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

The Spy Who Loved Us 199
Communists . . . I mean, the revolution, or with the puppets.
They called the Saigon government the puppet government.
The other side they called the revolutionary government.”
To hide the fact that it was the real power directing the
war in South Vietnam, the Communist Party pretended to
defer to the National Liberation Front, which was revolutionary
but not necessarily Communist. This is why An corrects
himself, striking the c-word from his description. Only after
1975 was it publicly revealed that the NLF was indeed a Communist
front. This revelation came as a surprise to some members
of the NLF, who were shoved aside after the fall of Saigon.
The Front was disbanded and many disillusioned partisans
joined the boat people fleeing Vietnam.
As organized by Tran Van Tra, the Têt Offensive was to be
followed by a second wave of attacks in May 1968. At the onset
of what was called the mini-Têt offensive, the Communists
began shelling Saigon indiscriminately with 122 mm Russian
rockets, blowing up buildings and killing scores of civilians. “I
sent a message to the commanders in the field asking them to
stop firing on the city,” An says. “I told them to stop the shelling.
It had no military objective and was alienating people.”
“What happened next?” I ask.
“The shelling stopped. Maybe thanks to my request. Maybe
on their own. They were my superiors. They never told me
why they did what they did.
“A Catholic priest later explained to me why sending rockets
into Saigon and killing innocent people was an effective strategy.
‘It’s very simple,’ he said. ‘The people in Saigon were
spending their lives loafing around making money out of the
Americans. They didn’t care which side won, just so long as
they could sell things and rent their houses at a high price.
The Communists wanted them to take sides.’ Either you are
with the Communists . . . I mean, the revolution, or you are with
the puppets.” I notice that An is again correcting himself by reflex,
omitting mention of the Communists.