Giap was as Ruthless as Mao and Stalin

From USNI News

The architect behind the 1954 North Vietnamese victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu was a “a dedicated killer determined to take absolute power by assassinating as many of his political opponents as possible,” Rufus Phillips, a former U.S. military advisor to Vietnam told USNI News on Saturday.

General Vo Nguyen Giap

General Vo Nguyen Giap — who died in a Vietnamese military hospital on Friday at age 102 — led the People’s Army of North Vietnam through the communist fight against the French and later American forces.

Phillips — who arrived in Vietnam as a military advisor in 1954 — told USNI News that Giap’s iconic victory against the French relied substantially on the assistance of the Chinese.

“He could not have won without Chinese Communist advice and logistical and combat support, particularly with artillery,” Phillips, author of “Why Vietnam Matters,”  said.

Giap was born in 1911 in a rural village just north of what would become the Vietnam’s dividing Demilitarized Zone. He rose to power as a so-called self-taught general and had a reputation for ruthlessness.

Read the full article from USNI News.