A Look Back At The Vietnam Spy Who Betrayed Us

Back in 2009 I wrote about Pham Xuan An in my Crime Beat column.

You can read the column below: 

While serving as an 18-year-old sailor aboard an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War, I witnessed a bevy of journalists coming aboard as the warship was anchored in Da Nang Harbor in South Vietnam.

I worked in the USS Kitty Hawk's Radio Communications Division and we were told to keep the journalists clear of our top secret areas. As I planned to major in journalism in college after leaving the Navy, I was interested in our visitors from the major newspapers and TV networks.

I don’t recall Pham Xuan An, a TIME correspondent at the time, being one of the journalists who came aboard that day. Which was good – as we later discovered that An was a spy for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese communists.

In the annals of modern espionage, Pham Xuan An (1927-2006) ranks as a top spy. During the Vietnam War, An befriended, guided and advised journalists and American and South Vietnamese military and government officials. He obtained vital intelligence from his many “friends” and passed it on to the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese.

Larry Berman, a professor of political science at the University of California who opposed American involvement in Vietnam, was chosen by An to be his American biographer. Berman interviewed An in Vietnam before the spy died. His book is called Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of  Pham Xuan An, TIME Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent.

This book is a gushing, loving and uncritical view of the spy. It ought to be called Perfect Spy, Perfect Fools. Like many of the reporters An befriended during the war, Berman’s left-wing, anti-war views cloud his judgment of An.

An was by all accounts a likable, earnest, humble and helpful friend to all those he came into contact with. Just like any good con artist - or spy.

A spy since 1952, An was sent to study journalism in the United States as part of his training and cover story - or "legend," as they say in the trade. With his American friends and his insights into all things Vietnamese, An took jobs with Reuters, the Christian Science Monitor and then TIME. For the elite of the American press corps, An was the go-to-guy.

An's critical intelligence aided the communists throughout the war, especially during two key battles: the 1963 assault on Ap Bac and the 1968 Tet Offensive. Countless South Vietnamese and American soldiers died in these bloody battles thanks in large part to An.

Even today An's journalist friends refuse to believe that he misled, used or betrayed them. "Who in our egotistical trade would admit to being a dupe, conscious or otherwise?" veteran journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden wrote in his review of Berman's book in the Washington Times.

Goulden also noted that Arnaud de Borchgrave, a Newsweek correspondent during the war, disagreed with his colleagues and accused An of spreading disinformation to American officials and journalists.

Thomas Bass' The Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game is a bit more balanced than Perfect Spy.

Like Berman, Bass interviewed An in Vietnam before the spy died. Bass writes that when An was working for Reuters in the 1960s: "He was the irrepressible man about town who knew everything and everybody and was seen everywhere, in all the city's best restaurants and cafes, chatting and joking with everyone from generals and ambassadors down to the local cyclo drivers and dance hall girls. An established himself as the go-to-man for newly arrived Americans who needed a tip. He was always generous with his advice and stories, always a good source of local color. The news reports filed out of Vietnam that started with an anecdote provided by An must number in the thousands."

Bass notes that although An rarely claimed to have done anything more during the war than observe and analyze events, there were times that he "reached behind the curtain to adjust the scene."

One example was the battle of Ap Bac in 1963, where the Viet Cong at battalion strength defeated the South Vietnamese, who were supported by American air and artillery. Bass writes that two Viet Cong soldiers received the North Vietnamese Military Exploit medals for the victorious battle. One was the commander of the communist forces. The other was An, who devised the winning strategy.

An also helped plan the Tet Offensive in 1968, in which eighty thousand communists troops simultaneously attacked targets in South Vietnam. The communists briefly held the city of Hue, but the popular uprising planned on didn't happen and the overall attack was a military defeat.

Bass notes that the communists lost more than half of their troops in the south and perhaps a quarter of the North Vietnamese Army forces from the north.

"The offensive destroyed the Viet Cong as a fighting force," An admitted to Bass. "Then the United States introduced the Phoenix Program, which was extremely effective in assassinating thousands of Vietnamese communists and neutralizing the operation in the south."

But despite the military failure, Tet was considered to be a success for the communists, as the fighting viewed on TV and the negative reports by anti-war journalists eroded the American public's confidence in the war. Tet provided the communists with a major psychological victory.
     
Bass wrote that An’s intelligence reports were read by the top North Vietnamese leaders General Giap and Ho Chi Minh.

“We are now in the United States’ War Room!” Giap and Minh are reported to have said, rubbing their hands with glee.

That An was a good spy should not be surprising, as we helped train him. Prior to traveling to America to study journalism, An worked for the legendary intelligence officer General Edward Lansdale. Lansdale, an Air Force officer attached to the CIA, was an expert on counterinsurgency and was one of the most knowledgeable Americans about Vietnam. Lansdale and his crack team instructed An in psychological warfare and intelligence tradecraft.

An went on to betray Lansdale and many other American and Vietnamese friends. An also betrayed his journalist colleagues, yet many of them continue to admire him.

“I began to suspect that I had fallen into the same trap as An’s former colleagues,” Bass wrote in his book. “They had swapped ignorance for willful ignorance and remained charmed to the end by An’s smiling presence.”

Not all of An's colleagues felt that way. Beverly Ann Deepe, a reporter with the New York Herald Tribune, was angered at An's betrayal and Murray Cant, the chief correspondent for TIME, called An an SOB and said he'd like to kill him.

Zalin Grant, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, journalist and author of Over the Beach: The Air War in Vietnam and Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political Defeat of the Untied States in Vietnam, wrote that he thought An was a communist hero, but not an American hero.

When an excerpt from Bass' book appeared in The New Yorker in 2005 and quoted journalists singing An's praises, Grant wrote a letter to the magazine editor.

"It was one thing to have been against the Vietnam War - many of us were," Grant wrote. "But quite another to express unconditional admiration for a man who spent a large part of his life pretending to be a journalist while helping to kill Americans."

In his Washington Times review of Berman's book on An, Goulden wrote that a thought kept crossing his mind as he read the book.

"Would the journalists who now praise An as a patriot be equally forgiving of a colleague who turned out to be working for the CIA at the same time he was reporting on the war?" Goulden asks. 

"Think about it," he added. 

Note: This column first appeared in GreatHistory.com.

You can also read my 2018 Counterterrorism magazine Q&A with Luke Hunt (seen in the below photo), an Australian journalist and the author of Punji Trap: Pham Xuan An: The Spy Who Didn't Love Us, below. 

(You can click on the pages to enlarge).    

Bond, Bullets, And Nanobots: A Look Back At The James Bond Film 'No Time To Die'

Although I’m an Ian Fleming aficionado and I love his Bond novels, and I’m a fan of the Sean Connery Bond films from the 1960s, I not as big a fan of the later Bond films.

But I watch them.  

I recently rewatched the James Bond film No Time To Die on cable TV. I went to the movie theater to see the film when it first came out and I wrote a column on the film in October of 2021.

You can read my Crime Beat column below:

I ventured out last week to see the latest James Bond film, No Time To Die (perhaps it should have been called No Time To Think of a Better Title). 

I haven’t been to a movie theater in years, preferring to watch films on TV at home even before COVID 19, but I wanted to see this film on the big screen, even though I fully expected to hate it. 

Instead, I came away with a mixed review of the film. 

As I’ve noted here before, I became an Ian Fleming aficionado when I bought and read all of the Bond novels as a teenager in the early 1960s after seeing Sean Connery as Bond in the first two Bond films, Dr. No and From Russia With Love. 

Reading the Fleming novels, I was surprised and pleased that the thrillers were darker, more complicated, and more interesting than the films. 

I did not initially like the selection of actor Daniel Craig for James Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale, as he did not fit Fleming’s physical description, but I was glad that the producers had returned to making true thrillers rather than the silly, action-comedies of the past. Craig is a fine actor, I admit, and he handles the action and fight scenes well.  

The five-film Daniel Craig arc now ends with No Time To Die. 

There are no spoilers here. 

The film, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and written by a committee consisting of Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is overall well done and well worth seeing, in my view.     

But I have to say that I was not fond of the film’s convoluted sci-fi plot, and I yearn for the good old days of robbing Fort Knox, nuclear blackmail and biological warfare that were the high-end crimes featured in Fleming’s novels and the Bond films of the 1960s. 

No Time To Die kicks off with a good opening scene in which a young girl is being attacked by a solo gunman in a broken Japanese mask. It was clever and well done.  

Next, we find that James Bond has retired from Her Majesty’s Secret Service and is living in Jamaica (where in fact the character was born, as Ian Fleming wrote the Bond novels at his Jamaican villa, Goldeneye). 

Bond meets his old friend and CIA ally Felix Leiter, who recruits him to help recover a kidnapped scientist (what, the CIA does not have any paramilitary operators on their payroll?). 

The mission leads to Cuba, where Bond, in his proverbial black tux, is aided in a gun fight with countless men by a woman who claims to have had only three weeks training - and yet fights like a veteran U.S. Navy SEAL. 

Bond is unable to rescue the scientist, who turns out to be duplicitous and escapes from Bond and company with deadly nanobots technology. 

Back at SIS headquarters in London, more commonly known as MI6, the SIS gang is all there, with Ralph Fiennes as M, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny. Ben Whishaw as Q, and Rory Kinnear as Tanner. There is also a newcomer, Lashana Lynch as Nomi, the operator who assumed the 007 codename after Bond retired.  

I like that the SIS is holding Bond’s arch-enemy, Spectre's founder and leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (portrayed by Christoph Waltz) in a Hannibal Lector-style prison. I like the idea that Blofeld manages to control outside criminal events from his supposedly secure, high-tech prison. 

I would have liked to have seen Blofeld as the primary and solo mastermind villain, and done away entirely with Rami Malek’s character, a creepy little guy named Lyutsifer Safin. 

One mad, disfigured villain is quite enough for one film, thank you.  

I didn’t mind the romance of Bond and Madeleine Swann, or even Craig appropriating Bond actor George Lazenby’s line from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, “We have all the time in the world,” - but I didn’t think Lea Seydoux was a strong enough actress to pull off the role. 

I liked that the film also used the late, great Bond composer and conductor John Barry’s We Have All the Time in the World song, sung by the late, great Louie Armstrong, as well as other songs from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but I do tire of the endless self-referencing the Bond films appear to love. 

The highlights of the film are the splendid and exciting actions sequences that were so well done. The money was up there on the screen, as the late Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli used to say. 

But on the downside, the film was far too long. 

And lastly, I didn’t care for the film’s ending, which I won’t divulge here.

I suspect the producers will come back in two years’ time and once again reboot the Bond series, as they did in 2006 with Craig in Casino Royale. 

I’d like to see Aidan Turner (seen in the below photo) get the role of James Bond, as he fits Ian Fleming’s physical description, and he is a fine young actor. 

I liked Turner in Poldark, and I especially liked him in And Then There Were None. 

He was very good as a cold, tough, tux-wearing killer. The part was practically an audition for Bond – and Turner nailed it in my view. 

As No Time To Die notes in the film's end credits – James Bond will return.

The History Of The Fourth Of July

Military.com offers a primer on the history of July 4^th.

On July 4, 1776, the 13 colonies claimed their independence from Great Britain, an event that eventually led to the formation of the United States. Each year on the Fourth of July, also known as Independence Day, U.S. citizens celebrate this historic event.

Which country did we declare our independence from?

The colonies, the populations of which were considered subjects of the King of England, declared their independence "from Britain's Parliament as well as King George III himself," according to History.com.

WHAT LED THE COLONISTS TO SEEK INDEPENDENCE?

The colonists were a melting pot of not only English, Irish and Scottish but also people from elsewhere in Europe and beyond. In many colonial communities, people spoke their native languages, adhered to the customs of their countries of origin, and practiced their own faiths (although ​​Catholicism was frowned upon if not illegal in the colonies).

But the different groups had one thing in common: "They all had to swear loyalty to the King of England and submit to the law as a British subject," the American Revolution Podcast notes.

Over time, more and more of the colonists began to resent being under the thumb of Great Britain. This tension turned to outrage when the British Parliament imposed the Stamp Act in 1765, putting a tax directly onto the colonists for the first time. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

The History of the Fourth of July | Military.com 

Revisiting The Wisdom Of President Ronald Reagan On The 4th Of July

In her Washington Times column last year, Jennifer Harper, wrote about a poll that noted a bipartisan national dissatisfaction. She suggested that it is time to revisit the wisdom of President Ronald Reagan.   

 “Here’s what the 40th president said in a speech delivered from the deck of an aircraft carrier in New York Harbor, on July 4, 1986: “The things that unite us — America’s past of which we’re so proud, our hopes and aspirations for the future of the world and this much-loved country — these things far outweigh what little divides us,” Reagan told the nation.

 “And so tonight we reaffirm that Jew and gentile, we are one nation under God; that Black and White, we are one nation indivisible; that Republican and Democrat, we are all Americans. Tonight, with heart and hand, through whatever trial and travail, we pledge ourselves to each other and to the cause of human freedom, the cause that has given light to this land and hope to the world,” the president said.

 “My fellow Americans, we’re known around the world as a confident and a happy people. Tonight there’s much to celebrate and many blessings to be grateful for. So while it’s good to talk about serious things, it’s just as important and just as American to have some fun. Now, let’s have some fun — let the celebration begin,” Reagan advised. 

My Crime Fiction: Join The Navy And See Olongapo

The below story is chapter five of a crime thriller I hope to publish this year. 

The chapter originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.

Join The Navy and See Olongapo

By Paul Davis

 The United States Navy back in my day advertised that one could “Join the Navy and see the World.” But for young sailors like me serving on a 7^th Fleet aircraft carrier in the early 1970s, we thought the recruiting pitch should have been, “Join the Navy and see Olongapo.”

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Navy assigned three aircraft carriers and their battle groups to the 7^th Fleet’s Task Force 77. The carriers operated on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam. The USS Kitty Hawk, an 80,000-ton warship that measured 1,047 feet long, with a beam of 129 feet, and a 250-foot flight deck with 80 aircraft, was one of the three carriers that operated on Yankee Station in 1970 and 1971.  

Two of the three carriers were on Yankee Station continuously, launching aircraft that performed combat sorties against the Communist North Vietnamese and Viet Cong around the clock, as the third carrier rotated visits to port of calls to Sasebo, Japan or Hong Kong for much needed R&R. The carriers also rotated in and out of Subic Bay in the Philippines for “upkeep” and to let the sailors go crazy in Olongapo. 

I had been duly warned by older sailors that Olongapo was a dangerous and treacherous town. My older friends who had visited Olongapo on the previous combat cruise had warned me that it was so very easy to be robbed, cheated and even murdered in Olongapo. 

I recall a particularly shocking illustration of just how rough and heartless Olongapo could be on one of my visits to Subic Bay. A shore patrol jeep pulled up to the carrier’s enlisted brow as I was departing the Kitty Hawk, and out stepped a young sailor who appeared to be naked under a gray blanket that was wrapped around his waist. 

He looked as if he were in shock as hundreds of American sailors and Filipino yard workers and vendors laughed wildly at him as he walked up the brow. To make matters even worse, a cruel sailor grabbed the tip of the blanket and yanked it off of him and tossed it into the water. The humiliated young sailor, now naked, covered his crotch with his hands and ran up the brow. He was then escorted away from the laughing crowd. 

I learned later from the ship’s “scuttlebutt,” which is what sailors call gossip, that the sailor had passed out drunk in a hotel room and a Filipina prostitute robbed him of everything from his glasses and watch to his underwear and socks. The hotel clerks pulled the crying sailor out of his room and threw him into the street naked. The Navy’s Shore Patrol showed up, placed a blanket around him and brought him back to the aircraft carrier. 

To add insult to the proverbial injury, the sailor was reprimanded for losing his Navy ID card and he went to Captain’s Mass, a sort of naval hearing. The captain busted him down a rank, but his real punishment was that he was ridiculed by nearly everyone on the carrier for the rest of his time on the ship.    

I felt sorry for the sailor, although I was only 18 years old at the time, and this sailor might have been a year or two older than me. But I was a street guy from South Philly. Being robbed of all of my possessions, including my clothes, would never happen to me.

 

I spent the first day we were back in port with Hunt on Grande Island, the U.S. Navy’s recreational island in Subic Bay. We went scuba diving in the beautiful, clear water off the island. Afterwards, I played first base in a softball game, and I eat a hot dog and a hamburger and drank several bottles of San Miguel beer. Then Hunt and I napped in chairs on the beach, enjoying the strong Southeast Asian sun and the cool ocean breezes.

After our nap, Hunt and I, along with about two dozen other tired, hot and somewhat drunk sailors and Marines, boarded the amphibious landing craft that would take us back to the base. The boat, which resembled the landing craft that landed allied troops at Normandy in WWII, was crowded. I heeded my older friend's warning and stepped back against the bulkhead.  

Just as Hunt had warned, and true to the crazy tradition, as soon as the boat cast off its lines, the passengers in the hold of the boat began punching each other indiscriminately. The coxswain who drove the boat was elevated at his station above the fray and he ignored the ruckus below. Hunt pulled me against the bulkhead and we pushed away sailors who got too close and tried to punch us.

The short voyage to the base seemed to take forever as Hunt and I defended ourselves. When we finally landed, Hunt and I stepped over the sailors who lay on the deck stunned or unconscious and stepped ashore. Unscathed, we returned to the Kitty Hawk. 

Back in the berthing compartment, I took a shower and laid down in my rack with my happy thoughts about going back into Olongapo that evening and seeing Zeny again. 

Everything I heard about Olongapo turned out to be true. I could see why young American sailors loved the city. In the many bars on Magsasay Drive, there were plentiful attractive hostesses who laid in wait for American sailors looking for a good time and had money to spend. 

During the early evenings some anxious sailors opted to pay a fee to the bar’s mama-san so they could take the girls out of the bar for a spell and go to a hotel room for “short-time,” as the brief sexual encounter was called in Olongapo. The Americans sailors called the act a “Quickie.”

But most sailors partied with the girls until the end of the evening when the bar closed, and the girls were free to leave the bar without paying the mama-san.

The girls accompanied the dipsy sailors to near-by hotels. In the morning, the happy sailors left the girls money on the bedside table. Unlike prostitutes, Olongapo bar girls did not set a fee for sex prior to going to the hotel, but the American sailors usually left the girls a generous amount of Philippine Pesos and American dollars before they left the hotel.

I recall a Filipino priest telling me that the bar girls did not consider themselves to be prostitutes. They earned their money from a percentage of the money sailors spent buying them drinks, and they had sex with the sailors as they considered them to be their boyfriends. The goal of many of them was to marry an American sailor and move to the United States for a better life, and many of them did.  

 

I departed the carrier that evening dressed in "civies," civilian clothes, and headed into Olongapo with Mike Hunt and Dino Ingemi. Also going into Olongapo with us was a 2^nd Class Radioman named Owen Trent, a tall, lean and quiet Texan. I called him the “Tall-T,” which he found amusing. Trent, like Hunt and Ingemi, had all been to Olongapo on the Kitty Hawk’s previous combat cruise. 

As we were walking down Magsaysay Drive, a street vendor near us called out, “Hey, Joe. You want sunglasses? Cheap!”

As we walked past him, I told my friends that I met a sailor who told me he really hated it when Filipinos called him “Joe.”

“I explained to him that Filipinos have called all Americans Joe since World War Two,” I told my walking companions. “He said he knew that, but he still hated it when they called him Joe. I asked him why and he said, “Because my name is Joe.”” Ingemi and Trent laughed. Hunt groaned.

I and my friends visited the Starlight and Zeny rushed up to me. She kissed and hugged me, and she pulled me to a table. Hunt, Trent and Ingemi had corralled their girls and we all sat at the table and ordered San Miguel beer. The band was outstanding, and we all danced and drank and had a good time.

Jeffrey Greenberg, a thin 3rd Class Radioman from Connecticut with a brown moustache and small, round glasses, came into the bar and joined us. I liked Greenberg, as he, like me, loved books. Greenberg was a college graduate with a degree in in English Literature, and we often discussed literature on our down-time aboard the carrier.

He shared my great fondness for Mark Twain, and I introduced him to Raymond Chandler, one of my favorite writers. Greenberg became a devotee of Raymond Chandler’s fictional private eye Philip Marlowe after he borrowed, read and enjoyed the four Chandler paperback crime novels I had with me on the carrier.    

Ronald Redmond waddled over to our table in Greenberg’s wake and joined us. Redmond was a 3^rd Class Radioman who claimed proudly that he was a “lifer.” Redmond found Navy life far preferable to the poor and rugged rural life in Oklahoma that he endured prior to joining the Navy. Big and wide, loud and profane, most of the other sailors tried to avoid him. No one had invited him to join us at our table.  

“These little brown fuck machines are something else, but I like me a “heifer,” a big ole gal,” Redmond told us. “Not these skinny little “Flips.” 

“There are some water buffaloes outside of town in the rice paddies, if you’re interested,” I replied drolly. The other sailors at the table laughed. 

“Shit, Davis, I might just head out there.” 

“Redmond, you’re an animal,” I said. “They ought to lock you up in a cage, hose you down once a day, and feed you raw meat.” 

“Hell, Davis, throw in some pussy and it don’t sound bad.” 

“I rest my case.”

I turned away from Redmond and ignored him and concentrated on my beautiful companion Zeny, whom I called “Zany Zeny.” I don’t think she ever got the joke.

 

As our party was just getting started, I saw Lorino walk in the bar with his distinctive South Philly swagger. He pushed off two girls gently but firmly who tried to pull him to a table. He saw me and I waved him over. Lorino knew the other sailors from the Communications Radio Division from his frequent visits to me while at sea, so he sat down at our table without introductions.  

We were all having a grand time when a short and stocky seaman named John Bland from our division staggered in. His face was bruised and bloody and his shirt was torn. Bland came over to our table and the girls got up and left to go to the rest room. 

“What the fuck happened to you?” Ingemi asked.    

Bland explained that he had gone into an alley next to the Ritz bar with a street prostitute who promised him fellatio. Two Filipino men followed them into the alley, and they beat Bland and stole his money and watch. 

“I think it’s time for a little payback,” Hunt said.

“I’m in,” Lorino said quickly.

Hunt told Bland to stay with Trent, Greenberg and Redmond at the Starlight and said the rest of us will go to the alley next to the Ritz Cracker and confront the girl and her two friends. 

“She’s wearing a bright, red dress,” Bland said. “You can’t miss her.” 

I didn’t like Bland. He was an ingratiating guy from Darby, Pennsylvania. He thought he was clever, and he was always trying to scam people over small things, like a Coke or a minor work detail. The dislike was reciprocal. Bland didn’t like me because I would call him out on his shady, small-time schemes. I also told the other sailors that his name was also a description of his personality.

I was certain that Bland thought he had scammed the prostitute by convincing her to perform the sex act in the alley for free. Incredible, but that was Bland. Yet, I joined eagerly the avenging patrol, and we headed out.     

It was decided that Ingemi would talk to the girl on the corner after Hunt and Lorino slipped into the narrow alley. Ingemi would then allow her to take him into the alley, as she had done with Bland. 

As I was the youngest guy in the group, Hunt told me to stand at the foot of the alley and keep a lookout for the Navy’s Shore Patrol and the Olongapo police. 

Ingemi approached the girl in the red dress on the corner. After a brief discussion, they walked up the alley. Only a moment or so later, two Filipinos charged into the alley. One was of average height and lean, and the other looked like a big Japanese sumo wrestler. 

As the two bruisers jumped on Ingemi, Hunt and Lorino came out of the shadows and pounced on the two Filipino robbers. I stood sideways at the foot of the alley, one eye on the fight and the other eye on the street looking for Navy Shore Patrol or local cops. 

The girl in the red dress bolted from the fracas and Ingemi kicked her in the behind with the side of his foot and she fell forward and splayed out on the ground. She rose quickly and scampered past me and into the street.

I saw the lean Filipino break from the fight as Hunt, Lorino and Ingemi beat on the sumo. As the lean one ran up the alley I stepped into the middle and dropped my right hand at my side. 

The Filipino thief stopped and went into a martial arts stance. I went into my boxing stance. He swung at my face, but I reared my head back and to the right and slipped the blow. He then threw a kick at me, but I stepped back, and he missed. I leaned in and hit him in the face with a good stiff left jab and hard right combo.

He fell back against the wall, but he bounced back quickly, and his right leg flew up and his foot kicked me hard on my left side. I caught his pant leg in the air after the kick. I pulled on his leg, and he lost balance and fell against the alley wall. Holding on to his raised leg, I pinned him to the wall. I hit him in the face with several good short rights, and he collapsed.   

I looked past the knocked cold Filipino and saw that Hunt, Lorino and Ingemi had finally laid out the sumo in the alley. Hunt took off the three watches that the thief was wearing and went through his pockets and took all of his cash. 

Ingemi took two watches off the thief I knocked out and took his money as well. 

“Who says Italians lose all the wars,” Lorino said to Ingemi with a broad, lopsided grin. 

We all went back to the Starlight. My knuckles were scrapped and bloody and I lifted my shirt and saw a deep purple bruise where the Filipino thief had kicked me. The other sailors had similar minor injuries. The girls passed around bandages. My side was sore, so I ordered a beer and a shot of vodka to help ease the pain.

Hunt laid the watches on the table and Bland picked out his. He also said they stole $100 dollars from him, although I suspected the actual figure was more like $10. Hunt gave him $100 from the money he had taken from the two thieves. He gave the other watches and some cash to the girls. 

He held up the rest of the cash and proclaimed, “The rest of tonight is on the girl in the red dress!” 

After the Starlight closed, our crowd broke up and we went our separate ways. Zeny and I headed to a nearby hotel. We took a room and had a fine time together in bed until I passed out from drinking far too much San Miguel beer and vodka. 

I woke up the following morning and discovered that Zeny was gone. Also gone was my watch, my wallet, my shoes, and all of my clothes. The only thing left was my pocketknife, which I had placed under my pillow the night before.

I was in shock. I knew Zeny from my previous visits to Olongapo, and I trusted her. I panicked. I thought of the poor slob sailor who had returned to the ship naked under a blanket. This could not happen to me. I was too smart. Too streetwise. Too cool. 

But it was happening to me. I wrapped a sheet around my middle and paced the floor, wondering what I was going to do. I cursed. I punched a wall. I looked out the window, hoping to see one of my friends. 

It was perhaps only a half-hour, but it seemed like an eternity, when there was a knock on the door. I opened the door and there stood beautiful Zeny. She was holding my brightly polished shoes in her right hand and holding a hanger with my cleaned and pressed shirt and slacks in her left hand. My chain and dog tags hung around her neck and my watch hung loosely on her wrist. My folded underwear and socks were under her right arm. 

She told me that she took my clothes to her home and cleaned and pressed them. She shined my shoes. She said she didn’t know that my slim black leather wallet, which held my Navy ID and cash, had been in my pants pocket. I kissed her full on the lips and hugged her. 

As I walked down Magsaysay Drive back towards the naval base, I saw other returning sailors staggering along, hung over and disheveled.

I smiled, as I knew I looked sharp in my polished shoes and cleaned and pressed clothes. 

© 2022 By Paul Davis 

Note: You can read chapters one, two and seven via the below links:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Salvatore Lorino'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Boots On The Ground'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: The Old Huk

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The 30-Day Detail'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'

Paul Davis On Crime: Chapter 12: On Yankee Station

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Cherry Boy'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Hit'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Welcome To Japan, Davis-San

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Cosa Nostra: A Look Back At The Threat Of Organized Crime In America

Back in 2018 I wrote a piece on the threat of Cosa Nostra organized crime in America for Counterterrorism magazine.

You can read the piece below (click on the page to enlarge).

Chasing The Drugs, Guns And Violence: A Look Back At Shadowing Philadelphia Narcotics Officers

Back in 2012, on assignment for Counterterrorism magazine, I went out and shadowed Philadelphia narcotic officers on drug raids. 

Unfortunately, not much has changed since I accompanied the narcotics officers that night. With the introduction of the deadly narcotic fentanyl, the drug crisis has become even worse.

You can read my piece below or the below text:

“We have two search warrants set up for today,” Philadelphia Police Officer Theresa Weaver told her passenger, a writer along for the ride to Southwest Philadelphia to observe the actions of the Philadelphia Police Narcotics Field Unit South. “We will be attempting to make buys with a confidential informant. And if those buys are successful, we’ll be executing the two search warrants on the properties.” 

Weaver explains that they generally have confidential informants (CIs) make two or three narcotics buys before they execute a warrant. 

“These are independent, street level drug dealers,” her partner, Officer Greg Barber explained. 

Barber, who grew up in West and Southwest Philadelphia, said that crack cocaine and heroin were the popular drugs being sold on the street. 

“Most of your crime is associated with drugs. The stealing and the shootings, the robberies and the home invasions are committed by people trying to get money for drugs,” Barber said. “Drugs lead to confrontations between different neighborhoods and that’s when the shootings come about.” 

There are ten officers in the squad, and they met in the 19th Police District to plan for the first raid on a drug house. The officers are dressed mostly in Dickies work clothing, which allows them to blend in on the street. 

The officers were given assignments and positions. One officer was equipped with a hand-held battering ram to take down the door and another officer was issued a shotgun. Two uniform officers were assigned to accompany the undercover narcotics officers. 

“Because of the way we execute the warrants, we don’t give them an opportunity to fight,” Weaver said. “Planning is everything,” 

Barber added. The squad parked their unmarked cars in the vicinity of the drug house and waited for the call on their radio that said the confidential informant (CI) made the buy. The buy was made and the officers rushed to the house and quickly placed several young men down on the porch and placed them in handcuffs. 

A couple of young men ran and some of the officers chased them down the street. The remaining officers searched the house for drugs and guns. The officers found crack and marijuana and they found two guns hidden in the ceiling. 

Lt Robert Otto, the unit’s commander, explained that the narcotics unit requires a tremendous amount of personal sacrifice from the officers, aside from the fact that they are putting their lives on the line. 

“Crack and heroin are the most addictive drugs I’ve seen in my career and with that I see a lot of violence,” Otto said. “Recently, there has also been a surge in the abuse and sale of prescription pills.” 

Otto said that close to 50% of their investigations now deal with prescription drugs, which are extremely addictive. 

“We also get involved with chasing the violence,” Otto explained. “A lot of violent crime happens as a result of narcotics.” 

Sgt Berle “Chico” Brereton, a 24-year narcotics veteran and the son of a retired narcotics officer, explained that the squad attacks the mid-level to lower-level drug traffickers on the street. 

“We’ve hit this house before and we’ve gotten guns and drugs out of this house before. This is one of the problem houses in the district. They had a homicide here last year,” Brereton said. 

Brereton said they put in a call to have the city “seal” the house so the drug dealers can’t return to operate there. “We’ll shut this nuisance down, get the guns off the street and maybe no one will get shot here.” 

Brereton said the people who are buying drugs at this level are users who break into cars, break into people’s houses, and rob people on the street to get money to buy drugs. 

“There are decent people here who can’t move. We’re the only people who are going to help them,” Brereton said. “We’re proactive. We come out here every day and lock people up. We call the Southwest detectives and they come and debrief the people we locked up and then follow up on shootings, homicides and crimes like that. “My squad is predominantly black,” Brereton said. “We try to preach to the young black kids involved with drugs.” 

Otto said that one of the main objectives was to get into a house like this and remove the guns that normally go with drugs and violence. He said that the two recovered guns might be responsible for countless murders. “I tell my guys all of the time; you’re never going to know until you meet your Maker just how many people you have saved by getting these guns off the street,” Otto said.