The Spy Who Loved Us_ The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game ( PDFDrive )

The Spy Who Loved Us 83
a battle against the French. The French had struck their deal
with Bay Vien, the Binh Xuyen chief, out of necessity because
without him they had neither the money nor the men to regain
control of Vietnam after World War II. Bay Vien was indifferent
to whether he supported the French or the Viet Minh, and
he was a Communist before he was a capitalist, but the latter cut
him a better deal.
While collecting “insurance” payments of two thousand six
hundred dollars a day from Saigon’s Grand Monde casino, the
Binh Xuyen by 1947 had an army of ten thousand men organized
into seven full regiments, making it the largest Viet Minh
force in Cochin China. This same year the Viet Minh launched
a wave of terror attacks against the French. Although Bay Vien
initially supported the Viet Minh, by 1948 he had swung over
to the French side, which allowed him to expand his lucrative
hold on Saigon’s drug traffic, gambling dens, and houses of
prostitution. Bay Vien’s link with the Deuxième Bureau was
more than financial. The Binh Xuyen was so adept at gathering
intelligence through a block-by-block network of informants
that Diem’s secret police later adopted this system themselves.
To root the Viet Minh out of Saigon and secure the city from terrorist
attacks, the French were obliged to turn over more and
more territory and an increasing number of government functions
to the Binh Xuyen.
Saigon became Bay Vien’s personal fiefdom. Elevated by
Bao Dai to the rank of general, he opened the Hall of Mirrors,
the largest brothel in Asia, with twelve hundred employees.
He ran the Grand Monde casino in Cholon and the equally
profitable Cloche d’Or in Saigon, and he controlled hundreds
of opium dens in Saigon and Cholon, with a percentage of
their profits being paid yearly to Emperor Bao Dai. Vien’s lieutenant
was named director-general of the police in the capital
region, which stretched sixty miles from Saigon out to the
coastal resort at Cap Saint Jacques. Bay Vien’s commercial contacts
in France were key to his success. “The unchallenged