 During the same period , a counter @-@ attack was launched by a new , third grouping ( the centrists ) led by President Hồ Chí Minh , Lê Đức Thọ , and Foreign Minister Nguyễn Duy Trinh , who called for negotiations . From October 1966 through April 1967 , a very public debate over military strategy took place in print and via radio between Thanh and his rival for military power , Giáp . Giáp had advocated a defensive , primarily guerrilla strategy against the U.S. and South Vietnam . Thanh 's position was that Giáp and his adherents were centered on their experiences during the First Indochina War and that they were too " conservative and captive to old methods and past experience ... mechanically repeating the past . " 
