 From then on, Hồ Chí Minh and his government's strategy, based on the idea of avoiding conventional warfare and facing the might of the United States Army, which would wear them down eventually while merely prolonging the conflict, would lead to eventual acceptance of Hanoi's terms materialized.In early 1969, Ho suffered a heart attack and was in increasingly bad health for the rest of the year.In July 1969, Jean Sainteny, a former French official in Vietnam who knew Ho secretly transmitted a letter to him from President Richard Nixon.