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

98 THOMAS A. BASS
“While he was there, the CIA people used him to work for
the Americans, and the Deuxième Bureau used him to work
for the French. He got involved in cooking another coup in Indonesia.
It was all very complicated,” An says, waving his hands
in front of his face. “These people had too many brains. I was
one of the stupid men.”
From being an elf in Giai’s shop producing psywar pamphlets
and rumor campaigns, An moved up to being the point
man at TRIM responsible for sending Vietnam’s military officers
for training in the United States. This is when he began accumulating
the skein of contacts and favors that made him the
best-connected man in Vietnam. “I picked out the likely candidates,
assembled their CVs, and arranged their security clearances
with Vietnamese intelligence and the U.S. embassy. The
Vietnamese were sent to schools in the U.S. to learn about
counterinsurgency, like Nguyen Van Thieu, who later became
South Vietnam’s president. He was sent to Fort Leavenworth
in Kansas. I filled out his paperwork and followed the reports
that were sent back to MAAG.”
Although he had yet to set foot in America, An lectured the
Vietnamese on what to expect when they got there. “Americans
shake hands when they greet each other. They look you in the
eye when they talk and smile a lot.” An also told them that
Americans were sticklers for rules, even rules that if strictly
applied would prevent any Vietnamese from ever getting to
the United States. For example, Vietnam’s military officers always
failed their medical exams. Many of them had been exposed
to tuberculosis or recovered from earlier infections. “I
spent a lot of time arguing with the American doctors about
these exams,” An remembers. “I had to explain to them the difference
between scars from previous infections and active cases
of tuberculosis.” Worms were another touchy subject. In a
country that fertilized its fields with human excrement, few
people in Vietnam were free of parasites. “There were hookworms
and tapeworms, all kinds of worms,” An says.