Communist Spy Who Posed as Reporter in Vietnam War Dies

By: Pham Xuan An, who led a remarkable and perilous double life as a communist spy and a respected reporter for Western news organizations during the Vietnam War, died Wednesday at age 79.

An, who suffered from emphysema, died at a military hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, said his son, Pham Xuan Hoang An.

In the history of wartime espionage, few were as successful as An. He straddled two worlds for most of the 15-year war in Indochina as an undercover communist agent while also working as a journalist, first for Reuters news service and later for 10 years as Time magazine's chief Vietnamese reporter ? a role that gave him access to military bases and background briefings.

He was so well-known for his sources and insight that many Americans who knew him suspected he worked for the CIA.

Before Saigon fell to the communists in 1975, An worked to help friends escape, including South Vietnam's former security chief. An later revealed his true identity as a Viet Cong commander, but said he never reported false information or communist propaganda while in his role as a journalist.

In a 2000 interview with The Associated Press, An said he always had warm feelings for his press colleagues and for the United States, where he attended college in Fullerton. But deep down, he remained a "true believer" in the communist cause as the best way to free Vietnam of foreign control.

"I fought for two things ? independence and social justice," he said.

Former media colleagues expressed mixed feelings, from bemusement to a sense of betrayal, after An revealed in the 1980s that he had been a spy.

Outside critics vilified An for his role in espionage activities that may have led to the deaths of many Americans and South Vietnamese.
But most of An's ex-colleagues refrained from criticizing his deception.

"If ever there was a man caught between two worlds, it was An. It is very hard for anyone who did not serve in Vietnam in those years to understand the complexity," said David Halberstam, who covered the early years of the war for The New York Times.

Stanley Karnow, a former Time-Life correspondent in Asia and author of the seminal 1983 book, "Vietnam; A History," said that despite his secret role, An was always reliable.

"I was struck by how much he knew and was willing to share," Karnow said. "He said later that his function as a spy was not disinformation, it was to gather the best info he could for them (the Viet Cong)."

An, by his own account, was born near Saigon and at age 16 joined a nationalist movement that later became the communist Viet-Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh.

Following Vietnam's independence in 1954, he served as an aide to Col. Edward Lansdale, the U.S. intelligence