HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Pham Xuan An, a Time magazine correspondent during the Vietnam War who was later revealed to be a spy for the Viet Cong, has died at the age of 79.
An's family said he died Wednesday in a Ho Chi Minh City hospital, The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
An, who had held the rank of colonel in the Viet Cong guerrilla army, was revealed by a French journalist after the end of the war in 1975. The writer has since insisted he was only an analyst for the Viet Cong and he had never given information that caused the deaths of U.S. troops. He has also stuck by the accuracy of his reporting in Time.
An, who was born in Saigon -- now called Ho Chi Minh City -- lived in California in the late 1950s while attending college and was an intern at the Sacramento Bee newspaper.
"The American press was different than any I'd known," An said during a 2001 interview, the Times reported. "A good reporter reports exactly what he sees and you get it right. You should not rationalize ... I learned a lot from being a correspondent. And I learned a lot from America. It helped me open up my way of thinking."
