Spy doubled as journalist in Vietnam War

HANOI, Vietnam — 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.

Mr. An, who suffered from emphysema, died at a military hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, his son, Pham Xuan Hoang An, told The Associated Press.

Mr. An had lived in the city, formerly known as Saigon, since South Vietnam fell to North Vietnamese forces April 30, 1975.

For most of the 15-year war in Indochina he was an undercover communist agent while also working as a journalist, first for Reuters 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, Mr. An worked to help friends escape, including South Vietnam's former security chief who feared death if he was found by northern forces. Mr. An later revealed his true identity as a Viet Cong commander but said he never reported any false information or communist propaganda while in his role as a journalist.

In a 2000 interview with The Associated Press, Mr. An said he always had warm feelings for his press colleagues and for the United States, where he attended college. 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 Mr. An revealed in the 1980s that he had been a spy. Outside critics vilified Mr. An for his role in espionage activities that may have led to the deaths of many Americans and South Vietnamese. But most of Mr. 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.

Mr. 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 officer who played an instrumental role in early U.S. support for the fledgling anti-communist regime in Saigon in the late 1950s. Lansdale was believed to be the model for a main character in Graham Greene's novel, "The Quiet American."