THE WAR IS NEVER OVER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302900002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 3, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000302900002-7
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/F.
THE VILLAGE V 0I CF.
3-9 Februar~r 1982
Tlie Mar Is Never Over
They led David Truong and Ronald
Humphrey away in manacles and leg irons
from a Virginia courthouse a week ago last
Monday to begin 15-year jail sentences for
spying for Vietnam against the United
States. Two people will now waste in
prison for insubstantial offenses which had
only the remotest connection with es
pionage, in a case which could set danger-
ous precedents for journalists trying to
report on the operations of the U.S. gov-
ernment, and which in addition appears to
make charges of espionage almost a matter
of Justice Department whim.
Like almost all dealings of the United
States in relation to Vietnam, this sad
story involves the pitting of one Vietnam-
ese against another. It begins with Dung
Kral], a Vietnamese woman who came to
this country after the war in Vietnam
ended and who worked as an agent for the
CIA and informant for the FBI. She was
the principal government witness in the
trial against Truong.. Without her testi-
mony, it is hard to see how the government
would ever have brought charges.
. The family from which Dung came had
split loyalties. In the ,1960s, her father,
Dang Kiang Minh, whom she had not seen
since 1954, became an important diplomat
for the Provisional Revolutionary Govern-
.ment-the NLF body-representing the
PRG in Moscow. Dung and her mother
sympathized with the Saigon regime and
lived in that city.
Somstime in the early 1970s, Dung met
and married John Krall, a lieutenant com-
mander in U.S. Naval Intelligence. In
1975, when the couple were living in Hon-
olulu, she approached the CIA and offered
her services. On the basis of the Truong-
Humphrey trial record, it seems that Dung'
Kroll suggested that she could be of value.
Although she had not seen her father in
many years, the relationship could, she
indicated, prize open important doors in
postwar Vietnamese politics.
The CIA evidently had some doubts
about Dung Krall. She claimed her dreams
furnished her with valuable perceptions.
Dreams aside, the connection between
Dung Krall and the CIA was established
on the foundation stone of money. As time
went on, her needs for money grew more
pressing as she struggled to finance the
extrication of relatives from Vietnam. 136.1
fore Dung Krall's service to the Agency
wa8 enncludea a valr,w}anf'"(!TA hnrl
Alexander c. tames
_~
Cockbacrn Ridgeway,
The Joint Asset'.
..So So Dung Krall became a CIA agen
with the official code-name "Keyseat." in-
side the Agency she had another code
name, possibly more revealing of the rela-
tionship: "Tu-Indenture."
The trial record shows that Dung Krall
set about restoring relations with her
father. Unbeknownst to him, the CIA pro-
vided the funds for an air ticket which
Dung Krall provided so that the two could
meet in London. In this meeting she urged
her father to quit politics and reunite with
.his estranged wire. Dang Kuang Minh. re-.
..fused his daughter's invitation, which
could have been crudely construed as a
recommendation to defect.
in 1976, Dung Krall moved to Washing-
ton. There, given prohibitions on domestic
CIA activity, she became a "joint asset" of
both the CIA and the FBI, reporting to her
CIA case officer, Robert Hall, and FBI
agent William Flesbman. She, infiltrated
Vietnam peace groups in the Washington
area and made several trips to Paris at the
direction of the- CIA, where she was in-
structed fd infiltrate the Vietnamese dele-
gation, tdrget Certain members discussing
reparations And normnlizalton with the
U.S., and told to "get next to" chief nego-
_tint.or Phnm.VAn Doap, if possible. ~::--
In Washington at that time, there were
? two main pro-Vietnamese groups: the
Indo-China Resource Center, whose major
function was research and lobbying with
the press and Co .greys about Vietnam,
and the Vietnamese American Reconcilia-
tion Center.
The Reconciliation Center was trying to
keep open lines of communication between
Vietnamese who had fled to the U.S.,and
those who had.remained behind. An an-
.cillary function was to help acclimatize
Vietnamese arriving in this country. This
was the group with which David Truong
was associated.
?Truong had left Vietnam in 1965 sit. age
19, And bad come to the U.S. As a student
I at Stanford. Truong's father, Truong Dinh
Dzu, ran for president in South Vietnam in
11967 ns n peace candidate and won 47 per
cent of the.vote. He was promptly arrested
by the Thieu regime and spent the next
five years in Devil's Island Prison.
STAT
ington, was often seen on. the Hill and was,
by all accounts; a widely known and well-
regarded figure. Truong sent information
around the world to other Vietnamese
groups, including the Association of Viet-
namese in Paris.
Three Paths Meet
In the late summer of 1976, three paths
converged, in two cases disastrously. Dung
Krall met David Truong, and, as an opera-
tive for both the CIA and the FBI, she
began to take,an interest in him. That
August, Ronald Humphrey went to the
Reconciliation Center,' met Truong, and
discussed with him a personal problem.
Humphrey had a Vietnamese wife, Kim,
*horn he wanted to get out of Vietnam.'
4. Humphrey was a watch officer for the
U.S. Information Agency, and had thou-
sands of cables from overseas government
posts coming across his desk, which he
rerouted to appropriate officials. From
time to time, in the months after their first
meeting in August 1977, Humphrey gave
Truong some of the cable traffic he con-
sidered to be of interest, cutting off the
cable classifications and pasting the cables
themselves on pieces of paper.
In April 1977, Dung Krall was sent by
the CIA on her mission to Paris. Before she
lefti,ahe naked Truong if -lie had, anything
he wanted taken there: Trnotiggs a her A
hookbog, which apparently contained, in,
addition to books and other reference ma-'
terials, copies of diplomatic and economic
information, mostly of cable traffic fromI
U.S. consular officers in Southeast Asia,l
with the classifications and sources of on
gin removed.
Before leaving, Krall gave the bookhag
to the CIA, which passed it on to the FBI,
which inspected the contents, returned
them with the_ bag to Krall, and wished her
Godspeed to Paris.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302900002-7