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

The Spy Who Loved Us 151
scurvy, beriberi, and one hundred and thirty-six attacks of falciparum
malaria, that Ramsey was released in 1973.
In the fall of 2007, I learned the rest of Ramsey’s story
from a former State Department official who wishes to remain
anonymous. Not only did An save Ramsey’s life, he also got
the Communists to agree to exchange Ramsey for a Communist
officer in Western hands. Unfortunately for Ramsey, the exchange
was blocked by the CIA, which was busily interrogating
its captive. A high-level confession could advance CIA careers.
Ramsey could wait.
An had other good reasons to work for Beverly Deepe.
“The American women journalists had one advantage over the
men,” he says. “The people they interviewed thought they
could fool them. They thought they could get them to parrot
their own ideas or prejudices. The women appeared to be
agreeing with you during an interview, but later, when they
wrote up their stories, it was completely different. They had
their own ideas, and the men they interviewed, time and again,
were proved wrong. These journalists looked sweet, but actually
they were very tough.”
“I consider her as my sister, my older sister,” An says of
Deepe. “I was protected by my personal goddesses. I hoped that
one of them would have a chance to write about me, rather than
a man. Unfortunately, my wish didn’t come true.”
An and Deepe found themselves in the middle of one big
story she missed because she was a woman. In August 1965, they
flew north to Danang and checked into the press center, a former
brothel which had been turned into a hotel run by the
marines. Here they encountered CBS newsman Morley Safer
and his cameraman and soundman, who were also in town
looking for local color. “I spent the day with Beverly Ann Deepe
out in the field with a marine company,” An says. “They were
nice soldiers. They were doing public affairs, public relations,
seeing the people, giving them gifts, providing them with medicine
that tasted like candy. They were helping children whose