Dissident author says Vietnam founder Ho Chi Minh's mistress was 'murdered by his comrades'

Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Jan.22 (ANI): Ho Chi Minh, the father of modern Vietnam, kept a mistress 40 years his junior who was murdered by his comrades, an author claims. The Telegraph quotes Duong Thu Huong, 61, whose works are banned but widely admired in Vietnam, as saying that the man the Vietnamese worship as 'Uncle Ho' kept a mistress 40 years his junior who was murdered by Communist Party bosses.

"His companions were terrified it would damage his saint-like image," the author claims.

She also claims that Ho Chi Minh, who died aged 79 in 1969, hastened his own death in hospital to spite his fellow leaders and "cast a curse on the corrupt regime".

Huong said that the key claims in her novel, The Zenith, are factually accurate and based on 15 years of research. She admits using some poetic license with other elements of the plot.

The novel has already caused a stir in Vietnamese intellectual circles with excerpts widely circulated on the Internet in Vietnamese and French before its official publication. It will be published in English later this year.

But it is certain to appall the country's contemporary Communist leadership, who brook little criticism and are currently engaged in a clampdown on the already tightly controlled media.

Ho Chi Minh led the Vietnamese independence struggle against France and then led the Communist North against South Vietnam and the US during the 1960s. He died before he could see victory in the conflict Vietnamese call the "American War". (ANI)