of enemy units capable of hitting back. Yet in 1951 he narrowly escaped dismissal after a disastrous campaign against superior French forces, and against U.S. forces he has frequently accepted appalling casualties for little military gain. An old friend of Giap's, Saigon Lawyer Tran Van Tuyen, recalls him saying in the 1940s: "The Russian Revolution cost 2,000,000 lives, so we can certainly sacrifice half a million people." By all accounts, Giap is unskilled in Hanoi politics.

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