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

162 THOMAS A. BASS
up with Shaplen before he left Southeast Asia but arrived too
late.) In a letter to Edward Lansdale written in 1982, Shaplen
mentioned that former Time reporter Stanley Karnow was
claiming that An was a Communist spy. Lansdale replied, advising
that whatever Karnow reported about Vietnam should be
“taken with a grain of salt.” Until his death in 1987, Lansdale refused
to believe that An was anything more than a quick change
artist who had flipped to the winning side at the last minute.
Only when he was finally allowed to see An in 1988 did Shaplen
get a firsthand report about An’s long career as a spy. The reunion
was not a happy one, at least for Shaplen, who felt heartbroken
and betrayed. “Dad cried when he told me the story,”
Peter says.
The nature of Shaplen and An’s early relationship was captured
in a photo taken by Richard Avedon in 1971 and published
in his book The Sixties (see pages x–xi). Better known as
a fashion photographer than a war reporter, Avedon flew to
Vietnam at his own expense in April 1971. The previous month,
Lieutenant William Calley had been convicted of murdering
twenty-two civilians in the village of My Lai and sentenced to
life in prison. (Altogether, more than five hundred civilians
were killed at My Lai. Calley was released and pardoned after
three years of detention, mostly under house arrest.) When he
arrived in Saigon, Avedon set up a studio in the Continental
Hotel and started booking a ten-day photo shoot with napalm
victims, U.S. generals, bar girls, and soldiers.
Shaplen arrived in Avedon’s makeshift studio with four
Vietnamese colleagues. In the photograph Avedon published,
the journalists are dressed in their customary attire of white
shirts and dark slacks. Pens and eyeglasses are tucked in their
shirt pockets. At the center of the photo, a bemused Shaplen
bends close, his right hand cupped to his head, a smile hovering
around his lips, while An laughingly whispers something in
his ear. Standing beside An is Cao Giao, looking professorial