Phạm Xuân Ẩn

Phạm Xuân Ẩn
Nickname(s)	Hai Trung, Trần Văn Trung, X6
Born	(1927-09-12)September 12, 1927 Biên Hòa,French Indochina
Died	September 20, 2006(2006-09-20)(aged 79) Ho Chi Minh City,Vietnam
Allegiance	Vietnam
Service/branch	People's Army of Vietnam
Rank	Major General

Phạm Xuân Ẩn(bornPhạm Văn Thành;September 12, 1927 – September 20, 2006) was notable as a Vietnamese journalist and correspondent forTime,Reutersand theNew York Herald Tribune,stationed inSaigonduring thewar in Vietnam.He was revealed to have simultaneously been spying for theNational Liberation Front of South Vietnam(NLF) during theVietnam War.After the war he was promoted to the rank of general of thePeople's Army of Vietnam.His nicknames wereHai TrungandTrần Văn Trung.He was awarded the title ofPeople's Army Force Heroby the Vietnamese government on January 15, 1976.

Ẩn still had to pay for being considered by the new government to be too close to the Americans; he went into are-education campfor a year after the war, although he described it as a "softer" one.

Early life and education

He was born Phạm Văn Thành in Binh Truoc,Biên Hòa,Đồng Nai Province.His parents were originally fromHải Dương Province.His grandfather was the headmaster of a school inHuếand was awarded theking of Vietnam's gold ring. Ẩn's father was a high-level engineer of the Public Administration Department, but his family's service to France did not earn themFrench citizenship.Phạm was born in Biên Hòa Hospital, where his mother was assisted by French doctors.

When Ẩn was a child, he lived with his family inSaigon.He joined theViet Minhin 1944 at the age of 16 to fight against theJapaneseduring their invasion inWorld War II.Afterward he joined with other Vietnamese to overthrow the French colonial rule.

When theAugust Revolutionbegan against theFrench government,Ẩn left school and joined theVolunteer Youth Organisation.Later, he took classes offered by the Viet Minh. He moved toCần Thơand studied at the College of Cần Thơ.

After the partition of Vietnam in 1954, Ẩn served in the southernVietnamese National Army.He was later awarded a scholarship to a college in California.In the late 1950s, Ẩn attendedOrange Coast College(OCC) and earned anAssociate of Artsdegree. He wrote for the campus newspaper, then calledThe Barnacle.

Career

After his return toSouth Vietnam,Ẩn began working as a journalist. When the United States entered the Vietnam War, Ẩn was hired as a journalist and correspondent forTime,Reutersand theNew York Herald Tribune,stationed inSaigon.According toThe Fall of Saigonby David Butler andFlashbacksbyMorley Safer,in 1975 Ẩn helpedTran Kim Tuyen,a South Vietnamese intelligence commander andCIAasset, escape Saigon on one of thelast helicopters out of the city.During thefall of Saigonevacuations, Ẩn obtained transport for his wife and four children to the United States; it was provided byTime.

Shortly after the fall of Saigon, he was interrogated by the PAVN and put underhouse arrestto ensure he had no further contact with Westerners. He was suspected of being "corrupted" bycapitalismafter decades of living in South Vietnam as a spy.He brought his family back to Saigon. But later he said, "It was the stupidest thing I ever did."

Phạm Xuân Ẩn was awarded theHero of the People's Armed Forcesin 1976. Much later in life, he was promoted in 1990 to Major General.Ẩn died in 2006 inHo Chi Minh Cityin a military hospital from complications ofemphysema.

Representation in other media

• Safer interview of 1989

In 1989, Ẩn had an extensive interview with American journalistMorley Safer,which Safer described in his book "'Flashbacks.Ẩn said that in 1960, he joinedReutersand laterTime,when he was made a colonel in theNLF.He claimed to have passed information periodically through secret meetings in theHo Bo Woodsnear Saigon during theVietnam Warand said that only a handful of NLF fighters knew about his identity as a spy. Safer writes that Ẩn was close with such noted journalists asCharles Mohr,Frank McCulloch, David Greenway, Richard Clurman, Bob Shaplen, and Nguyen Hung Vuong.

Safer described Ẩn as a "dignified and decent man" but also noted his "Enigma" and "layers". Safer notedArnaud de Borchgravetestified in 1981 before SenatorJeremiah Denton's subcommittee that Ẩn had a "mission" to "disinform the Western press". Ẩn denied the disinformation charge, claiming his superiors felt such tactics would have given him away. Safer and Ẩn discussed Ẩn's year-long imprisonment in a re-education/lecture camp near Hanoi by the North Vietnamese after the end of the war because of his connection with Americans. Ẩn also described his opinion of the "paternalism and a discredited economy theory" being used by the Vietnamese leadership that had led to the failure of the revolution to help "the people."

• Thomas A. Bass"wroteThe Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game(2009) about the journalist and spy.

Further reading

• Bass, Thomas A. (10 February 2009).The Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game.PublicAffairs.ISBN978-0-7867-4491-6.
• Bass, Thomas A. (May 15, 2005)."The Spy Who Loved Us".The New Yorker.
• Hunt, Luke (28 March 2018).Punji Trap: Pham Xuan An: the Spy Who Didn't Love Us.Talisman Publishing.ISBN978-99963-41-07-6.
• Hunt, Luke (September 26, 2006)."Soldier, Journalist, Spy: Pham Xuan An 1927-2006".World Politics Review.
• Grant, Zalin (September 1995)."PHAM XUAN AN: VIETNAM'S TOP SPY -- Why Did U.S. Journalists Love Him?".Pythia Press.
• Grant, Zalin (1991).Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam.W.W. Norton.ISBN978-0-393-02925-3.
• Hoàng Hải Vân; Tấn Tú (2003).Phạm Xuân Ẩn: A General of the Secret Service.Hà Nội: Thế Giới Publishers.

External links

• Pham Xuan An Dies at 79; Reporter Spied for Hanoi
• Death of Vietnamese Super-Spy
• Interview with biographer Larry Berman about An