The Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game

319 Pages·2009·1.7 MB·English

by  Thomas A. Bass

FM_1586484095_Bass:bass 12/1/08 12:12 PM Page a
Praise for
The Spy Who Loved Us
“I enjoyed this book enormously and learned a lot. The Spy
Who Loved Usis a fine read and a gripping story; but, most of
all, it is an object lesson in why human intelligence and a great
spy will always trump the most sophisticated espionage and
surveillance technology. It’s not the simple accumulation of in-
formation that counts. It’s the recognition of what’s important
and then knowing what to do with it.”
—TEDKOPPEL
“The story of Pham Xuan An is the revelation of a remarkable
life and a remarkable man. Fictional accounts of practitioners
of the Great Game—the craft of spying—come nowhere near
the real thing that was practiced by An. In The Spy Who Loved
Us, An is revealed as a man of split loyalties who managed to
maintain his humanity. Cast prejudices aside and you will dis-
cover a true hero, scholar, patriot, humanist, and masterful spy.”
—MORLEYSAFER, correspondent, CBS 60 Minutes and
author of Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam
“Relevant, instructive, funny. The shock of the double never
goes away. Neither does the gullibility of the arrogant intruder.”
—JOHNLECARRÉ
“This is a brilliant book about a man and his times. It strength-
ens the feeling I got from meeting him late in his life that
Pham Xuan An was one of the most impressive people I have
ever encountered. He was a man of wisdom, courage, and
clear-headed patriotism. He was also—even if it seems ironic to
say this under the circumstances—a man of extraordinary in-
tegrity. He loved us at our best even while confronting us at our
worst.”
—DANIELELLSBERG, author of
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
FM_1586484095_Bass:bass 12/1/08 11:51 AM Page b
“Thomas Bass tells a fantastic tale of intrigue, espionage, and
friendship. His book reads as if it came from the farthest shores
of fiction, and I wouldn’t believe a word of it if I hadn’t met so
many of its characters and didn’t know the story to be true.”
—H. D. S. GREENWAY, editor, The Boston Globe, and Vietnam war re-
porter for Time Magazineand the Washington Post
“Every veteran, every scholar, every student, everyone who
survived the Vietnam war is advised to read this book and re-
flect on its wisdom. In his thoughtful, provocative biography of
one of the most successful espionage agents in history, Thomas
Bass challenges some of our most fundamental assumptions
about what really happened in Vietnam and what it means to us
today.”
—JOHNLAURENCE, Vietnam war reporter for CBS News and author of
The Cat from Hué: A Vietnam War Story
“This is a chilling account of betrayal of an American army—and
an American press corps—involved in a guerrilla war in a society
about which little was known or understood. The spy here was
in South Vietnam, and his ultimate motives, as Thomas Bass
makes clear, were far more complex than those of traditional es-
pionage. This book, coming now, has another message, too, for
me—have we put ourselves in the same position, once again,
in Iraq?”
—SEYMOURHERSH, author of
Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
“Thomas Bass has rendered a sensitive, revealing portrait of the
strangely ambivalent personality I knew during the Vietnam war.
In doing so he provides us with unique insights into the nature,
conflicting sentiments, and heartbreak of many Vietnamese
who worked with Americans, made friends with them, but in
the end loved their land more and sought, as their ancestors had
for a thousand years, to free it from all trespassers.
—SEYMOURTOPPING, former Southeast Asia bureau chief and
managing editor of The New York Times
FM_1586484095_Bass:bass 12/1/08 11:51 AM Page i
THE
SPY
WHO
LOVED
US
FM_1586484095_Bass:bass 12/1/08 11:51 AM Page ii
This page intentionally left blank
FM_1586484095_Bass:bass 12/1/08 11:51 AM Page iii
ALSO BY THOMAS A. BASS
The Eudaemonic Pie
Camping with the Prince and
Other Tales of Science in Africa
Reinventing the Future
Vietnamerica
The Predictors
FM_1586484095_Bass:bass 12/1/08 11:51 AM Page iv
Y
E
W
T
H
C
A
N
S
E
M
A
5 J
0
0
2
©
Pham Xuan An, Ho Chi Minh City, February 2005.
Photograph by James Nachtwey.
FM_1586484095_Bass:bass 12/1/08 11:51 AM Page v
THE
SPY
WHO
LOVED
US
THE VIETNAM WAR
AND PHAM XUAN AN’S
DANGEROUS GAME
THOMAS A. BASS
PublicAffairs (cid:129) New York
FM_1586484095_Bass:bass 12/1/08 11:51 AM Page vi
Copyright © 2009by Thomas A. Bass
Published in the United States by PublicAffairs™,
a member of the Perseus Books Group.
Maps by Jeffrey Ward.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Printed on acid-free, archival-quality paper.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address
PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1321, New York, NY 10107.
Portions of this book first appeared in The New Yorker.
The author wishes to thank James Nachtwey and the Richard Avedon Foundation
for permission to reproduce the photographs on pages iv and x–xi.
PublicAffairs books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the
U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more informa-
tion, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books
Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200,
Philadelphia, PA 19103, call [phone], ext. 5000, or e-mail
[email protected].
Text set in 11.75 New Caledonia
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bass, Thomas A.
The spy who loved us : the Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An’s
dangerous game / Thomas A. Bass. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58648-409-5
1. Pham Xuan An, 1927–2006. 2. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—
Secret service—Vietnam (Democratic Republic) 3. Espionage, North Viet-
namese—Vietnam (Republic) 4. Spies—Vietnam (Democratic
Republic)—Biography. 5. Journalists—Vietnam (Democratic
Republic)—Biography. I. Title.
DS559.8.M44B38 2008
959.704'38—dc22
[B]
2008021344
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FM_1586484095_Bass:bass 12/1/08 11:51 AM Page vii
For Tristan and Julian