American author’s spy story evades wrath of Vietnam censors

Yet despite its sensitive subject, Larry Berman’s newly translated book about Vietnam’s most famous spy made it to Vietnamese bookstores this week without any significant changes to the text.

“Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An” tells the story of the charming, insightful spy who befriended America’s best-known journalists covering the Vietnam War, as well as high government officials in both Washington and the former Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City.

An was completely immersed in two worlds, working as an undercover communist agent and as a journalist for Reuters news service and Time magazine. He was so well informed that many of his American journalist friends suspected he worked for the CIA.

Shortly before his death at the age of 79 last year, An told his story to Berman, a historian at the University of California-Davis, whose book was originally published last May by Harper Collins.

“Perfect Spy” is among just a handful of American nonfiction works to be translated by one of Vietnam’s government-owned publishing houses, which usually choose more romantic fare. “Gone With the Wind” is a big seller here, and Sidney Sheldon is huge.

An was a hero to the communist revolutionaries who outlasted the U.S. troops and their South Vietnamese allies during the Vietnam War. He provided crucial intelligence that helped turn the tide of the conflict.

But when the war was over, he criticized the communist regime in Hanoi. “Perfect Spy” does not soften his critique.

That the censors at the Ministry of Information and Communication let it through untouched indicates that perhaps they are relaxing their grip a bit.

“It had to be true to my words,” Berman said in an interview with The Associated Press during a recent visit to Hanoi. “And if I said no, the deal was off.”

As a wartime correspondent, Pham Xuan An befriended top American journalists covering the Vietnam war, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Neil Sheehan of United Press International, holding court with them at the Givral Cafe in the former Saigon.

An was trusted completely by top officials of the South Vietnamese government, which the U.S. supported until the end of the war in 1975. The regime’s top intelligence official was his close friend, and he also befriended the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s top man in Vietnam, Edward Lansdale.

“He fooled everybody,” Berman said. “Everybody! He was a great conversationalist, he was witty. And he was so American.”

As part of his apprenticeship as a spy, An spent two years attending Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, soaking up American culture by attending square dances and cookouts. He developed a genuine fondness for American culture.

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