WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.240 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are 00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:05.620 opening up a file that is honestly a little overwhelming. 00:00:05.860 --> 00:00:07.980 It's a big one. It's a huge one. We're talking 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:11.060 about a figure whose face is, it's one of the 00:00:11.060 --> 00:00:13.359 most recognizable brands on the planet. That's 00:00:13.359 --> 00:00:15.220 a good way to put it, a brand. You go to Vietnam 00:00:15.220 --> 00:00:18.519 today and he is absolutely everywhere. He's on 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:21.559 the currency, the dong. He's on posters in school 00:00:21.559 --> 00:00:23.559 rooms. There are statues of him in parks. He 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:26.160 is the father of the nation. He is Uncle Ho. 00:00:26.379 --> 00:00:28.929 That's true. He's an icon. But if you actually 00:00:28.929 --> 00:00:31.269 stop and look at the sources, the biographies, 00:00:31.269 --> 00:00:33.869 the intelligence dossiers, the history of the 00:00:33.869 --> 00:00:37.429 Indochina wars, you realize that Uncle Ho is 00:00:37.429 --> 00:00:41.130 arguably one of the most successful and deceptively 00:00:41.130 --> 00:00:44.130 simple branding exercises of the 20th century. 00:00:44.289 --> 00:00:46.270 That's exactly what we're digging into today. 00:00:46.369 --> 00:00:48.729 We are talking about Ho Chi Minh. And the thing 00:00:48.729 --> 00:00:50.630 that struck me immediately when I started reading 00:00:50.630 --> 00:00:52.920 through this stack is that. the man we think 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:55.719 we know is basically a collection of myths state 00:00:55.719 --> 00:00:59.899 secrets and deliberate misdirection. It feels 00:00:59.899 --> 00:01:02.079 like trying to grab smoke. It is a labyrinth. 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:04.239 And to be fair, that is exactly how you wanted 00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:06.420 it. He designed his life to be a maze. I want 00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:08.359 to start with a specific detail from the research 00:01:08.359 --> 00:01:11.159 that just stopped me in my tracks. Because usually 00:01:11.159 --> 00:01:13.239 when we do these deep dives on historical figures, 00:01:13.439 --> 00:01:15.840 we know them by one name. Maybe they have a nickname. 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:18.959 Right. But the sources suggest that Ho Chi Minh 00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:23.280 used anywhere between 50 and 200 different pseudonyms 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:26.280 during his life. 200 is the high estimate, but 00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:29.719 it's not unrealistic, no. That is insane. I struggle 00:01:29.719 --> 00:01:32.359 to remember my passwords, and this guy had 200 00:01:32.359 --> 00:01:35.420 different identities. It's staggering. And he 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:38.340 wasn't even born Ho Chi Minh, right? That name, 00:01:38.420 --> 00:01:40.760 which means he who enlightens, he didn't even 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:42.739 start using that until he was in his 50s. In 00:01:42.739 --> 00:01:45.340 his 50s. Yeah. For the vast majority of his life, 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:47.760 he was someone else. He was a ghost in the machine 00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:50.719 of global geopolitics. And those aliases weren't 00:01:50.719 --> 00:01:53.200 just for fun, I'm guessing. No, absolutely not. 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:55.980 They were a survival mechanism. This is a man 00:01:55.980 --> 00:01:58.269 who spent... decades running from the French 00:01:58.269 --> 00:02:01.890 colonial secret police, the Surite, running from 00:02:01.890 --> 00:02:05.209 British intelligence, Chinese warlords, and eventually 00:02:05.209 --> 00:02:07.510 American agencies. He had to be a shapeshifter. 00:02:07.689 --> 00:02:10.310 He had to be. If he stayed one person for too 00:02:10.310 --> 00:02:14.830 long, he was dead. Simple as that. So our mission 00:02:14.830 --> 00:02:17.810 today is to try and pin down the shapeshifter. 00:02:17.849 --> 00:02:20.310 We want to peel back that kindly old Uncle Ho 00:02:20.310 --> 00:02:23.169 propaganda, but we also want to look past the 00:02:23.169 --> 00:02:26.310 Western... communist boogeyman caricature to 00:02:26.310 --> 00:02:29.310 find the actual human being the real person in 00:02:29.310 --> 00:02:31.710 there yeah the guy who was a global traveler 00:02:31.710 --> 00:02:35.229 a master of disguise a ruthless political operator 00:02:35.229 --> 00:02:39.030 and according to one very weird report here a 00:02:39.030 --> 00:02:42.289 pastry chef allegedly a pastry chef we will definitely 00:02:42.289 --> 00:02:44.150 get to the pastries one of my favorite parts 00:02:44.150 --> 00:02:45.909 of the story okay let's go back to the beginning 00:02:45.909 --> 00:02:48.210 because to understand the operator you have to 00:02:48.210 --> 00:02:50.770 understand the environment that created him it's 00:02:50.770 --> 00:02:54.139 not a rags to riches story it's more like I don't 00:02:54.139 --> 00:02:56.520 know, a tragedy set in a collapsing world. That's 00:02:56.520 --> 00:02:58.280 a very good way to frame it. We are in central 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:01.740 Vietnam, 1890. He's born Nguyen Sim Khong. What 00:03:01.740 --> 00:03:04.800 does his world look like? It's bleak. That's 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:07.419 the most important context. He is born into a 00:03:07.419 --> 00:03:09.599 Vietnam that effectively doesn't exist anymore. 00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:13.159 It's French Indochina. The French control everything. 00:03:13.479 --> 00:03:17.319 The economy, the laws, the military. If you are 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:19.740 Vietnamese, you are a second -class citizen in 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:23.080 your own home. But his family background is fascinating 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:25.800 because it straddles two worlds. His father, 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:29.120 Nguyen Sinh Sac, was a Confucian scholar. Which 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:30.919 is a big deal, right? That's not just being well 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:33.659 -read. No, no. It's the elite. In the traditional 00:03:33.659 --> 00:03:36.479 Vietnamese system, if you pass the grueling civil 00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:39.900 service exams, you became a Mandarin, an imperial 00:03:39.900 --> 00:03:43.080 magistrate. You were the law. You were the administration. 00:03:43.659 --> 00:03:47.479 So, young... Ho, or Kung, as he was called then. 00:03:47.860 --> 00:03:50.860 He grew up steeped in this high -level Confucian 00:03:50.860 --> 00:03:53.080 education. He did. He learned classical Chinese. 00:03:53.479 --> 00:03:55.919 He was part of the intelligentsia. He was raised 00:03:55.919 --> 00:03:57.900 to be part of the system. But the notes here 00:03:57.900 --> 00:04:00.259 mention a scandal involving his father. It says 00:04:00.259 --> 00:04:02.319 he was dismissed in disgrace. What happened? 00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:04.780 It was brutality. His father was an imperial 00:04:04.780 --> 00:04:07.159 magistrate, yes, but he was demoted and eventually 00:04:07.159 --> 00:04:10.310 dismissed for abuse of power. Specifically, a 00:04:10.310 --> 00:04:12.669 local figure died after receiving 102 strokes 00:04:12.669 --> 00:04:15.669 of the cane under his father's orders. 102 strokes. 00:04:15.750 --> 00:04:17.750 That is, I mean, that's essentially a death sentence 00:04:17.750 --> 00:04:21.430 by torture. It is. And for a young boy, seeing 00:04:21.430 --> 00:04:24.089 your father, this figure who is supposed to represent 00:04:24.089 --> 00:04:28.050 moral authority, scholarship, and justice, fall 00:04:28.050 --> 00:04:30.670 from grace in such a violent public way. That 00:04:30.670 --> 00:04:33.230 has to leave a mark. It leaves a huge mark. And 00:04:33.230 --> 00:04:34.970 at the same time, he's living under the thumb 00:04:34.970 --> 00:04:37.709 of French colonial oppression. So he's seeing 00:04:37.709 --> 00:04:40.089 dysfunction from both sides. Exactly. It creates 00:04:40.089 --> 00:04:43.410 a very specific, sharp -edged worldview. He sees 00:04:43.410 --> 00:04:45.589 the cracks in the system early on. He sees that 00:04:45.589 --> 00:04:48.370 authority is often arbitrary, cruel, and hypocritical. 00:04:48.769 --> 00:04:51.589 He realizes that the structure of power, whether 00:04:51.589 --> 00:04:53.870 it's the old feudal system of his father or the 00:04:53.870 --> 00:04:56.790 new colonial system of the French, is fundamentally 00:04:56.790 --> 00:04:59.069 broken. He didn't just stay in that traditional 00:04:59.069 --> 00:05:01.230 bubble, though. He went to a French school, right? 00:05:01.290 --> 00:05:05.360 He did. The college quack -hock in queue. And 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:07.620 here is where history gives us one of those incredible 00:05:07.620 --> 00:05:10.439 coincidences. I love these. This is the same 00:05:10.439 --> 00:05:12.879 high school that later educated his future general, 00:05:13.019 --> 00:05:15.699 Vong Nguyen Khiap, and his future arch enemy, 00:05:15.899 --> 00:05:18.579 the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Dien. 00:05:18.680 --> 00:05:20.560 No way! They all went to the same high school. 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:23.920 The very same. It was the school for the Vietnamese 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:26.680 elite. It's like finding out that Lincoln and 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:28.759 Jefferson Davis went to the same prep school. 00:05:28.980 --> 00:05:31.600 It shows you how small that circle actually was. 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:34.740 But how it didn't finish. No. He was restless. 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:37.319 He was kicked out for revolutionary activities, 00:05:37.579 --> 00:05:41.480 actually. He heads south to Saigon. And in 1911, 00:05:41.620 --> 00:05:44.879 at age 21, he makes a decision that changes everything. 00:05:45.180 --> 00:05:47.360 This is the start of the adventure novel. It 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.100 really is. He walks onto a French merchant steamer, 00:05:50.139 --> 00:05:53.240 the Emerald de La Touche Treville. He signs up 00:05:53.240 --> 00:05:57.100 as a kitchen helper using the alias Van Ba. And 00:05:57.100 --> 00:05:58.939 he just sails away. And he doesn't just go to 00:05:58.939 --> 00:06:00.800 France, which is what I would have assumed. No, 00:06:00.819 --> 00:06:02.519 that comes later. This is the part that really 00:06:02.519 --> 00:06:05.180 surprised me. We think of him as this insular 00:06:05.180 --> 00:06:07.379 Vietnamese nationalist purely focused on his 00:06:07.379 --> 00:06:10.639 homeland. But he spent years wandering the globe, 00:06:10.759 --> 00:06:13.839 specifically the United States. The American 00:06:13.839 --> 00:06:16.699 chapter is fascinating, and it is so often overlooked 00:06:16.699 --> 00:06:19.639 in the standard biographies. Between 1912 and 00:06:19.639 --> 00:06:22.660 1913, he claims to have lived in Harlem and Boston. 00:06:22.839 --> 00:06:25.160 OK, you have to picture this. The future leader 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:27.660 of communist North Vietnam living in Harlem in 00:06:27.660 --> 00:06:30.600 the 1910s. What was he doing? Well, he was working 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:34.060 odd jobs. But he claimed, and this is a famous 00:06:34.060 --> 00:06:37.300 handicoat, though hard to verify with hard documentation, 00:06:37.740 --> 00:06:40.639 that he worked as a baker at the Parker House 00:06:40.639 --> 00:06:43.879 Hotel in Boston. The place where the Parker House 00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:47.160 role was invented. The very same. Now, the management 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:48.860 says they have no record of him on the payroll, 00:06:49.019 --> 00:06:51.920 but he wrote postcards to friends mentioning 00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:54.720 his work there. Whether he was a master baker 00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:57.100 or just kneading dough in the back, the experience 00:06:57.100 --> 00:06:59.300 mattered. What mattered more, though, was what 00:06:59.300 --> 00:07:01.379 he was seeing outside the kitchen. Absolutely. 00:07:01.420 --> 00:07:03.319 He's in America during the era of segregation. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:05.800 He's seeing the land of the free, but he's also 00:07:05.800 --> 00:07:09.100 seeing the rise of black nationalism. He attended 00:07:09.100 --> 00:07:11.480 meetings of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. 00:07:11.980 --> 00:07:14.819 He was listening to Marcus Garvey. So he's seeing 00:07:14.819 --> 00:07:16.839 that the land of the free has its own pretty 00:07:16.839 --> 00:07:19.699 glaring contradictions. Exactly. He's seeing 00:07:19.699 --> 00:07:21.680 that oppression isn't just a Vietnamese problem. 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:24.740 It's a global problem. He wrote essays later 00:07:24.740 --> 00:07:27.379 where he explicitly compared the plight of the 00:07:27.379 --> 00:07:30.240 Vietnamese under the French to the plight of 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:33.240 black Americans under Jim Crow. He realized that 00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:35.860 the West had a very convenient double standard. 00:07:36.120 --> 00:07:38.160 He then moves on to Britain. He lives in London 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:40.779 in West Ealing. And again, we have another culinary 00:07:40.779 --> 00:07:43.259 legend. The pastry chef story. I love this one. 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:47.139 So the story goes that he trained under Auguste 00:07:47.139 --> 00:07:49.720 Escoffier, the most famous chef in the world, 00:07:49.819 --> 00:07:53.199 at the Carleton Hotel. Escoffier is the guy who 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:55.800 invented the brigade system, the modern French 00:07:55.800 --> 00:07:59.300 kitchen. The absolute god of chefs. Is that true? 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:01.699 Was Ho Chi Minh making souffles for the British 00:08:01.699 --> 00:08:05.339 aristocracy? The evidence is scarce. It's likely 00:08:05.339 --> 00:08:07.579 he worked in the kitchen, maybe washing dishes 00:08:07.579 --> 00:08:10.439 or doing vegetable prep. A snow shoveler, some 00:08:10.439 --> 00:08:13.459 sources say. Maybe Escoffio shouted at him once 00:08:13.459 --> 00:08:16.040 or twice. But the idea that he was there, in 00:08:16.040 --> 00:08:18.160 the belly of the beast, whipping up desserts 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:20.279 for the people who were colonizing the world? 00:08:20.779 --> 00:08:23.160 It's poetic. It is. But what's the takeaway from 00:08:23.160 --> 00:08:24.819 all this travel? Why does it matter that he was 00:08:24.819 --> 00:08:28.339 a busboy in London or a baker in Boston? It shattered 00:08:28.339 --> 00:08:30.839 the illusion. I mean, think about it. In Vietnam, 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:34.019 the French were these distant godlike masters. 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:36.240 They were the superior race. They had the power, 00:08:36.299 --> 00:08:38.879 the technology, the wealth. Untouchable. Completely. 00:08:39.100 --> 00:08:44.419 Yeah. But in France or England or America, hosts 00:08:44.419 --> 00:08:46.850 saw white people who were poor. He saw them drunk. 00:08:47.049 --> 00:08:49.590 He saw them being stupid. He saw them serving 00:08:49.590 --> 00:08:52.330 others. He saw them as fallible human beings. 00:08:52.529 --> 00:08:55.049 And that's a crucial psychological shift for 00:08:55.049 --> 00:08:57.509 a revolutionary. It's everything. You stop fearing 00:08:57.509 --> 00:08:59.210 the colonizer when you realize they are just 00:08:59.210 --> 00:09:01.590 people. So he's got the worldview. He's got the 00:09:01.590 --> 00:09:04.509 travel miles. But he's not a communist yet. He's 00:09:04.509 --> 00:09:07.909 just a patriot. Correct. He's a nationalist looking 00:09:07.909 --> 00:09:11.730 for a solution, a tool to fix his country. And 00:09:11.730 --> 00:09:15.759 that search brings him to Paris in 1919. This 00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:18.019 is the turning point. The end of World War I. 00:09:18.100 --> 00:09:20.200 The Versailles peace talks. The world is being 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:22.639 redrawn. And everyone is there. It's the center 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:24.519 of the universe. Woodrow Wilson is there, the 00:09:24.519 --> 00:09:26.820 American president, preaching this new gospel 00:09:26.820 --> 00:09:29.519 of self -determination for nations. A very attractive 00:09:29.519 --> 00:09:31.679 idea if you're from a colony. You'd think so. 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:34.980 And Ho now, calling himself Nguyen Ai Kwok or 00:09:34.980 --> 00:09:37.379 Nguyen the Patriot, he thinks, OK, this is it. 00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:39.279 This is our chance. The Americans are talking 00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:41.700 about freedom. They will listen to us. He drafts 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:44.429 a petition, right? And looking at the text here, 00:09:44.490 --> 00:09:47.210 it's incredibly moderate. He isn't asking for 00:09:47.210 --> 00:09:49.269 independence. He isn't asking for a revolution. 00:09:49.330 --> 00:09:51.450 No, not at all. He's asking for civil rights. 00:09:51.490 --> 00:09:54.070 Basic stuff. Freedom of assembly, freedom of 00:09:54.070 --> 00:09:56.429 the press, equal legal standing with the French. 00:09:56.750 --> 00:10:00.509 He runs a tuxedo to look professional. He tries 00:10:00.509 --> 00:10:02.870 to get an audience with President Wilson to present 00:10:02.870 --> 00:10:06.149 this petition. And what happens? Nothing. He 00:10:06.149 --> 00:10:08.250 is completely ignored. He doesn't even get in 00:10:08.250 --> 00:10:10.549 the door. The American delegation just blows 00:10:10.549 --> 00:10:13.250 him off. This is what historians call the Wilsonian 00:10:13.250 --> 00:10:16.009 moment, right? The big what if. It's a massive 00:10:16.009 --> 00:10:18.429 what if. If Wilson had listened, if the West 00:10:18.429 --> 00:10:20.889 had acknowledged Vietnamese grievances in 1919, 00:10:21.509 --> 00:10:23.850 Ho Chi Minh might have become a pro -American 00:10:23.850 --> 00:10:26.409 liberal nationalist. The entire history of the 00:10:26.409 --> 00:10:28.409 20th century in Southeast Asia could have been 00:10:28.409 --> 00:10:30.529 different. But the rejection taught him a hard 00:10:30.529 --> 00:10:32.769 lesson. It taught him that the West's talk of 00:10:32.769 --> 00:10:36.269 freedom only applied to white Europeans. It was 00:10:36.269 --> 00:10:39.289 a club and he wasn't invited. So rejected by 00:10:39.289 --> 00:10:41.230 the Americans, ignored by the French government, 00:10:41.529 --> 00:10:45.009 where does he turn? He turns to the only major 00:10:45.009 --> 00:10:47.409 power that is actually talking about colonies, 00:10:47.590 --> 00:10:51.110 the Soviet Union. He reads Lenin's draft theses 00:10:51.110 --> 00:10:53.649 on the national and colonial questions. And legend 00:10:53.649 --> 00:10:55.950 has it, he read it in his Paris apartment and 00:10:55.950 --> 00:10:58.649 shouted out loud, this is what we need. This 00:10:58.649 --> 00:11:01.539 is the path to our liberation. So it wasn't the 00:11:01.539 --> 00:11:03.879 economics of communism that hooked him? It wasn't 00:11:03.879 --> 00:11:06.299 about seizing the means of production or five 00:11:06.299 --> 00:11:09.039 -year plans? Not initially, no. For him, it was 00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:11.539 a practical matter, Lenin's anti -colonial stance. 00:11:12.059 --> 00:11:14.059 Lenin was the only one saying, hey, we should 00:11:14.059 --> 00:11:16.139 help these colonies get free from their masters. 00:11:16.620 --> 00:11:19.899 For Ho... Nationalism was the engine. Communism 00:11:19.899 --> 00:11:22.679 was just the vehicle to get there. And he doesn't 00:11:22.679 --> 00:11:25.000 just join the club. He becomes a founding member 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:27.799 of the French Communist Party in 1920. Which 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:30.299 is deeply ironic, right? A Vietnamese man helping 00:11:30.299 --> 00:11:32.700 found the Communist Party of the country that 00:11:32.700 --> 00:11:35.440 is colonizing his own home. But that kicks off 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:38.200 his next phase. He stops being the drifter, the 00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:40.360 observer. And becomes the professional revolutionary. 00:11:40.639 --> 00:11:42.759 And this is where the spy movie vibes really 00:11:42.759 --> 00:11:46.299 kick in. He goes to Moscow in 1923. He studies 00:11:46.299 --> 00:11:48.879 at the... Aminist University of the Toilers of 00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:51.679 the East. I love those Soviet names. It was a 00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:53.919 training ground for Comintern Asians. He learns 00:11:53.919 --> 00:11:56.639 organization, propaganda, secrecy, encryption. 00:11:56.799 --> 00:11:59.299 He learns the tradecraft. And then he's sent 00:11:59.299 --> 00:12:01.960 to China Canton to start organizing Vietnamese 00:12:01.960 --> 00:12:04.379 youth. Now, in China, we had a controversy that 00:12:04.379 --> 00:12:06.720 really complicates his image. We're talking about 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:09.440 the betrayal of Phan Boi Chau. This is a heavy 00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:12.679 one. Phan Boi Chau was the old guard of Vietnamese 00:12:12.679 --> 00:12:15.480 nationalism. He was a hero. a friend of Ho's 00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:18.220 father. He was the most famous Vietnamese patriot 00:12:18.220 --> 00:12:21.700 alive. The elder statesman. Right. But in 1925, 00:12:22.059 --> 00:12:24.480 Chau was betrayed to the French police in Shanghai. 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:27.179 He was arrested and sentenced to house arrest 00:12:27.179 --> 00:12:30.700 for life. And the allegation is that Ho Chi Minh, 00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:32.840 or whatever name he was using then, sold him 00:12:32.840 --> 00:12:35.519 out. There's a strong historical argument, though 00:12:35.519 --> 00:12:38.120 it is debated by some biographers, that Ho betrayed 00:12:38.120 --> 00:12:41.210 him for the reward money. 100 ,000 piastres. 00:12:41.330 --> 00:12:43.409 Why would he do that to a fellow patriot? That 00:12:43.409 --> 00:12:45.649 sounds like something a villain does. Pragmatism. 00:12:46.269 --> 00:12:49.789 Ruthless pragmatism. The argument is that Ho 00:12:49.789 --> 00:12:52.970 needed the money to fund his own budding communist 00:12:52.970 --> 00:12:56.190 organization. He sought his seed money. So the 00:12:56.190 --> 00:12:59.350 ends justify the means. For him, yes. Plus, he 00:12:59.350 --> 00:13:01.850 believed that Fanboy Chow's trial would stir 00:13:01.850 --> 00:13:04.399 up nationalist anger back home. Which it did. 00:13:04.759 --> 00:13:07.220 And finally, Chao was the old generation. He 00:13:07.220 --> 00:13:09.360 was a monarchist reformer. He needed to clear 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:11.940 the deck for the new communist leadership. It 00:13:11.940 --> 00:13:15.059 was efficient. That is ice cold. It really peels 00:13:15.059 --> 00:13:17.039 back the Uncle Ho mask. This was a guy who would 00:13:17.039 --> 00:13:19.120 do whatever it took. Whatever it took. And that 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:21.480 includes faking his own death. Okay, yes. The 00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:24.659 fake death of 1932. This is my favorite part 00:13:24.659 --> 00:13:27.000 of the spy years. Walk us through this. So it's 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:29.200 the early 30s. He's in Hong Kong organizing. 00:13:29.340 --> 00:13:31.480 He gets arrested by the British police. The French 00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:33.340 are demanding his extradition. If he goes back 00:13:33.340 --> 00:13:35.220 to Vietnam, the French will execute him. Guaranteed. 00:13:35.240 --> 00:13:37.340 So he's trapped. He is. But he has a British 00:13:37.340 --> 00:13:39.980 lawyer named Frank Luseby. And Luseby actually 00:13:39.980 --> 00:13:42.919 likes him. He sees this intelligent, polite, 00:13:43.179 --> 00:13:46.820 multilingual man and decides to help. They know 00:13:46.820 --> 00:13:49.000 they can't win the legal extradition case forever, 00:13:49.139 --> 00:13:51.419 so they pull a ruse. They just tell everyone 00:13:51.419 --> 00:13:53.980 he died. Pretty much. It was reported that Ninggui 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:56.559 and Ai Kwok had died of tuberculosis in prison. 00:13:56.990 --> 00:13:59.750 The news spread globally. The French rejoiced. 00:13:59.870 --> 00:14:02.230 The Soviets even held a memorial service for 00:14:02.230 --> 00:14:05.830 him in Moscow. Meanwhile, he's where? He's quietly 00:14:05.830 --> 00:14:08.529 slipping out of Hong Kong, disguised, making 00:14:08.529 --> 00:14:11.009 his way back to the Soviet Union. He spent the 00:14:11.009 --> 00:14:12.870 next few years in the wilderness, politically 00:14:12.870 --> 00:14:16.289 speaking, surviving the Stalinist purges. But 00:14:16.289 --> 00:14:19.210 he was alive. The world thought Nguyen Ai Kwok 00:14:19.210 --> 00:14:21.509 was a ghost. Which allowed him to return to Vietnam 00:14:21.509 --> 00:14:25.149 in 1941, after 30 years away, and finally adopt 00:14:25.149 --> 00:14:28.370 the name we know. Ho Chi Minh. He who enlightens. 00:14:28.470 --> 00:14:30.669 A name for a new beginning. It's a powerful name. 00:14:30.850 --> 00:14:33.350 And he returns right into the chaos of World 00:14:33.350 --> 00:14:36.049 War II. And this leads to perhaps the most ironic 00:14:36.049 --> 00:14:38.149 chapter of his life, the time he was practically 00:14:38.149 --> 00:14:40.429 an American ally. This is the part that drives 00:14:40.429 --> 00:14:42.769 historians of the Vietnam War crazy with frustration. 00:14:42.830 --> 00:14:46.429 I can imagine. In 1945, Ho is hiding in the mountains. 00:14:46.649 --> 00:14:48.950 He's fighting the Japanese who had occupied Indochina. 00:14:49.070 --> 00:14:52.789 And who drops in to help him? The OSS, the precursor 00:14:52.789 --> 00:14:55.110 to the CIA. The DEAR team. I've read about this. 00:14:55.370 --> 00:14:59.080 Right. An OSS team parachutes in. They find Ho 00:14:59.080 --> 00:15:01.440 Chi Minh suffering from malaria and dysentery. 00:15:01.480 --> 00:15:04.559 He's barely alive, wasting away. And an American 00:15:04.559 --> 00:15:07.279 doctor treats him? Yes. An American doctor with 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:10.700 the OSS likely saved Ho Chi Minh's life. They 00:15:10.700 --> 00:15:13.259 gave him medicine. They gave him weapons. They 00:15:13.259 --> 00:15:15.740 trained his Viet Minh fighters. Ho Chi Minh was 00:15:15.740 --> 00:15:20.100 referred to by OSS agents as Agent 19. That is 00:15:20.100 --> 00:15:22.360 mind -boggling considering what happens 20 years 00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:24.940 later. The U .S. saved the men they would later 00:15:24.940 --> 00:15:27.700 spend billions trying to destroy. It is the ultimate 00:15:27.700 --> 00:15:30.580 irony of the war. And Ho leans into this. He 00:15:30.580 --> 00:15:32.779 thinks, the Americans are anti -colonial. They 00:15:32.779 --> 00:15:34.679 fought the British. They're fighting the Japanese. 00:15:34.919 --> 00:15:36.419 They're going to help me get rid of the French 00:15:36.419 --> 00:15:38.519 for good. And this culminates in the Declaration 00:15:38.519 --> 00:15:41.759 of Independence on September 2, 1945. Picture 00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:45.000 the scene. Badin Square in Hanoi. Hundreds of 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.200 thousands of people. Ho Chi Minh steps up to 00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:49.230 the microphone. And the very first words out 00:15:49.230 --> 00:15:51.590 of his mouth are, all men are created equal. 00:15:51.750 --> 00:15:54.029 They are endowed by their creator with certain 00:15:54.029 --> 00:15:56.429 unalienable rights. He's quoting Thomas Jefferson 00:15:56.429 --> 00:15:58.870 verbatim. He is quoting the American Declaration 00:15:58.870 --> 00:16:01.669 of Independence. It was a strategic move, of 00:16:01.669 --> 00:16:04.289 course, a direct appeal. He was signaling to 00:16:04.289 --> 00:16:07.049 the U .S. He sent letter after letter to President 00:16:07.049 --> 00:16:10.490 Harry Truman. Support us. Recognize us. We can 00:16:10.490 --> 00:16:13.289 be a friend to America and Asia. And Truman's 00:16:13.289 --> 00:16:16.980 response? Silence. Not a single reply. The Cold 00:16:16.980 --> 00:16:19.720 War was starting. The US needed France as an 00:16:19.720 --> 00:16:21.720 ally in Europe against the Soviets. They weren't 00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:24.399 going to annoy France by supporting some, you 00:16:24.399 --> 00:16:26.220 know, some Vietnamese communist in the jungle. 00:16:26.419 --> 00:16:28.679 And that silence sealed the fate of Vietnam for 00:16:28.679 --> 00:16:30.919 the next 30 years. It did. The French returned 00:16:30.919 --> 00:16:33.460 to reclaim their colony. Hugh tried to negotiate. 00:16:33.740 --> 00:16:36.960 But when talks broke down in 1946, he knew war 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:39.309 was inevitable. And this brings us to the first 00:16:39.309 --> 00:16:41.990 Indochina War and that chilling quote that defines 00:16:41.990 --> 00:16:45.070 his military philosophy. The 10 to 1 quote. He 00:16:45.070 --> 00:16:47.450 told a French visitor, you can kill 10 of my 00:16:47.450 --> 00:16:49.710 men for every one I kill of yours. But even at 00:16:49.710 --> 00:16:52.289 those odds, you will lose and I will win. It 00:16:52.289 --> 00:16:54.169 sounds like a boast, but it was actually a grim 00:16:54.169 --> 00:16:56.950 calculation. It was a warning. He was laying 00:16:56.950 --> 00:16:59.490 out the entire strategy. He was saying, we are 00:16:59.490 --> 00:17:01.470 willing to suffer more than you are. We have 00:17:01.470 --> 00:17:03.830 nowhere else to go. You are fighting a war of 00:17:03.830 --> 00:17:06.069 choice. We are fighting for survival. Time is 00:17:06.069 --> 00:17:08.839 on my side. And he was right. He was right. It 00:17:08.839 --> 00:17:11.519 took eight years, culminating in the shocking 00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:14.119 deceit of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. 00:17:14.740 --> 00:17:17.119 But the Vietnamese ground them down until they 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:20.079 quit. But victory came with a cost. And I don't 00:17:20.079 --> 00:17:21.920 just mean soldiers. We have to talk about the 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:24.119 governance of North Vietnam, because while the 00:17:24.119 --> 00:17:27.039 war was going on, Ho's government launched the 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:29.759 land reform. This is the darkest stain on his 00:17:29.759 --> 00:17:33.900 domestic record. From 1953 to 1956, the party 00:17:33.900 --> 00:17:35.960 wanted to smash the landlord class to secure 00:17:35.960 --> 00:17:38.289 control over the countryside. It was modeled 00:17:38.289 --> 00:17:40.430 on what Mao did in China. And it got out of hand 00:17:40.430 --> 00:17:43.009 fast. Out of hand is putting it mildly. They 00:17:43.009 --> 00:17:45.950 sent cadres into villages with quotas. They had 00:17:45.950 --> 00:17:48.190 to find a certain number of reactionary landlords 00:17:48.190 --> 00:17:51.170 to denounce. Quotas for executions. Essentially. 00:17:51.710 --> 00:17:53.769 Neighbors turned on neighbors. People with personal 00:17:53.769 --> 00:17:56.210 grudges made accusations. People were denounced, 00:17:56.269 --> 00:17:58.289 put on these brutal show trials in their own 00:17:58.289 --> 00:18:01.450 villages and executed. What are the numbers we're 00:18:01.450 --> 00:18:03.890 talking about? Estimates vary wildly because 00:18:03.890 --> 00:18:06.359 the records are. Well, they're state -controlled. 00:18:06.579 --> 00:18:10.740 Some say 13 ,500. Others go as high as 50 ,000 00:18:10.740 --> 00:18:13.839 or even more. But the point is, thousands of 00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:16.400 innocent people, often loyal Viet Minh supporters 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:19.119 who just happen to own a bit of land, were killed. 00:18:19.420 --> 00:18:21.599 And Hu's reaction to this is interesting. He 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:24.599 didn't double down. He apologized. He did. In 00:18:24.599 --> 00:18:27.380 1956, he initiated a correction of errors campaign. 00:18:27.799 --> 00:18:30.279 There were reports of him crying, publicly shedding 00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:32.519 tears over the mistakes that were made. Was that 00:18:32.519 --> 00:18:35.690 genuine or was it theater? That is the million 00:18:35.690 --> 00:18:37.829 -dollar question, isn't it? He was known to be 00:18:37.829 --> 00:18:40.829 an emotional man, but he was also a master politician. 00:18:41.309 --> 00:18:44.430 The apology was brilliant politics. It helped 00:18:44.430 --> 00:18:46.910 stabilize the regime. It allowed the party to 00:18:46.910 --> 00:18:49.730 shift blame to lower -level cadres while keeping 00:18:49.730 --> 00:18:52.109 the leadership intact. So he could say we went 00:18:52.109 --> 00:18:54.130 too far, but the objective was still achieved. 00:18:54.470 --> 00:18:57.029 The objective was achieved. He might have regretted 00:18:57.029 --> 00:18:59.869 the excess, but the purge itself secured the 00:18:59.869 --> 00:19:02.470 party's absolute power in the North. Right. It 00:19:02.470 --> 00:19:06.009 cleared the board. Now, as we move into the 1960s, 00:19:06.009 --> 00:19:08.549 the era of the American war hose role starts 00:19:08.549 --> 00:19:10.990 to change. I think most people assume he was 00:19:10.990 --> 00:19:13.029 calling the shots the whole time right up to 00:19:13.029 --> 00:19:14.970 his death. That's the common perception. Yeah. 00:19:15.109 --> 00:19:18.109 Uncle Ho leading the fight. But the sources suggest 00:19:18.109 --> 00:19:20.609 he was actually losing power. That's a crucial 00:19:20.609 --> 00:19:24.109 distinction. By the early 60s, Ho is in his 70s. 00:19:24.109 --> 00:19:26.670 His health is declining. He has diabetes, heart 00:19:26.670 --> 00:19:30.130 issues, and a new figure is rising in the Politburo. 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:33.079 LeDouan. LeDouan. He's the hardliner. Extremely. 00:19:33.099 --> 00:19:35.980 There was a split in the party. You had the North 00:19:35.980 --> 00:19:38.380 First faction, which included Ho and General 00:19:38.380 --> 00:19:41.039 Giup. They wanted to focus on building the socialist 00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:43.599 economy in the North and proceed cautiously with 00:19:43.599 --> 00:19:45.640 reunification in the South. The slow and steady 00:19:45.640 --> 00:19:48.859 approach. Right. But LeDouan led the South First 00:19:48.859 --> 00:19:51.579 faction. He wanted violent, immediate reunification. 00:19:51.640 --> 00:19:54.880 He saw any delay as a betrayal. And LeDouan won. 00:19:55.160 --> 00:19:58.019 He did. He systematically marginalized Ho. He 00:19:58.019 --> 00:20:00.700 turned Ho into a figurehead, a living saint to 00:20:00.700 --> 00:20:02.880 inspire the troops and charm foreign diplomats, 00:20:02.900 --> 00:20:05.180 while LeDouan and the hardliners ran the war 00:20:05.180 --> 00:20:07.359 machine. That explains why the war escalated 00:20:07.359 --> 00:20:10.289 so aggressively. It does. In fact, there were 00:20:10.289 --> 00:20:12.930 secret peace initiatives throughout the 60s, 00:20:12.930 --> 00:20:15.430 Operation Marigold, the seaborne mission where 00:20:15.430 --> 00:20:18.269 the U .S. tried to talk to Hanoi, who often seemed 00:20:18.269 --> 00:20:20.730 open to these talks, at least in principle. But 00:20:20.730 --> 00:20:23.690 the hardliners and the often terrible timing 00:20:23.690 --> 00:20:26.789 of U .S. bombing campaigns always torpedoed them. 00:20:27.029 --> 00:20:29.589 How's the face? But he wasn't always the hand 00:20:29.589 --> 00:20:31.849 on the wheel in those later years. Let's pivot 00:20:31.849 --> 00:20:34.630 to the man himself. Because part of the Uncle 00:20:34.630 --> 00:20:37.710 Ho brand was his personal life, or really the 00:20:37.710 --> 00:20:41.029 lack thereof. The story was that he was a celibate 00:20:41.029 --> 00:20:43.950 monk married only to the revolution. That was 00:20:43.950 --> 00:20:46.089 the official line. To be the father of the nation, 00:20:46.230 --> 00:20:48.349 you can't have a specific family of your own. 00:20:48.430 --> 00:20:50.569 You have to belong to everyone. It's a very potent 00:20:50.569 --> 00:20:53.170 myth. But the reality... The reality is he was 00:20:53.170 --> 00:20:57.269 a man. In 1926, while in China, he married a 00:20:57.269 --> 00:20:59.640 woman named Zheng Shuiming. She was a Chinese 00:20:59.640 --> 00:21:02.420 midwife. A legal marriage with witnesses and 00:21:02.420 --> 00:21:04.500 everything. Yes. They lived together as husband 00:21:04.500 --> 00:21:07.759 and wife. But when he had to flee China in 1927, 00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:10.740 he left her behind. He tried to reconnect later, 00:21:10.920 --> 00:21:13.579 but the party blocked it. It didn't fit the narrative 00:21:13.579 --> 00:21:15.279 they were building. And there was another woman? 00:21:15.359 --> 00:21:18.420 Right. A revolutionary. Wenguian Ti Menkai. A 00:21:18.420 --> 00:21:21.089 fiery... brilliant revolutionary in her own right 00:21:21.089 --> 00:21:24.109 they were very close likely romantically involved 00:21:24.109 --> 00:21:26.809 in the 30s in moscow and china she was later 00:21:26.809 --> 00:21:29.509 captured and executed by the french a real tragedy 00:21:29.509 --> 00:21:31.650 so the monk image was completely manufactured 00:21:31.650 --> 00:21:34.549 entirely the party actively suppressed these 00:21:34.549 --> 00:21:37.710 facts for decades they needed him to be a saint 00:21:38.140 --> 00:21:40.759 not a widower or a husband who had left his wife. 00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:43.059 Speaking of saint -like qualities, we have to 00:21:43.059 --> 00:21:44.819 talk about his brain. The guy was a linguistic 00:21:44.819 --> 00:21:47.160 genius. Oh, absolutely. It's astounding. We know 00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:50.160 he spoke Vietnamese and French perfectly, but 00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:52.819 he also spoke English, Russian, Cantonese, and 00:21:52.819 --> 00:21:56.480 Mandarin fluently. And get this, he spoke conversational 00:21:56.480 --> 00:22:00.599 Esperanto. Esperanto? Really? Why? It was popular 00:22:00.599 --> 00:22:02.720 in socialist circles at the time as a language 00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:05.279 of international brotherhood, but it just shows 00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:07.259 you his intellectual curiosity. And he wrote 00:22:07.259 --> 00:22:10.940 poetry. Beautiful poetry. His prison diary, written 00:22:10.940 --> 00:22:13.259 in classical Chinese while he was jailed by the 00:22:13.259 --> 00:22:15.740 Chinese nationalists in the 40s, is considered 00:22:15.740 --> 00:22:18.099 a literary masterpiece. It's not just propaganda. 00:22:18.180 --> 00:22:21.180 It's wistful, elegant poetry about nature, about 00:22:21.180 --> 00:22:24.480 longing. It shows a side of him that is very, 00:22:24.500 --> 00:22:27.660 very different from the ruthless political operator. 00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:30.059 He just adds to the complexity. You have the 00:22:30.059 --> 00:22:33.289 poet, the baker, the spy, the general. And then 00:22:33.289 --> 00:22:37.650 finally, the end. 1969. The war is raging. The 00:22:37.650 --> 00:22:40.450 U .S. is heavily involved. And Ho Chi Minh is 00:22:40.450 --> 00:22:43.650 dying. He died on September 2nd, 1969. Wait, 00:22:43.670 --> 00:22:45.609 September 2nd? That's National Day? That's the 00:22:45.609 --> 00:22:47.490 anniversary of his own independence declaration. 00:22:47.970 --> 00:22:50.089 Exactly. The irony was too much for the party. 00:22:50.210 --> 00:22:52.150 They couldn't let Uncle Ho die on the day of 00:22:52.150 --> 00:22:53.769 celebration. It would ruin the holiday forever. 00:22:53.970 --> 00:22:56.230 So they lied. They lied about the date of his 00:22:56.230 --> 00:22:58.089 death. They announced he died on September 3rd. 00:22:58.089 --> 00:23:00.069 They held the official mourning then. It wasn't 00:23:00.069 --> 00:23:02.319 corrected until decades later. Even in death, 00:23:02.500 --> 00:23:05.119 his image was a tool for the state. And that 00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:07.299 continues with his body. He left a will, right? 00:23:07.380 --> 00:23:09.599 He had specific instructions. He did. He was 00:23:09.599 --> 00:23:11.700 very clear. He wanted to be cremated. He said 00:23:11.700 --> 00:23:15.519 it was more hygienic and saved farmland. He wanted 00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:18.559 his ashes divided into three parts. One for the 00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:20.220 north, one for the center, one for the south. 00:23:20.519 --> 00:23:22.660 He wanted to be physically reunited with the 00:23:22.660 --> 00:23:25.180 land. And instead? Instead, they embalmed him. 00:23:25.380 --> 00:23:28.240 They flew in Soviet experts who had worked on 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:30.619 Lenin to preserve his body. They built a massive 00:23:30.619 --> 00:23:34.160 granite Soviet -style mausoleum in Hanoi. The 00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:35.980 exact opposite of what he asked for. The exact 00:23:35.980 --> 00:23:38.799 opposite. He became an idol, a permanent statue, 00:23:39.099 --> 00:23:41.819 a relic. You can go see him today. He lies there 00:23:41.819 --> 00:23:44.680 in a glass case treated like a deity. Which brings 00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:47.160 us to the legacy. And it's a weird one. You have 00:23:47.160 --> 00:23:49.539 the Communist Party worshipping him, but you 00:23:49.539 --> 00:23:53.470 also have... actual worship, like a religion. 00:23:53.849 --> 00:23:57.150 Yes. This is fascinating. In some folk religions 00:23:57.150 --> 00:23:59.490 in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh has been incorporated 00:23:59.490 --> 00:24:02.069 into the pantheon of spirits. There are mediums 00:24:02.069 --> 00:24:04.470 who claim to channel him. Some identify him as 00:24:04.470 --> 00:24:06.569 an incarnation of the Jade Emperor, the supreme 00:24:06.569 --> 00:24:09.089 Taoist god. The Jade Emperor? From a guy who 00:24:09.089 --> 00:24:11.789 quoted Thomas Jefferson to a literal god? That's 00:24:11.789 --> 00:24:14.569 some journey. It speaks to how deeply he penetrated 00:24:14.569 --> 00:24:17.049 the Vietnamese psyche. He isn't just a politician. 00:24:17.289 --> 00:24:20.190 He is an ancestor figure. He bridges that gap 00:24:20.190 --> 00:24:22.670 between the Confucian scholar official and the 00:24:22.670 --> 00:24:25.329 modern revolutionary leader. So as we wrap up, 00:24:25.349 --> 00:24:27.910 we have to ask the big question. We've unpacked 00:24:27.910 --> 00:24:30.089 the aliases, the travels, the ruthlessness, the 00:24:30.089 --> 00:24:32.829 charm. Who was he really? Was he a communist 00:24:32.829 --> 00:24:35.450 who used nationalism to get what he wanted? Or 00:24:35.450 --> 00:24:37.490 was he a nationalist who used communism because 00:24:37.490 --> 00:24:40.089 it was the only tool available? That is the debate 00:24:40.089 --> 00:24:41.789 that will never end. If you look at his early 00:24:41.789 --> 00:24:44.690 life, the rejection of Versailles, the constant 00:24:44.690 --> 00:24:47.799 focus on independence. The nationalism feels 00:24:47.799 --> 00:24:51.119 primary. He was a patriot first. But he was also 00:24:51.119 --> 00:24:53.420 a dyed -in -the -wool communist. He built a totalitarian 00:24:53.420 --> 00:24:56.160 state. He did. He was a disciplined Leninist 00:24:56.160 --> 00:24:58.319 who believed the party was the only way to hold 00:24:58.319 --> 00:25:00.779 power and modernize the country. So he was both. 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:03.539 The truth is he was a pragmatist. He was a chameleon. 00:25:03.539 --> 00:25:05.779 He became whatever the situation required him 00:25:05.779 --> 00:25:09.180 to be to achieve one single goal. A unified, 00:25:09.400 --> 00:25:12.299 independent Vietnam. If the Americans had offered 00:25:12.299 --> 00:25:15.180 that in 1919 or 1945, he might have been an ally. 00:25:15.420 --> 00:25:18.640 He very well might have been. They didn't. So 00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:20.940 he became their worst nightmare. It's a reminder 00:25:20.940 --> 00:25:23.500 that history isn't just about ideologies. It's 00:25:23.500 --> 00:25:25.500 about timing. It's about missed connections. 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:28.319 And it's about individuals who are willing to 00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:30.740 reinvent themselves a hundred times to get what 00:25:30.740 --> 00:25:33.359 they want. Exactly. The ultimate shapeshifter. 00:25:33.519 --> 00:25:35.920 If you want to see a different side of the tactician, 00:25:36.099 --> 00:25:39.160 I highly recommend looking up the prison diary 00:25:39.160 --> 00:25:43.420 poetry. It's haunting stuff. It gives you a glimpse 00:25:43.420 --> 00:25:46.099 of the man inside the myth. It really does. It's 00:25:46.099 --> 00:25:47.960 worth your time. That's it for this deep dive. 00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:49.779 Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.