Bilingual website on noted spy launched

Hanoi, August 4 (VNA) - American professor and historian Larry Berman, who wrote a book on famed Vietnamese spy Pham Xuan An, has launched a website in English and Vietnamese to honour the late general. Berman is the author of a book titled "X6 – Perfect Spy" featuring the incredible double life of Pham Xuan An, who was a reporter with Reuters, Time and New York Herald Tribune and a strategic Vietnamese intelligence officer during the American War. On his website, http://perfectspyx6.com/ Berman provides a lot of intriguing information in Vietnamese and English and photos of General An and his book on the eminent spy. He had also collected posts and articles on An and shared authentic conversations between the intelligence general and himself while writing his book. The letter written by Thu Nhan, General An's wife, to Berman, can also be found there. The English version of Berman's first book and the revised edition on General An has been published in the US and several other countries. The American professor also worked with local book publisher First News on a 32-episode TV series on the general, with each episode being around 45 minutes in length. The film, which costs around 1 million USD, will be shot in Vietnam and the US, with the script being revised by the professor himself. The first episode is expected to air on Vietnam's National Day, September 2, 2015. Berman, who is also working on a 120-minute feature film on the general, "Diep Vien Hoan Hao X6" (The Perfect Spy X6), hoped the film will be screened at the Academy Awards or the Cannes Film Festival, to let the world know about the brilliant Vietnamese spy. General An himself recounted his eventful, thrilling double life to Berman, who recorded it and wrote and published his book in 2007. Six years later, Berman made significant additions to his publication, including astoundingly intriguing facts and details on An's life, which he had recorded but didn't include in the first edition. Pham Xuan An (1927 – 2006), also known by ‘X6', ‘Hai Trung' or ‘Tran Van Trung', worked in South Vietnam as a reporter for Reuters, TIME magazine and the New York Herald Tribune during the American War, while at the same time spying for North Vietnam. An led this dangerous double life for more than twenty years. After the war, he was conferred with the title "Hero of the People's Army" and promoted to general – one of the country's only two intelligence officers to achieve that rank. His eventful undercover life has inspired several locally and foreign produced books and documentaries including Jean-Claude Pomonti's "Un Vietnamien Bien Tranquille" (A Tranquil Vietnamese) and "Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game" by Thomas A. Bass. Berman, founding dean of the Georgia State Honors College and winner of the Bernath Lecture Prize, has written several books on the American War in Vietnam including "Planning a Tragedy: The Americanisation of the War in Vietnam" and "Lyndon Johnson's War: The Road To Stalemate in Vietnam".-VNA