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

The Spy Who Loved Us 177
be weak with just a trace of iodine, not too strong. One small
bottle of iodine and a small quantity of alcohol will last you a
long time. You can buy them from any pharmacy for a few piastres.
You dampen the piece of cotton and pass it over the
paper. The iodine stains the rice starch, and suddenly the writing
appears. You read the report and then burn the paper.”
The rest of the Communist spying operation was equally
primitive. When An visited the Cu Chi tunnels in the early
1960s, the only equipment for transmitting urgent messages to
headquarters was a Morse code radio link to Cambodia. “These
messages were then sent to the north, to the Politburo and to
Pham Van Dong, who was in charge of strategic intelligence,”
says An. Dong was the third member of North Vietnam’s ruling
triumvirate, along with Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen
Giap. He had earned his revolutionary credentials by spending
six years in the tiger cages of Poulo Condore. A mandarin’s son
and former classmate of Ngo Dinh Diem, Dong, instead of
going to work for the French, had helped found the Viet Minh.
After managing the Communist takeover of South Vietnam in
1975, which involved sending four hundred thousand people to
be “reeducated” in forced labor and prison camps, Dong served
for a decade as Vietnam’s hard-line premier.
With increasing frequency as Têt approaches, the bell on
An’s gate is pulled by visiting family members and friends. His
dogs yap as guests drop by throughout the day to leave bouquets
of apricot blossoms and other presents that are exchanged during
the holidays. Thu Nhan accepts the gifts and chats briefly
with the visitors on one side of the living room while An and I
talk on the other. An never makes any claims about the importance
of his intelligence. He minimizes his contribution to
the war as nothing more than “long-range strategizing.” Only
after meeting his colleagues in Vietnamese intelligence and
spending years piecing together his story did I begin to see a different
picture. An provided strategic and tactical intelligence to
the north, the kind of intelligence required to win battles and