Posted on 06/02/2007 9:56:42 AM PDT by 68skylark
SACRAMENTO -- Larry Berman, a political science professor at the University of California at Davis, is in the middle of a hectic publicity schedule for the launch of his new book, "Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An."
An, who died in 2006, was a longtime spy for the Communist Party in Vietnam and is credited with playing a major role in Vietnam's victory over the United States. A gifted conversationalist, An worked for Time magazine in Vietnam, befriending many of the era's leading journalists. But before that, he went to college in California and had a brief internship at The Sacramento Bee where, among other stories, he wrote a first-person account of his purported crusade against Communist propaganda. The piece made him a local celebrity and solidified his cover for years to come.
Berman, 56, sat down recently to talk about the book.
Question: How did Pham Xuan An become so successful as a spy?
Answer: He spent a lot of time developing his cover. All the people I interviewed for the book said they liked him because he could fit in. He could joke with people. He spoke English. He liked to joke. He really went to school studying the Americans. He studied how the CIA interacted with people, how college coeds interacted in Orange County.
He came to California to go to college in the late 1950s on assignment? He was developing as a spy?
He had no choice. He did not want to go, but his party ordered him to do it. This is what is the most interesting thing to me historically about his whole life, the foresight of the Communist Vietnamese. In 1955, to recognize that the United States was slowly but surely coming ... the Vietnamese would not be allowed to determine their future.
(Excerpt) Read more at fresnobee.com ...
shame on us for not trusting our own instincts....
shame on us for worrying about the world...
shame on us for not trusting our own instincts....
shame on us for worrying about the world...
Sure. I'm mostly looking at this paragraph from the Ben Stein column. It summarizes the positive feelings of his former co-workers, and it summarizes the positive feelings of the New Yorker writer, Thomas Bass:
When the war ended, An offered to go to the U.S. and continue spying for the Communists there. The offer was denied and he lives quietly in Ho Chi Minh City, where, among other pets, he keeps fighting cocks -- a practice generally considered barbaric in the circles of New Yorker readers, but another sign of his cuteness to Professor Bass. In fact, the whole article is about how cute and smart and clever and brave a guy An is. A lovable, brilliant, brave man who sent Americans and innocent civilians to their deaths. Bass even explains that almost all of An's former colleagues in the Western press still love the guy after learning he was a spy for America's enemy in the Vietnam War. They even gave money to bring him here for an auld lang syne visit not long ago.
Journalism in America has developed into a forum for Treason and Sedition. That has been obvious since the Korean War.
admittedly, Whittaker Chambers was long gone.
There are only 3 degrees of separation between western liberals and the communist party anyways. Leftist travelers all travel together.
Well you could say the same thing about a very large number of journalists during the Revolutionary War (Royalists), the quasi-war with France (anti-Federalists), the War of 1812 (nearly all of New England, especially early in the war), the War with Mexico (lots of folks), and especially the Civil War (Copperheads), not to mention anti-imperalists during the Spanish-American war. Hostile reporters are not a new phenomenon.
And even more significant, he worked for the McClatchy system in Kaleefornia.
“I consider him to be one of the great spies of the 20th century.
He didn’t spy for money or glory. He spied just for his country.”
This is rubbish. What did he really accomplish? I mean in our open society he had access to information all Americans do.
He could have been the greatest spy of the 20th century if he had come over to our side, and spied for us.
He didn't spy for money or glory. He spied just for his country.
Whether he was an enemy or not, I consider that a noble thing.
it’s coming back to me now. It is said that Mandy Grunwald’s father purged the staff and took it to the left. I’m not sure when that happened though.
But today reporters have a vastly enlarged and more rapid “news” delivery mechanism. “Three weeks of media treatment and the truth is recognized by all.” The rapid drumfire of thesis and counterthesis is irresistible. Very few can attain the inward detachment necessary even think through the latest rescript. Most of us think to order. This started in WWI.
Mike Wallace and Peter Jennings discuss “impartial” reporting vs. loyalty to the homeland during wartime...
Jennings & Wallace, reporters first, Americans second
Youtube clip...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGg_dpGhlf0
They will “leak” US plans but sit on their hands when it comes to the enemy. CNN covered up torture and abuse under Saddam Hussein to maintain their Baghdad Bureay. They had no such qualms when it came to blowing the actions at Abu Ghraib out of proportion... anything to unseat President Bush. They could’ve at least disclosed that it was the disgruntled uncle of one of the charged men who leaked the photos to the media when he was unable to secure a plea bargain for his nephew.
Thanks for the post.
I knew I’d heard at least one of our MSM luminaries say they were
reporters first, Americans second...just could not specifically recall
who it was that said it.
He spied to expand the North Vietnamese Communist empire.
It wasn't about "protecting" North Vietnam. It was about DEFEATING South Vietnam and making it all Communist.
That isn't patriotism, that is COMMUNISM.
Kruschev (sp) said (paraphrased), We’ll spit in your eyes and you Americans will say, “My my, isn’t the dew heavy today?”
Time Magazine has an Australian journalist embedded with the “insurgency” in the current war. He was with them when Saddam was captured and is proud of his actions.
He is a co-conspirator since he does not out the terrorists who strike today.
Peter Jennings was a Canadian first and American second. While he became an American citizen (after 20 years on American television telling us what to think), he still proclaimed himself a “dual citizen” and a Canadian. I think he got US citizenship just to vote against President Bush.
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