Pham Xuan An, 79; Reporter for Time, Spy for Viet Cong

Born in Hai Duong, Mr. Pham dropped out of high school in 1945 to enlist in the Viet Minh, which fought for Vietnam's independence from France. After a short time, he left for Saigon, where he organized student demonstrations against the French. The Viet Minh anticipated that the American presence would grow after the French left and decided to train Mr. Pham as a spy. Inducted into the Communist Party in 1953, he volunteered as a press censor at the Saigon post office.

He could not avoid being drafted into the South Vietnamese Army, but using family connections, he got himself assigned to Lansdale, the U.S. colonel who ran the CIA's covert operations in Vietnam, and began to learn spycraft. The Viet Minh raised money to send Mr. Pham to college in the United States, and with the help of a State Department scholarship, he enrolled at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesta, Calif., and studied journalism for two years.

Mr. Pham worked as an intern at the Sacramento Bee newspaper and then drove cross-country and interned at the United Nations.

Summoned back to Vietnam in 1959, he began working for VTX, the Viet News Agency, and then for Reuters. He became immensely popular with newsmen, often sharing tidbits and explaining relationships while smoking cigarettes at Saigon's street cafes, accompanied by his two German shepherds.

Slender, engaging and at ease with nuances that escaped reporters who did not speak the language, Mr. Pham warned his superiors against launching the Tet Offensive, which they believed would spark a popular uprising, Karnow said. They disregarded his advice, and he helped scout targets for the attack in Saigon. He later counted the dead while driving around the city in his green Renault.

Survivors include his wife, Thu Nanh, and four children.

Mr. Pham never expressed regret about his role, biographer Berman said.

"He didn't believe we belonged in his country. He was a nationalist," Berman said. "He felt this is something the Vietnamese had to settle between themselves. To put it another way, he thought America got in the way of Vietnam's history."