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By Kay Ledger
Movie and Book Reviewer
Historians say he may be the master spy of the 20th century. So perhaps it is appropriate most Americans have never heard the name Pham Xuan An. In a new book titled "Perfect Spy," historian Larry Berman explores the double life of An, a Vietnamese journalist who worked for Time magazine during the Vietnam War. But, for two decades, Pham Xuan An was the North Vietnamese' most devastating intelligence agent.
Berman, a professor of political science at UC Davis, is well known for several books on the Vietnam War, notably "No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam." "Perfect Spy" is his first attempt to look at the war from the Vietnamese point of view.
"What better way to look at it than through the eyes of a North Vietnamese spy who'd actually spent time in America and liked Americans, yet at the same time considered himself a nationalist," says Berman, who spent two years interviewing An in Ho Chi Minh City, before An died there in 2006.
An's life deep undercover fascinates Berman. "Here's a spy who immersed himself in American culture and came to America at a time when the war was still 'innocent,'” he says. "One of the things that happened to him along the way was that he actually admired the people in the system that he was spying against. To me, that dilemma, that tension, that complexity is the story of his life, and very well worth telling."
According to Berman, An joined the revolution of Ho Chi Minh as a teenager in the early 1950s to help throw the French out of Vietnam; he joined the Communist Party in 1953. His superiors sent him to California in 1957 to study journalism and American culture. An returned home to raise a family in Saigon. Berman says he worked as a journalist for Time magazine, and as a "source and helpful person to various agencies of the South Vietnamese government, who came to respect his judgment." All the while, he sent intelligence to the North Vietnamese, including reports that influenced several key battles.
When the War ended in 1975, An was made a Hero of the Revolution, but he quickly became disillusioned with the new government, and he was denied permission to ever leave Vietnam.
An was apparently a humble man, sincere, with many devoted friends among American journalists and South Vietnamese. But, does he have blood on his hands? Berman says he does, in the sense that he wrote reports that "resulted in the deaths of South Vietnamese and Americans." Yet, "An always insisted he doesn't have blood on his hands, that he saw himself as an analyst sitting in some office and he sent reports up," says Berman.
"In the book, I said I try to push An on this point," Berman adds, "but he argued and I do agree with this, that he was defending his country. He would pound the table and he would say, 'When I was in the United States you could have never convinced me the United States was going to send 550,000 American troops to Vietnam, bomb our country, defoliate our jungles, and so much death on both sides! What did we ever do to America?' And he said, 'What was I supposed to do? I was defending my country.'"
In the eyes of some Vietnamese in the United State and Vietnam, says Berman, An is a traitor, but he adds that many Vietnamese have let go of their anger toward An. "I do believe for many Vietnamese, it's not that they have forgiven An. It's just that there was so much anger, so many lives lost, so many deceptions that after 30 years, there are many people who can say 'enough's enough.'"
Berman is amazed by how many people relate An's experience in America 30 years ago with geopolitical events today. "I'm on this book tour now, and I'm always asked the question with respect to human intelligence and Iraq, 'Could agents like Pham Xuan An be operating in America today? Who came here, live in American culture, absorb the best of our country, yet are really working for the enemy.' While that wasn't my original intention, I am struck by how interested people are in that discussion."
Larry Berman's book is available in bookstores and online.
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