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Vu Ngoc Nha, 74, a Top Communist Spy in Vietnam, Dies August 11, 2002 By DAVID STOUT WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - Vu Ngoc Nha, an unassuming man who lived a double life as a special adviser to two presidents of the American-backed government of South Vietnam, died on Wednesday in his home in Ho Chi Minh City after a long illness, his family said. He was 74. Ho Chi Minh City was called Saigon during the years Mr. Nha served as a top aide there to Presidents Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu. He became so close to Mr. Thieu that he shared meals and confidences with him, sometimes in the presidential bedroom. "The president and I discussed not only matters of national importance, but also talked over his family's affairs," Mr. Nha said last April in an interview with the Vietnam News Agency. "Some things were known only by him and me. He even gave me the key to his room." Neither Mr. Thieu nor his predecessor Mr. Diem, who was assassinated in 1963, suspected Mr. Nha's other life. For more than a decade, he regularly passed government secrets to the South Vietnamese Communists, or Vietcong, and their North Vietnamese allies. He was in fact the leader of a spy ring uncovered by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1969. Mr. Nha, who was born in the northern province of Thai Binh, told a five-man military tribunal that he became a Communist as a young man and was assigned in 1955 to infiltrate the South and set up an intelligence network. One of his best sources was Huynh Van Trong, Mr. Thieu's special assistant for political affairs. Mr. Nha proudly told of getting secret information from Mr. Trong and relaying it to his Communist confederates - data on Mr. Thieu's meeting with President Nixon on Midway Island in June 1969 and on the Saigon government's negotiating strategy at the Paris peace talks, for instance. Mr. Nha gave the Communists details of the Saigon government's psychological warfare operations and its monitoring of Vietcong broadcasts. He was also said to have advised Mr. Thieu to furlough soldiers for a few days in late January 1968 - knowing that the Communists would attack during the Lunar New Year. They did, in the Tet offensive, which helped to drive the United States out of the war. When Mr. Nha was arrested in Saigon on July 16, 1969, numerous documents, letters and rolls of microfilm were found in his home. Mr. Trong denied that he was a Communist. But he admitted that he had concluded many months before that Mr. Nha was. Why then, the court wanted to know, did Mr. Trong continue to pass information to Mr. Nha? It was because he did not want to spoil the relationship between Mr. Thieu and Mr. Nha, Mr. Trong answered. "They appeared to be on such familiar terms that I felt I did not have the right to interfere." (Later, Mr. Trong told the court he had had contacts with the Vietcong, but he insisted he had been trying to bring about "national reconciliation" and to end the war.) Mr. Nha, Mr. Trong and two other defendants were convicted of treason and sentenced to life in prison at hard labor. Dozens of others were given jail terms. The affair further weakened the government of Mr. Thieu, who was often accused of tolerating corruption and cronyism. Mr. Nha smiled at his sentencing. "Our mission is fulfilled," he said, predicting that the Thieu government would not last and that he would soon be out of prison. He remained in custody until 1973, when he returned to North Vietnam in a prisoner exchange after the Paris agreement, which officially ended the Vietnam War. By some accounts, he returned to the South in 1974, living in underground tunnels and preparing for the North's complete victory over the Saigon government, which came in 1975. Mr. Nha was then made a major general in the army of the unified Communist Vietnam. The old spy, who is survived by a wife and three children, spent his last years gardening and occasionally visiting Reunification Palace, as the Communists renamed the home of the presidents he served and deceived. "Obviously, it has a special attraction for me," he reminisced in April. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/obituaries/11NHA.html?ex=1030066514&ei=1&en=4ee9576568a24e04 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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