FBI Launches Inquiry Into Political Violence by Vietnamese Exiles

The FBI has launched an investigation into political violence in Vietnamese exile communities as a result of the death last year of a Garden Grove publisher, an FBI spokesman said Tuesday.

Publisher Tap Van Pham died Aug. 9, 1987, in a fire at his office that police determined to be arson. A group calling itself the Vietnamese Party to Exterminate the Communists and Restore the Nation claimed responsibility in a communique sent to police the same day.

Similar communiques naming the same group have claimed responsibility for several other acts of violence in Vietnamese communities in other parts of the nation since 1980.

FBI Held Sought

That pattern prompted Garden Grove police to call on the FBI for help about three months ago, Sgt. Phil Mason said.

FBI spokesman Fred Reagan said Tuesday that the bureau is trying to determine whether “a pattern is emerging� involving violent acts against Vietnamese victims in several U.S. cities.

“We opened this as a smaller part of a much larger investigation on a nationwide basis,� Reagan said.

Pham was editor and publisher of Mai magazine, a Vietnamese-language entertainment publication distributed in Orange County. A communique claiming responsibility for the fire in which he died said Pham had “received money from the enemy� by running advertising from businesses accused of being linked to the Communist government of Vietnam.

Last October, The Times reported that law enforcement officials in a number of cities had concluded that at least 11 violent incidents between 1981 and 1987 in Vietnamese communities across the country were politically motivated.