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

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Historian Berman (Lyndon Johnson's War) draws on several years of interviews with Pham Xuan An before his death in 2006 for this engaging biography of the Time reporter who spied for North Vietnam throughout the Vietnam War. Pham Xuan An's deep cover began in 1957, when the Vietnamese Communist Party sent him to study journalism in California. After an internship at the Sacramento Bee and traveling around the U.S., he returned to South Vietnam in 1959. As a reporter for Reuters and Time, he was privy to classified information that made him a hero in Hanoi after the war. Amiable, fluent in English and adept at explaining Vietnam to Americans and vice versa, he was popular with reporters and officials of both nations. Readers may suspect some of An's recollections are self-serving, but the evidence in his favor is that almost everyone he befriended continued to admire him after learning his role. It's also clear An liked Americans, so much so that superiors suspected his loyalty and confined him to Vietnam after relations thawed. Without glossing over An's responsibility for American deaths, Berman portrays an attractive, sometimes tragic character. (May)
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From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Robert G. Kaiser

All the American journalists in Saigon knew Pham Xuan An, a ubiquitous

presence in our midst, a fixture at Givral's -- the café on Tu Do Street in the center of town where the gossip was thick enough to pick up with chopsticks -- and one of the best Vietnamese explainers of Vietnam to Americans. Soon after I arrived in Saigon in March 1969, Robert Shaplen, the New Yorker's Asian correspondent, advised me to get to know An because he knew everybody. I followed Shaplen's advice. Every American news organization with a Saigon bureau had one or more Vietnamese journalists on retainer to help us hapless correspondents, almost none of whom spoke any Vietnamese or knew the country's history and politics. Most of these people labored anonymously, but because he was so good and so useful, An's employer, Time magazine, put his name on its masthead and treated him as a full-fledged correspondent. But An, a garrulous charmer, was eager to help everyone, not just Time correspondents. He always seemed available for a conversation. One of his biggest assets was his excellent English. In the 1950s An had studied journalism and politics at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Calif. Today Orange County is a center of Vietnamese-American life, with hundreds of thousands of residents who came from Vietnam or were born to those who did, but An used to joke that he had been the first Vietnamese to live in the county. There he mastered the English language and learned a lot about Americans, too.

An's many successes in life grew from his ability to please people who could help him, including the South Vietnamese government officials who decided to send him to California. When I first knew him, he seemed like a classic example of a Vietnamese type: a resourceful entrepreneur who could make his way by making the right friends. But all of us who worked with him had to radically revise our impressions in the late 1970s, when it became obvious that the An we knew had been an invention. An, it turned out, had been working throughout the war, and back to the 1940s, for the communists. He was a spy -- the perfect spy, as Prof. Larry Berman of the University of California at Davis argues. After reading this book, it is difficult to dispute that characterization. An had many American friends who were or became famous writers, from Shaplen and David Halberstam to Neil Sheehan and Stanley Karnow, but for reasons he has taken to his grave, it was Berman in whom he confided the aspects of his secret life that none of us previously knew. The two met in Saigon -- now technically Ho Chi Minh City, though still Saigon to the natives -- in 2001. They became friends and then collaborators on this book.

Berman is no literary stylist. John le Carré could have turned this story into something Smiley would have envied; Berman tells it in Joe Friday fashion. Nor did An ever relinquish control, and Berman readily acknowledges that An held back some of his secrets. An also put events in the best possible light. That said, this is an extraordinary story, one that offers new explanations of several key events of the war. In each case, we learn of a critical role played by Pham Xuan An. Because everyone believed that An was an anti-communist Time magazine correspondent, he had extraordinary access to information from both Americans and South Vietnamese. He used this access ingeniously. Three examples:

Early in the war, before the arrival of U.S. combat forces, American advisers to the South Vietnamese helped the army of President Ngo Dinh Diem devise new tactics for fighting Vietcong guerrillas with the assistance of American helicopters, potentially a powerful weapon in a guerrilla war. An learned all about the new tactics from South Vietnamese and American sources and conveyed details to his masters in the North. The generals in Hanoi helped Vietcong commanders develop countertactics that were tested in one of the most important battles of the early war, at the village of Ap Bac just 30 miles south of Saigon. In January 1963, Vietcong forces clobbered the South Vietnamese in that engagement, shot down five U.S. helicopters, killed three American advisers and wounded five more. An's information had been critical.

In late 1967, An's masters told him their secret plans to launch the Tet Offensive early in 1968. He thought this was a bad idea -- he doubted the South Vietnamese people would join the "general uprising" the communists hoped the Tet attacks would provoke. But his job was to help prepare for the attacks, so for days he scouted out potential targets in Saigon, looking for soft spots in the city's defenses. He boldly brought his commander into the city and showed him around, introducing him as a bird collector and dealer (An collected birds himself) from out of town. The intelligence they gathered helped the communists infiltrate forces into Saigon for the offensive.

A third key moment came in 1975, when the North Vietnamese doubted they could march to Saigon uncontested. They thought it would take several years longer to lay the groundwork. An helped persuade them that the situation was ripe to take the initiative; of course, he was proved right.

The conquering North Vietnamese marched into Saigon and won a hard-fought victory, but they never really trusted Pham Xuan An. He was "re-educated," used as a consultant to explain American actions, but never entrusted with a serious job. The North Vietnamese must have suspected his revolutionary credentials. They were right to do so. An liked Americans and American ways too much to ever be a loyal Marxist-Leninist. I returned to Vietnam in 1994 and had two long conversations with An, then frail but still alive to the world around him. He said he was happy to talk but asked me not to quote him by name. I wanted him to discuss the American war and its consequences for Vietnam and for us, but An was bored by those topics. "You won World War III," he said a little impatiently, obviously referring to the Cold War. "So you lost a skirmish here -- so what?" Was he sad about that outcome? I thought not. An's cause was the unification and independence of Vietnam, not Marxism-Leninism. He had been frustrated by his own fate in the unified Vietnam, but the outcome of "World War III" seemed to suit him fine. An died in September 2006, of emphysema. Nearly 80, he'd been a chain smoker for half a century.

Berman's book appears 32 years after the war, yet, amazingly, adds significantly to our understanding of what happened. Students of American failures -- who have had so much new material to ponder -- will be richly rewarded by reading this book. So will le Carré fans -- not for its style but for its remarkable substance.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian; 1st Smithsonian Books Ed edition (April 24, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060888385
• ISBN-13: 978-0060888381
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #647,324 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The spy who duped the Saigon press corps..., April 28, 2007

By	Quang X. Pham (Orange County, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Professor Berman's latest book is highly readable and fascinating. An the spy left Saigon in 1957 (at that time, dozens, maybe hundreds of South Vietnamese also came to the United States including my father who arrived for pilot training with the Air Force) for Orange Coast College (OCC), smack in the middle of John Birch's conservative Orange County, California, now the de-facto capital of ex refugees who fled after An's North Vietnamese Army overran their homeland.

And yes, An played a major role in that victory. Just ask the much-heralded Saigon press corps and the likes of Neil Sheehan, Stanley Karnow, and Morley Safer. The late David Halberstam knew An fairly well too. Most of them have seen An in the years since the war had ended and have raised money to send his son to the University of North Carolina in the 1990s. Toward the end of the book, there's a picture of An's son standing next to President Bush during his "first" visit to Vietnam in late 2006. The son was serving as a translator. Time Magazine, An's last American employer, still had a pension for him.

Berman, an occasional marathonist with plenty of energy for an academic, had traveled to Vietnam numerous times to visit with An. He defly weaves a terrific narrative that takes readers through the Vietnam War and An's relationships with South Vietnamese officials and his American counterparts. The rehashing of key events during the war sometime bog down the pacing of the book. What I found most fascinating was An's time at OCC, where he was remembered as being outgoing, flirtatious and even fell in love with an American student, a blonde haired, blue eyed editor of the school's newspaper. He later befriended the daughter of newspaper mogul, C. K. McClatchy.

No one had a clue about the identity of this double mole who somehow survived a war that killed 58,300 Americans and 3 million of his fellow Vietnamese. Couldn't this "hero" and general have done more to end that quagmire sooner? Yet hardly any of the American correspondents who knew him expressed any remorse when they found out who An really was.

During an interview on NPR, Berman was asked by the host if An had lied to him. "An probably took 80% of his secrets with him to his grave," admitted Berman. Personally I believe many younger Vietnamese Americans could care less about An. Those of An's generation had family members on the Communist side as well. I do wonder about some in the Saigon press corps who tried to get An to attend their 2005 reunion in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) 30 years after it had been renamed. An politely declined, giving health problems as his reason.

With spies like An, who needed allies in Vietnam?

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Cannot Have it Both Ways, September 30, 2007

By	Sam Spade "jim" (Australia) - See all my reviews

I might not be as forgiving as some people, but I certainly would have felt betrayed by this man. He seeks to justify everything by stating that he felt the Americans did not belong in Vietnam. Maybe so. But what he did was so deceiful.To just look at the fact that he often helped those closest and known to him from suffering any harm, neglects the hundreds of thousands who died and were wounded as a result of his actions. To top it all off he sent his family to the US when the Communists came !! No doubt for a better life !!This fellow must have been of fairly limited intellect , or at least uneducated.And don't tell me was educated in the US - they let him do some courses... big deal! Did he really believe the Americans would attempt to rule Vietnam the way the French did ? Yes, they would take advantage of economic opportunities ( who does'nt), but what did he think they would have done if the South succeeded ? A good insight into blind nationalism and deceit by one of the most two faced people I have ever encountered. I still cannot understand his mindset.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, and Eerie!, September 8, 2007

By	Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Pham Xuan An was recruited by the Communist Party in Vietnam and sent to the U.S. in 1957 to learn journalism as a cover - long before the U.S. took a major role in the conflict. An quickly came to admire the U.S., did well in his studies (Orange Coast College) and internships, and was had several attractive offers for permanent work upon their completion. Yet, despite fear that he would be arrested by the South Vietnamese government upon returning to Vietnam, An returned, first reporting French troop actions, then also working for various government military figures (eg. teaching English to future VN spies; helping set up the Vietnamese spying service), and finally for various American publications - Time magazine in particular. Several times the CIA even tried to recruit An, with no success.

Early in his career An risked exposure to save the life of a Time reporter captured by the VietCong in Cambodia because he knew the reporter had saved a number of Vietnamese children's' lives from various Cambodian army massacres. This conflict between his spy role and friendship with Americans continued up to America's last day in Saigon when An helped a Vietnamese friend who had worked for the Americans escape. These actions, however, did not dull An's effectiveness - his insights and reports based on conversations and documents played key roles in VietCong/NVA tactics and strategy development. After the war ended, An was promoted to Maj. General, and collected his ten top-level medals.

An received no formal spy training - instead, he read a number of books by others who were past masters. Communications involving An were almost entirely one-way - towards nearby VietCong and much farther away NVA leaders in Hanoi. His methods were to use melted rice as invisible ink (revealed by pouring iodine over the paper), and secreting both the paper and film rolls in food materials handed off to a vendor.

An's career spanned 30 years - longer than any other spy. Consequently, after the war there was considerable suspicion by the communists that this was due to his having played both sides. He was even forbidden from leaving VN to attend a post-war correspondent's conference in NYC.

Some of the most impactful portions of "Perfect Spy" involved stories about eg. another VietCong spy who pushed the Vietnamese government to move peasants into more defensible self-contained villages. His rationale - he knew this would greatly upset the peasants and turn them against the government. An himself declared several times that the U.S.'s biggest failure was to develop a new cadre of leaders after Diem was deposed. It was also quite jarring to read details from the "other side" about so many areas that I had been to - Nha Trang, Siagon, Ban Me Thuot, Pleiku, Vung Tau, Khe Sanh.

My one wish is that "Perfect Spy" included more planning details from the VietCong and NVA side. Unfortunately, even the author (Larry Berman) sensed several times that An left much more unsaid than revealed.

Bottom Line: I was taken aback by An's working against the U.S. after having made so many friends here, how well the VietCong/NVA infiltrated U.S. planning, and how long ahead their thinking ran. The book also brings an eerie sense of wondering what is happening along these same lines now in Iraq.