In American schooling, Communist leaders were obviously painted as being evil. Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao were undisputed monsters, but Ho Chi Minh doesn't seem to be a figure that fits that build. Other than being a Communist opponent of the United States, was he guilty of other crimes that historians can objectively recognize as being flagrant abuses of power? Was there any evidence to project what kind of head of state he would have been if he was alive when the North took over the county?
I took some Southeast Asian history classes in college but I am in no means an expert on the topic. Ho Chi Minh seemed to be well-regarded by many. His focus was freeing Vietnam from French and later American rule more than anything. I don't believe he ever did anything as sadistic as Pol Pot or had his own "killing fields" type surrounding his reputation.
Here is a link to his obit from the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0519.html
Stanley Karnow's Vietnam: A History is a great book that looks at Vietnam's history as well as being under French rule all the way through the end of the Vietnam war. That book was used in almost every Southeast Asian history course I took in college.