MAI VAN BO: Revolutionary with Style

WHEN talks begin, Americans looking among the Vietnamese negotiators for ascetic Hanoi heroes in the mold of Ho Chi Minh will be surprised by Mai Van Bo, the round-faced scholar who represents North Viet Nam in France. In his years as Hanoi's best-known envoy to the West, Bo has grown grey, stylish and somewhat stout on the haute cuisine of hostesses delighted by his foxy charm and affable wit. Hanoi watchers are convinced that Bo is kept in the know by his government. Three weeks ago, his henchmen were already murmuring that "we are prepared to accept Paris, if the U.S. will."

Since coming to France in February 1961 as head of a two-man trade delegation, Bo has maintained close relations with the Quai d'Orsay, into which he bobs as regularly as a cloisonne yoyo, and also enjoys a following among Latins and Arabs, with whom he trades revolutionary lore. He comes by it honestly, for Bo is one of the Viet Minh's "old comrades." As a Viet Minh major, he was wounded and captured by the French, who even then were impressed. Born July 9, 1917, in a Mekong Delta town 150 miles from Saigon, Bo's Southern mandarin background makes him an appropriate emissary not only for Hanoi but also for the Viet Cong.

From the first, his duties in Paris have included propagandizing Europeans, dissident Americans and South Vietnamese residing in France. His latest coup was to trot out a herd of Southern students to march in last week's May Day parade under a Viet Cong flag.

As the years passed, Bo's delegation grew as quickly as his stature with Charles de Gaulle. Last sum mer France raised the mission's standing to that of a legation, giving Bo the title of Delegate General and Minister Plenipotentiary. De Gaulle did it mostly to kick Uncle Sam's shins, for Bo had long since had all the perquisites and puissance of a full-fledged ambassador. It was Bo who in January raised peace hopes by saying talks "will" come (instead of "could") once the U.S. stopped bombing the North. Nothing came of it then, although the United Nations' U Thant scurried to Bo's door.

Western journalists usually knock in vain at that door with its peephole at 2 Rue Leverrier, a short walk from the house where Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein used to hold court. Bo entertains other visitors, however, chain-smoking cigarettes and sipping pungent tea. His handsome wife, Pham Thi Ky, 43 (no kin to Saigon's Vice President), works in the mission's accounting department. Bo is widely read, an art lover, an ex-journalist, and his French is so polished that he once taught the language. He likes to quote Balzac, but his favorite aphorism, from an ancient Vietnamese tome, is: "Do not torment yourself if your virtues are not recognized, but pay more attention to not ignoring those of others."

Acquaintances of Bo from his years in the South remember him as "articulate and able." South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Van Loc is an old friend, and Bo once wrote a tune that now is the national an them of South Viet Nam. He has not been a designer but an executor of his government's policies. Nonetheless, his familiarity with the West should make him a valuable adviser to a delegation with little knowledge of the non-Communist world.

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