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

The Spy Who Loved Us 137
How does a correspondent for Reuters win a combat
medal? When asked, An always scurries behind his standard explanation:
he did strategic analysis and provided background information
on the commanders and troops involved. But An
did far more. He was intimately involved in training the Vietcong
troops who engaged in the battle, advising them on how
to fight against helicopter gunships, armored personnel carriers,
and other new weapons which were then being introduced
into Vietnam. He mapped the battlefield strategy and helped lay
the trap that led to the Communist victory, and then he went
out and got the story reported.
The battle took place outside the hamlet of Ap Bac, forty
miles southeast of Saigon, in January 1963. “Up till then Viet
Cong activities had consisted of hit-and-run attacks, avoiding
pitched battles,” Nick Turner wrote in an article called “Media
and War: Reflections on Vietnam,” which was published in
2003. “The Americans said that if the Communists could be
made to stand and fight they would get a bloody nose. Ap Bac
was the first pitched battle between substantial Viet Cong and
government forces, and it was a Viet Cong victory. And it could
not be hidden because on the night of the battle I drove to the
scene, taking Neil Sheehan of UPI with me, and at dawn we inspected
the battlefield and got a clear picture of what had
happened.”
When I ask Turner how he knew to head to Ap Bac, he
pointed to Pham Xuan An. “An was the first reporter to break
the news. He fed me the initial story and details that got me to
write it. He told me some American helicopters had been shot
down and that I should go to Ap Bac. America was not directly
involved in the war at this point; so the fact that American helicopters
were getting shot down was big news. It was the first
major battle of the war. The Communists stood and fought. They
inflicted serious damage, shooting down five troop-carrying helicopters,
and then they disappeared into the countryside. The