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

The Spy Who Loved Us 237
Palace as President Diem’s private confessor and confidant.
After surviving the 1963 coup against Diem, Nha reemerged as
a trusted adviser to President Nguyen Van Thieu, the general
who led South Vietnam until the country ceased to exist in
1975. Nha successfully recruited a host of other spies into his
network, including the top Vietnamese officials involved in
planning strategic hamlets, pacification programs, troop deployments,
and other tactical moves in the war.
In 1968, during the Têt Offensive—while Tu Cang and his
commandos were attacking the Presidential Palace from the
street—Vu Ngoc Nha was commanding the agents inside who
were charged with capturing and killing Nguyen Van Thieu.
Luckily for Thieu, he was off for the holidays visiting his wife’s
family when the palace was attacked. Hoping to distract the
palace guard, Nha threw open the president’s wine cellar. Unfortunately
the timorous troops fought even better when they
were drunk. On returning to Saigon and seeing that his cellar
was the most heavily damaged part of the palace, Thieu commended
his priestly adviser for using such a brilliant stratagem
to rally morale.
When his cover was blown in 1969, Nha was arrested and
tortured before being sent to the tiger cages on Poulo Condore.
Pope Paul VI intervened on his behalf, recognizing Nha as a
“filial son of God.” Released in the prisoner exchange that followed
the signing of the Paris Accords in 1973, Nha reemerged
on the political scene as a “liberation bishop,” supposedly
supporting a third force to run Vietnam but actually working
again as a Communist agent. When Duong Van Minh, South
Vietnam’s final president, surrendered on April 30, 1975, standing
next to him as his trusted adviser was a smiling Vu Ngoc Nha.
The most brazen Communist agent in Vietnam was Albert
Pham Ngoc Thao. Another member of the Catholic upper
class, Thao, under the patronage of Dr. Tran Kim Tuyen, rose
quickly through the ranks to become chief of Kien Hoa province
in the Delta south of Saigon. He was so successful at building