Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent

340 Pages·2008·4.93 MB·English

by  Larry Berman

P S
E R F E C T P Y
The Incredible Double Life of
Time
Pham Xuan An, Magazine Reporter
and Vietnamese Communist Agent
L B
A R RY E R M A N
For Scott and Lindsay
C
O N T E N T S
PROLOGUE:
“I CAN DIE HAPPY NOW” 1
1. H OA B INH: SPY AND FRIEND 21
2. THE APPRENTICESHIP OF A SPY 51
3. CALIFORNIA DREAMING 83
4. THE EMERGENCE OF A DUAL LIFE 115
5. FROM T IME TO TET 155
6. THE BLURRING OF ROLES: APRIL 1975 191
7. IN HIS FATHER’S SHADOW 229
EPILOGUE:
AN EXTRAORDINARY DOUBLE LIFE 26 7
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 283
NOTE ON SOURCES 289
NOTES 291
INDEX 321
About the Author
Praise
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
“I C D
AN IE
H N ”
APPY OW
I FIRST MET PHAM XUAN AN in July 2001 at Song Ngu seafood
restaurant, located on Saigon’s bustling Suong Nguyet Anh Street.
I had been invited to a dinner hosted by my friend Professor James
Reckner, director of The Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University.
Approximately twenty guests were seated at a long and rather nar-
row table, where the only chance for conversation was going to be
with the person at my left or right or directly across the table. I spoke
no Vietnamese, and the two Vietnamese academics seated on either
side spoke no English. The only empty seat at the table was directly
opposite me.
I began thinking this was going to be a long evening when I noticed
everyone at the table rising to greet the thin, wiry Vietnamese gen-
tleman joining us. I guessed he must be in his late sixties, and he
had a certain self-effacing gentleness about him. I overheard Jim
saying,“Welcome General An, we are so pleased you could join us.”
A few moments later we were seated opposite each other. The gen-
eral had responded to Jim in English, so I quickly introduced myself
as a professor from the University of California, Davis. Pham Xuan
1
2 PERFECT SPY
An’s eyes lit up. “You are from California! I once lived there and
went to college in Costa Mesa. It was the happiest time of my life.”
For the next two hours, An and I talked about a range of subjects,
beginning with his two years at Orange Coast College, where he
majored in journalism; his travels across the United States; and all
he had learned from and admired about the American people. An
told me he had visited Davis while interning at the Sacramento Bee.
He recalled the personal kindness of publisher Eleanor McClatchy,
and mentioned he had met the governor of California, Edmund
G. “Pat” Brown, while attending a conference for college newspa-
per editors in Sacramento. An beamed with pride when telling me
that his eldest son, Pham Xuan Hoang An, anglicized as An Pham,
had also studied journalism in the United States at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and had recently graduated from
Duke University Law School.
Barely touching his food and always reaching for another ciga-
rette, An asked about my current research. At the time I was writing
a book about the secret Paris negotiations between Henry Kissinger
and his North Vietnamese Communist counterpart, Le Duc Tho,
during the Nixon presidency. An launched into a detailed and
sophisticated analysis of the negotiations, providing me with new
information and a fresh perspective. As he spoke, I recalled reading
about a highly respected Time magazine reporter who turned out
to be a spy for the North Vietnamese and surmised that my dinner
companion was that person.1
An never said a word that evening about his job in espionage,
focusing instead on the details of his other job as a correspon-
dent for Reuters and Time. He spoke passionately about his trade
and with fondness about his many American friends in journal-
ism, mentioning many of the era’s best-known reporters, includ-
ing Robert Shaplen, Stanley Karnow, Frances FitzGerald, Robert
“I CAN DIE HAPPY NOW” 3
Sam Anson, Frank McCulloch, David Halberstam, Henry Kamm,
and Neil Sheehan. He told me that his circle of friends extended
well beyond journalism to include the CIA’s Lou Conein, Colonel
Edward Lansdale, and former CIA director William Colby, who
had been the CIA station chief in Saigon. He also mentioned many
South Vietnamese politicians and generals, including General Tran
Van Don, Ambassador Bui Diem, General Duong Van Minh, known
as Big Minh, who was the last president of the Republic of South
Vietnam, and former prime minister and vice president Nguyen Cao
Ky, who regularly sought An’s advice on fighting cocks and dog
training.
My dinner companion seemed to know everyone who was any-
body during the war. As we parted that evening, An gave me his
card, with a drawing of a German shepherd on one corner and a
rooster on the other, asking that I call him the next day in order
to continue our conversations about the Paris negotiations. After
dinner, my friend Khanh Le, who works for the Vietnam Center at
Texas Tech and whose family fled the Communist takeover in April
1975 just a few days after An’s wife and children evacuated Saigon
for the United States, told me that I had just spent three hours with
Major General Pham Xuan An of the Vietnam People ’s Army,
the recipient of four Liberation Exploit medals and six Soldier of
Emulation medals along with the title he held to that day, People ’s
Army Hero.
I was curious whether Khanh felt any animosity toward a man
who had not only been his enemy, but who by living a life of decep-
tion had seemingly betrayed so many Vietnamese in the south.
Khanh explained that he had not known An during the war. He did
not know what to expect when a few years earlier he was asked by
a mutual friend to meet An for coffee. Khanh discovered a humble
and reflective man who never once displayed a hint of what he called
4 PERFECT SPY
David Halberstam sent An this New York Times Magazine photo,
writing below it, “Is Pham Xuan An A Great Problem?”
BETTMAN/CORBIS
“victor’s arrogance.” Khanh used the words “friendly and open-
hearted” and wanted me to know that An lived a “simple life.”
Both men lost something in the war. Khanh lost his country on
April 30, 1975; An lost his brother, Pham Xuan Hoa, killed in a 1964
helicopter crash. Hoa worked for the South as an air force mechanic.
An also lost his dream for what a unified Vietnam might become.
Ironically, it was Khanh who was free to travel regularly between his
home in Lubbock, Texas, and Ho Chi Minh City for extended visits
with his family. General Pham Xuan An, Hero of the Revolution,
had never been permitted to leave Vietnam to visit his many friends
or family members in America. Both men were aware of what the
other had lost; their friendship was testimony to the reconciliation
between Vietnamese patriots on both sides of the war.
When I called An the next morning, he immediately suggested
we meet at Givral. During the war, Givral coffee shop, located