60 nam nhung trang su ve vang Cong an nhan dan Viet Nam, 1945-2005. Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Cong an nhan dan, 2005. 258 pp.
Bao Phuc, Cum tinh bao J22: nhung chien se nam trong long dich va cuoc chien tham lang trong khang chien chong My. Hanoi: Lao dong, 2010. 443 pp.
Cong an Nhan dan, 65 nam xay dung, chien dau va truong thanh. Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Cong an nhan dan, 2010. 701 pp.
Cong an nhan dan Viet nam, Tap II (du thao) [People's Public Security of Vietnam, vol. II (draft)]. Ho Chi Minh City: Ministry of Interior, 1978.
Colonel Dinh Thi Van, I Engaged in Intelligence Work. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 2006. 252 pp. Vietnamese original Toi di lam tinh bao: hoi ky. Hanoi: NXB Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 1988. 253 pp. Dinh Thi Van was trained as an intelligence agent and sent south probably in the mid 1950s. She was arrested once by RVN authorities, but managed to talk her way out. The main focus of the book is on the period up to 1968, although I believe she continued working as an agent until 1975. [See also biography by Khanh Van, below.]
Ha Binh Nhuong, Magnificant Camouflage: Stories of Secret Agents in the Saigon Administration. Hanoi: The Gioi, 2008. 321 pp. I believe the Vietnamese original was titled Vo boc nhiem mau. I suspect the book is significantly fictionalized.
Han Song Thanh, Chan dung mot nha tinh bao: truyen dai. TP Ho Chi Minh: Nha Xuat Ban Van Nghe TP Ho Chi Minh, 1999. 559 pp. The life of an intelligence officer named Dao Phuc Loc, who died in 1969.
Lt. Col. Hoang Mac and Maj. Ngueyn Hung Linh, Luc luong chong phan dong: lich su bien nien (1954-1975) [Anti-reactionary forces: chronology of events (1954-1975]. Hanoi: Public Security Publishing House, 1997.
Hong Lien and Bau Phuc, eds., Chien tranh giai phong dan toc va nhung chien si nam trong long dich: 7 anh hung tinh bao Quan doi Nhan dan Viet Nam. Hanoi: Thoi dai, 2012. 435 pp.
Huu Mai, Ong co van: ho so mot diep vien, 2 vols. Hanoi: NXB Quan doi nhan dan, 1988, 1989. 367, 286 pp. A somewhat fictionalized account of the career of Vu Ngoc Nha, a Communist agent who was a senior adviser to RVN President Nguyen Van Thieu until his exposure and arrest in 1969.
Khanh Van, Nu anh hung tinh bao. TP Ho Chi Minh: Nha Xuat Ban TP Ho Chi Minh, 1995. 416 pp. The life of a female intelligence officer named Dinh Thi Van [see above], who served in South Vietnam througout the war.
Ky yeu Hoi thao khoa hoc lich su Cong an Nhan dan trong su nghiep khang chien chong My, cuu nuoc. Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Cong an nhan dan, 2010. 751 pp.
Nguyen Phuc Hoai, Lich su Cuc Bao ve - An ninh Quan Doi Nhan Dan viet Nam (1950-2000). Hanoi: NXB Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 2003.
Nguyen Tai was a very senior DRV intelligence and security officer in the north during the first Indochina war, and in the South during the second.
Nguyen Tai, Ve voi coi nguon: hoi ky. Hanoi: Cong an nhan dan, 1997.
Nguyen Tai, Doi mat voi CIA My (Face to Face with the American CIA). Hanoi: Writers Association Publishing House, 1999.
Merle L. Pribbenow, "The Man in the Snow White Cell," Studies in Intelligence, 48:1 (2004), pp. 59-69. Nguyen Tai was sent south in 1964 and operated for several years in Saigon and the Mekong Delta, responsible for assassinations among other things. He was captured in December 1970. He defeated his interrogators; neither Vietnamese interrogators (who used severe torture) not Americans (who did not) were able to extract his most important secrets.
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hai, Tran Quoc Huong, nguoi chi huy tin bao. Hanoi: Cong an nhan dan, 2010. 219 pp.
Nhung guong mat nu diep bao. Hanoi: Cong an nhan dan, 1997. 127 pp. Female spies.
Pham Tuong Han, Anh hung Pham Ngoc Thao, tieu thuyet ky su. Hanoi: NXB Cong An Nhan Dan, 2001. 177 pp.
Pham Van Hoa et al., Bien nien su kien lich su Luc luong Canh sat Giao thong, 1954-1997. Hanoi: NXB Chinh tri quoc gia, 1998. 491 pp.
Pham Van Quyen, Bien nien su kien lich su an ninh mien Nam thoi ky chong My cuu nuoc, 1954-1975. Hanoi: NXB Chinh tri quoc gia, 2005. 358 pp.
Pham Xuan An (1927-2006) was an important Communist intelligence agent who worked as a reporter first for Reuters, later for Time Magazine. Works about him include:
Thomas A. Bass, "The Spy Who Loved Us: The Double Life of Time's Saigon Correspondent during the Vietnam War." New Yorker, May 23, 2005.
Thomas A. Bass, The Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009. xviii, 297 pp.
Larry Berman, Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent. New York: Smithsonian Books (HarperCollins), 2007. 328 pp. A Vietnamese traslation was published in Hanoi by NXB Thong tan in 2008.
Hoang Hai Van and Tan Tu, Pham Xuan An: A General of the Secret Service. Hanoi: The Gioi, 2003. 215 pp. Hanoi: The Gioi, 2008. viii, 207 pp. (I believe this was translated from a book titled Pham Xuan An: tuong tin bao chien luoc, but I have been unable to find publication data on that one.)
Luke Hunt, Punji Trap: Pham Xuan An: The Spy Who Didn't Love Us. Phnom Penh: Pannastra University of Cambodia/Singapore: Talisman Publishing, 2018. 250 pp.
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hai, Pham Xuan An ten nguoi nhu cuoc doi. Hanoi: Cong an nhan dan, 2002. 211 pp.
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hai, Toi chet bat dau mot the gioi song: Pham Xuan An ten nguoi nhu cuoc doi. Hanoi: Cong an nhan dan, 2004. 375 pp.
Jan Smark Nilsson, Walking the Tightrope. Trinity Beach, Queensland, Australia: Terebra, 2012. 232 pp. Nilsson went to Saigon in 1961 as the wife of a correspondent for Reuters. The book contains considerable information about Pham Xuan An, who was working for Reuters in the early 1960s.
Jean-Claude Pomonti, Un Vietnamien bien tranquille: l'extraordinaire histoire de l'espion qi défia l'Amérique. Paris: Equateurs, 2006. 187 pp. Pomonti served in South Vietnam during the war as a reporter for Le Monde.
Phung Thien Tam, ed., Ky niem sau sac trong doi Cong an [Profound memories from the lives of Public Security officers]. Hanoi: People's Public Security Publishing House, 1995.
Merle Pribbenow, The Soviet-Vietnamese Intelligence Relationship during the Vietnam War, CWIHP Working Paper #73. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2014. 17 pp.
So thao bien nien su kien lich su Cuc cong tac chinh tri, 1967-2012. Hanoi: NXB Cong an nhan dan, 2012. 446 pp.
Tang Van Sy, ed., Lich su Cong an nhan dan Viet Nam: so thao. Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Cong an nhan dan, 1996.
Sandra C. Taylor, "Long-Haired women, short-haired spies: Gender, espionage, and America's war in Vietnam", Intelligence and National Security 13:2 (1998), pp. 61–70.
Tong ket lich su cong tac hau can Cong an nhan dan, 1945-2005. Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Cong an nhan dan, 2012. 264 pp.
US Department of the Army, TRAMPOLINE No. 1: The Viet Cong Security Service. July 1965. Reissued, presumably revised but still as TRAMPOLINE No. 1, July 1967. Only "Confidential," so presumably it is declassified or declassifiable today. A joint product of U.S. civilian and military agencies in Saigon and Washington.
US Department of the Army, TRAMPOLINE No. 2: The DRVN Strategic Intelligence Service - Cuc Nghien Cuu. June 1968. x, 177 pp. The text, somewhat incomplete, is online in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.
Christopher E. Goscha, "Intelligence in a Time of Decolonization: The Case of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam at War (1945-1950)," Intelligence and National Security 22:1 (February 2007), pp. 100-138.
Mai Chi Tho, Hoi uc, nhung mau chuyen doi toi, vol. 1. NXB Tre, 2001. Mai Chi Tho, younger brother of Le Duc Tho, played a key role in the Viet Minh security services in southern Vietnam during the First Indochina War.
Nguyen Bac, Giua thanh pho bi chiem. Hanoi: NXB Hanoi, 1994. French translation Au coeur de la ville captive, sourvenir d'un agent Viet Minh infiltré à Hanoi. Paris: Arléa, 2004.
Nguyen The Bao,
See also Tran Quoc Hoan
(DRV Minister of Public Security).
Special Forces,
Special Operations, and Intelligence
Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019,
Edwin E. Moise. This document may be reproduced only by permission. Revised July 16, 2019.