What if Ho Chi Minh defects to South Vietnam?

What if everyone's favorite communist world leader defects to South Vietnam? I know, this seems highly unlikely given the circumstances but for the sake of the discussion let's pretend he does. I suppose you can pick between anytime after the creation of South Vietnam and his death obviously in 1969.

How do you think it affects the state of the war and the how both sides will treat it from the standpoint of propaganda?

I believe historians are in debate over how much influence he had over the Communist party and how much direct power he had once he was in power over North Vietnam. Some have argued he was more of a ''human face'' for the Communist party as the idealized Vietnamese patriarch. While the politburo had the real power. Whatever is the case, he is one of the biggest faces of the war if not the biggest face of the war. Since an action would send shockwaves across the world.
 
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If that is the case.

I can see this one scenario if the Chinese decide to annex North Vietnam as one of its provinces with a massive invasion on a huge scale or the Maoist sympathizers within the North Vietnamese leadership managed to gain a more of an influence within the politburo and thus decide to fall more into China's orbit. Almost becoming a defacto-proxy in the process.
 
If that is the case.

I can see this one scenario if the Chinese decide to annex North Vietnam as one of its provinces with a massive invasion on a huge scale or the Maoist sympathizers within the North Vietnamese leadership managed to gain a more of an influence within the politburo and thus decide to fall more into China's orbit. Almost becoming a defacto-proxy in the process.

To answer your the question on Ho Chi Minh and his control of the Communist Party, North Vietnam was ruled by two factions the North First and South First factions lead by Ho and Le Duan respectively. I don't see it happening, even when Le Duan gained influence over Ho, his actions saw him lose face, because of U.S forces. Ho is not going to defect to the south, he was willing to put with all the crap with the Sino-Soviet and if he came down Diem would have a field day

Mao is not going to annex North Vietnam, it was Mao who convinced Stalin to give the Vietnamese Communists aid in the first place, second all Mao was concerned territory wise is getting back the parts of China it lost ie: Taiwan and Mongolia.
 
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