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

276 Pages·2009·2.28 MB·English

by  Larry Berman

Perfect Spy

The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and
Vietnamese Communist Agent
Larry Berman
For Scott and Lindsay
Contents

Prologue:
“I Can Die Happy Now”

1. Hoa Binh: Spy and Friend

2. The Apprenticeship of a Spy

3. California Dreaming

4. The Emergence of a Dual Life

5. From Time to Tet

6. The Blurring of Roles: April 1975

7. In His Father’s Shadow

Epilogue:
An Extraordinary Double Life

Acknowledgments

Note on Sources

Notes

Searchable Terms
About the Author

Praise

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher
Prologue

“I CAN DIE
HAPPY NOW”

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 narrow 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 gentleman 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 general had responded to Jim in English, so I quickly introduced
myself as a professor from the University of California, Davis. Pham Xuan 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 newspaper 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 cigarette, 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 correspondent for Reuters and Time.
He spoke passionately about his trade and with fondness about his many
American friends in journalism, mentioning many of the era’s best-known
reporters, including Robert Shaplen, Stanley Karnow, Frances FitzGerald,
Robert 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 anybody 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 deception 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
“victor’s arrogance.” Khanh used the words “friendly and open-hearted” and
wanted me to know that An lived a “simple life.”

David Halberstam sent An this New York Times Magazine photo, writing below
it, “Is Pham Xuan An A Great Problem?” BETTMAN/CORBIS

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 across the street from the
Continental Hotel and within earshot of the National Assembly building, had
been the gathering spot for journalists, correspondents, police, and government
officials—the place where rumors started, were tested for their staying power,
and where everyone hunted for the best story line of the day. The rumor mill was
known as “Radio Catinat” for the street Rue Catinat, but after 1954 changed to
Tu Do, meaning “Liberty Street.” After the war, the name changed again to
Dong Khoi, or “Collective Uprising.” Through all these name changes, Pham
Xuan An held the title General Givral because it was here that he could be found
daily, dispensing information, almost always in the company of King, his large
and obedient German shepherd, his green Renault quatre chevaux parked in
front.
For the next two years, that is, until An became ill, he and I met regularly at
Givral. A rhythm developed to our meetings. I would arrive first to secure a
window table and review my notes and questions. An would pull up on his old
green motor scooter and walk directly to our table, not before receiving a warm
welcome from Givral’s staff. For the next few hours I would ask questions and
take copious notes while An explained the nuances of Vietnamese politics and
history. An would sometimes put his cigarette down, take my notepad, and write
a name or phrase for me, so that I could better grasp his point. When I would ask
if he was tired, An always suggested ordering lunch and kept talking. I soon
came to appreciate the observation of An’s friend and former colleague David
Greenway that An “is a reminder to me of how much I saw of Vietnam but how
little I understood.”2
Then, in 2003, after five decades of smoking, An became seriously ill with
emphysema. An was extremely superstitious and had smoked Lucky Strikes
since 1955, when his American advisers taught him how to inhale and
guaranteed that the brand name would bring him good luck. “I have smoked for
fifty-two years. Now I have to pay for it. It’s still a good deal—I only got three
and a half years of emphysema for all those years of smoking and never ended
up in jail” is how An explained it. Astrology and numerology played a major
role in An’s life, as they do for most Vietnamese. Born under the sign Virgo, the
sixth sign of the zodiac and the only female figure among the constellations, on
September 12, 1927, An saw himself as having been protected by goddesses
throughout his life and felt a reciprocal responsibility for protecting women.
I arrived in Saigon on the day An was hospitalized. Local newspaper reports
hinted that he had only a short time to live.3 I called An Pham, who confirmed
the bleak prognosis. Before leaving Saigon, I handwrote An a personal letter,
expressing as best I could my hopes that we would once again meet at Givral. I
joked that he had cheated death so often as a spy, perhaps it was not yet his time
to meet the Emperor of Hell, where An often mused he was first headed. I
doubted An would ever read the letter.
Months later I received word that An was home, recuperating. He thanked
me for my letter, said he was looking forward to our next conversations, and
requested that I bring three books he was interested in reading. I was soon back
in Saigon, but because An was still weak, he asked that we meet at his home, the