Vu Ngoc Nha, 74; Spy for North in Vietnam War

Vu Ngoc Nha, 74, a former friend and advisor to two South Vietnam presidents who worked as a spy for North Vietnam during the war, died Wednesday after a long illness at his home in Ho Chi Minh City.

Born to a Catholic family in North Vietnam, Nha became a member of the Communist Party in 1949 and was ordered to infiltrate South Vietnam in 1955 to set up a spy network.

Posing as a pious Catholic, he became an insider in the governments of presidents Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu.

Exposed by the CIA in 1969, Nha was sentenced to hard labor for life for giving the communists minutes of the Midway meeting between Presidents Richard Nixon and Thieu, details of American troop withdrawals and other strategic information.

Nha also persuaded Thieu to allow South Vietnamese soldiers to take a few days off for the Tet (lunar) new year in late January 1968, thus lowering defenses in the cities for the major communist offensive.

“History will turn the page,� Nha said with a wave of his hand after being sentenced in 1969.

After the North’s victory in 1975, he became a high-ranking officer in the communist army’s intelligence branch.