It seemed incredible, but there was no room for doubt. The slight, wispy bearded figure emerging from the jungle shadows, stick in hand and a wind jacket worn like a cape over his rounded shoulders, could be none other than the legendary Hồ Chí Minh. Reported dead by the French a score of times, it was he who was advancing towards Franco Calamandrei and myself, hand outstretched, fragile but unmistakeable.

It was impossible to forget that first meeting, the impression of wisdom in the depths of his dark brown eyes, the humanity and simplicity which made a visitor feel at home from the first moment of contact. […]

Hồ Chí Minh’s first enquiry was about our health. Not just a formal polite enquiry, but questions which showed general concern. Was I, for instance, not exhausted after years in Korea – which he obviously knew all about – and the long journey to his headquarters? He addressed me in English and Calamandrei in Italian, switching to French when he realized that it was our common language. […]

“What is this big action the French are talking about at Điện Biên Phủ?” I asked, once the question of our health had been dealt with. 

President Hồ turned his sun helmet upside down on the table. Running his slim fingers around the outer rim, he said, “This is the situation. Here are mountains and that is where our forces are. Down there is the valley of Điện Biên Phủ – that’s where the French are with the best troops they have in Indochina. They will never get out. It may take some time, but they will never get out.”

“An Indochina Stalingrad?”

“In relation to conditions here, yes. In a modest way, it is something like that.”

As I discovered in many subsequent meetings, this was an illustration of President Hồ’s capacity for reducing complicated problems to a few words and graphic images. The idea of the cream of France’s operational troops in the bottom of Hồ Chí Minh’s sun-helmet remained with me all the way to Geneva and at the conference itself as the historic battle raged to its climax.

— Wilfred Burchett, from MEMOIRS OF A REBEL JOURNALIST, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WILFRED BURCHETT