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

The Spy Who Loved Us 99
The last time An had shot a gun was when he fired on a
platoon of French soldiers moving through the Mekong
delta in April 1946, but he was armed again when he went into
the field with two American soldiers in January 1956. He was
carrying the pistol given to him by his cousin before he fled into
exile. “It was a Walther 7.65 millimeter, with a brown handle
and a shiny, blue-green barrel. This is what we call a ‘love pistol.’
It is designed to be carried in your handbag or in your
pocket and removed when it is required to shoot your spouse
or her lover.”
“I had never used it, and I didn’t even know how it worked,
until I went into the field one day as liaison officer for Colonel
Glenn and Colonel Hicks, two American advisers. We were
going into the delta to watch Diem’s troops fight the last Communist
forces which had been left behind. We drove to Long Ha
by jeep and then took boats from there to Moc Hoa, in the Plain
of Reeds, near the Cambodian border. While out in the field
with Lansdale’s men, I tied the pistol with a string to my belt
loop, so if it fell out of my pocket, I wouldn’t lose it.”
When they demanded to see what was in An’s pocket,
Colonel Hicks and Colonel Glenn laughed at his little pistol. Like
all American advisers, they carried big Colts. They asked if An
had ever fired his gun and then shook their heads in disbelief.
“An, you are the worst soldier we have ever seen in our
lives,” they said. “You are smart, but you have no initiative.
What you need is a brain transplant. You need an American
brain grafted onto your Vietnamese brain. Then you might be
able to go out in the world and accomplish something.’”
After a crash course in the field, An knew how to break
down his pistol and clean it. He also knew the correct way to
smoke cigarettes. The advisers noticed that An was puffing
Lucky Strikes without inhaling. He had the profligate habits of
a customs inspector who got his cigarettes and other contraband
for free. “They taught me how to get the smoke into my lungs
and blow one part out through my mouth and the other part out