Legendary Vietnamese intelligence general makes CIA admire

The person mentioned is Major General Tran Van Danh (1923-2003), alias Ba Tran.

Major General Tran Van Danh was born into a family with difficult circumstances. His mother was from Ben Tre , went to Hoc Mon (Saigon) to earn a living and then became his father's concubine. When he registered his birth, he took his mother's last name for the same reason.

At the age of 12, Tran Van Danh was sent by his father to secretly distribute leaflets, calling for support for the Indochinese Communist Party. In July 1945, he joined the secret organization Thanh Nien Cuu Quoc. During the August Revolution of 1945, he participated in seizing power in Hoc Mon. In 1949, he was promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff and Head of the Military Intelligence Department of Thu Bien province.

In this position, he increasingly demonstrated his special ability in intelligence missions. In 1954, he was promoted to Deputy Political Commissar and Secretary of Regiment 556 - a military unit famous for its feats of arms against the French in the Southeast region.

Major General Tran Van Danh in his youth. (Photo: Archive)

In December 1960, he was assigned by the organization to return to the South and was assigned as Head of Strategic Intelligence under the Military Region Committee.

At that time, our intelligence force suffered heavy losses. The Ngo Dinh Diem government, with its policy of "denouncing and destroying communists", destroyed, shot and imprisoned a large number of intelligence officers. Therefore, Tran Van Danh and many of his comrades had to start rebuilding the intelligence force.

He took advantage of the enemy's weaknesses and internal conflicts within the Saigon government and military, which were in turmoil and complexity, to rescue imprisoned intelligence officers and re-arrange their activities. After the network stabilized, he developed and planted talented intelligence officers in the central agencies of the US and the Republic of Vietnam.

The Strategic Intelligence Department collected and exploited a lot of top secret information from the Saigon government and the US CIA, promptly reported, serving the war direction of the Military Commission and the Regional Command, the Central Bureau, the Politburo and the Central Party.

During the Ho Chi Minh Campaign, Major General Tran Van Danh was assigned to command the inner circle force, including special forces and commandos. His team was responsible for the pioneering mission of capturing and protecting sixteen bridges, opening the way for the main forces to advance, capturing many enemy warehouses, and preventing enemy sabotage before they were completely defeated.

After Saigon was completely liberated, Tran Van Danh was promoted to the rank of Major General and held the position of Vice Chairman of the Military Management Committee for Security and Defense, and Commander of the Saigon - Gia Dinh Command (now the Ho Chi Minh City Command).

Later, as Deputy Minister of Energy, he proposed the construction of the Tri An hydroelectric project under the motto "People - State work together". This is an important project, helping the city overcome the power shortage during the industrialization process.

Major General Tran Van Danh was awarded the title of Hero of Labor by the Party and State in 1990.

Frank Snepp, a CIA expert who worked in Saigon before 1975 and author of the book "Just the Right Time" published in New York, once commented that: "Tran Van Danh was one of the four most important intelligence officers of the Viet Cong."

Libra

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/vi-tuong-tinh-bao-huyen-thoai-cua-viet-nam-duoc-cia-than-phuc-ar947226.html