THE CASE OF 'AGENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606770006-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: February 3, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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Oil ~?ily' `' /"...-- .... 1 ~/ T.ll,j)t'Lt_7U JV1.~JU
The 6Y/ar Is ATever Over
'~~,~~ ~;~~~ ~z 6
~
They Led David Truong and Ronald
Humphrey away in maracIes and leg, irons
from a Virginia courthouse n week ago last
Monday to begin 15-year jail sentences for
sr~ring for Vietnam against the United
States. Two people will now waste in
prison for insubstantial offenses which had
only the remotr-st connection with es-"
pionzge, in a case which could set danger-
ous p:eccdents 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 ell 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
Krall, a Vietnamese woman who came to
-this country after the war in Vietnam
ende3 and who worked as an agent for the
CIA and informant for the FBI. She was
the principal government witness in the
trial egainst Truong.. Without her testi-
mony, it ishard to see how the government
would ever have brought charges.
' The family from which Dung came had
split loyalties. In the .1950x, her father,
Dang Kuang 1~Iinh, whom she had not seen
since 1954, became an important diplomat
for the Provisional Revolutionary Govern-
ment-the \LF body-representing the
PRG in Moscow. Dung and her mother
sympathized with the Saigon regime And
Lived in that city.
Sometime in the early 1J70s, 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'
Kratl suggested that she could be of value.
Although she had not seen her. father in
many years, the relationship could,, she
indicat.cd, prize open important doors in
postwar Vietnamese politics. ~ "':'
The CIA evidently had some doubts
about Dung I{call. She claimed her dreams
furnished her with valuable perceptions.
Dreams aside, the connection between
Dung KrR1I and the CIA wad established
on the foundation atone of money. As time
went on, her needs for money grew more
pressing as she struggled to finonce the
extrication of relatives from Vietnam. Be-
fore Dung Krall's service to the Agency
'~a~rics ~ J'
Alexander
Cockbtcryi Rzd~uay ; :1
_ The Joint Asset. -~;::.; .~
So Dung I{rall became a~ CIA agent,
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 Kroll
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 reuhite with
'his estranged wife. Dang Kuang Minh. re-
..fused hie daughter's invitation, which
could have been crudely construed as a
recommendation to defect. ~ ~ '~
In 1976, Dung Kroll 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 caso officer, Robert Hall, and FBI
agent William Flesbman. -She: infiltrated
Vietnam pence groups in the Washington
area and made several trips to Paris at the
direction of the CIA. vrhere she was in=
structcd to infiltrate the Vietnamese dele-
gation, t.Arget Certain members discussing
,reparations and normnlirat.ion with the
U.S., and told to "get next to" chief nogo-
_tint.or Phnn't. Van Done, if possible.= ->'w
In Woshi:igton at thnt.time, thcro were
h
e
t~vo main pro-Vietnamese groups: t
t Indo-China P~esource Center, whose major .
function was research and lobbying with ,
the press and Congress about Vietnam,
and the Vietnamese American Reconcilia-
lion Center. _ _ : --==.. - , - . _
'.?~; The Reconciliation Center was trying to
keep open lines of communication between
Vietnamese who had Red to the U.S.?and
those who had.remeined behind. Ari an-
.citlary.function .was to help acclimatize
Vietnamese arriving in this country. 't'his
'was the .group with which David Truong
was associated. ; ~:
,' -Truong had Left Vietnam in I9G51at. age
~~19; and had come to the U.S. as a student
at Stanford. Trubng's father, Truong Dinh
Dzv, ran for president in South Vietnam in
1967 ns a pence candidate and won 47 per
cent of the.vote. He was promptly arrested
by the Thieu regime and agent the noxt
five years in Devil's Island Prison.
wae_,coacludcd, a reluctant'-CIA. had
'=?~~='-?=' -- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release
mgton, was often seen on.the Hill and was,
by all accounts; a widely known and well-
regarded figure. Truong eent 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
I{rail met David Truong, and, ns 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, I{im,
ikhom he wanted to get out of Victnam.~'
~~: Humphrey was a watch officer for the
U.$. Information Agency, and had thou-
sands of cables from oYersens 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 raper.
In April 1977, Dung I{rail was sent by
rho C1A on her mission to Paris. IIeforc she
lefty?eho nakc~l Truong if?ho had, anything
he wantod taken 4hert: Tr~tolig gave'hrr a
bookbag, which apparently contained, in
addition to books and other reference ma-r
terials, copies of diplomatic and economic
information, mostly of cable traffic from}
U.S. consular officers in Southeast Asia,
with the classifications and sources of ori-
gin removed.
Before leaving; Krall gave the bookbag
to the CIA, which passed it on to the FBI,
which inspected the contents, returned
them R?ith the bag to Kroll, and wished her
Godspeed to~Paris. '
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f~unily and some type of moral val- France, and wants to visit his par
ues are very important. I think she eats in Vietnam. His father, once an
lost pretty much all that" affluent Salon lawyer, spent five
The Justice Department said years at hard labor after his unsuc-
Krall, the wife F~f an American naval c?essful bid to replace then-President
officer, who would not agree to tes? `Chico in 196?. He is now living in
tify at the trial until questions of her retirement in Ho Chi Minh City,
espionage pay were resolved, has left partially crippled, Truong says, as, a
the Washington area and was un- result of his treatment in prison.
available for commenk "From one generation to the other ~
"This case ~ ai ftuiny case because in my family everyone has been in
you can write. it from one of two an- jail for political reasons; he says..
glen and you:oould be very convinced `Vhen he last talked to Hum-
both ways,'" says; former prosecutor phrey, at the trial, Truong says he
Ctunmings.:now in private practice told him: "I just hope he-he has
in Alexandria.- "(Truong's] story is [four] halt-Vietnamese children, you
not that unpersuasive. This was not, know=-I told him I hoped that he
a guy who was out, I'm convinced, to and his wife would be. able to rai~?
do in the government of the United their children so they would not'
States And we never contended that against what has happened, ' - iir'.?
he was. He? was not a guy. who was against ~ Vietnam .:. To raise kids
,hoping to get the atom ~ bomb to . like -that is not easy because tl~y
Hanoi so they could kill us all. have seen the war ... i was more or
"On the other hand, he clearly less telling him that he should not, if
knew that.. what he was .taking wa.9 ' ' he could avoid it, raise kids that
clandestine and secretive:' would continue to fight that same
While Humphrey has worked old war forever."
since the trial running a summer For his part, Humphrey spent the
camp and :recreation programs for final days of freedom preparing his`
Calvary Baptist Church 755 8th St. household "as if I were terminally'
N~V, Truong has traveled the coup- ill," he says, giving-some driving les=
try giving, speeches and raising sons to the family, filing his income
money to pay his legal costs- tax, tutoring the children in Englisk'
He is soft-spoken and articulate, Under federal prison guidelines both
with apparently strong convictions he and Truong will have to serve at
about the future of Vietnam and his least five years in order to be eligible~
. own prospects after prison. fur parole. ~ :', .
"I think at this point, if given the . Eight da s a o the' Hum hre
choice, I probably kind of would like a Y g p ~?
to leave [the United States]," he ~r-ere driving home fmm church and'
says, "I*m not.' going- to contribute ,crossed the 14th Sheet bridge as'-a?
anything further over here in-terms wing of the crashed Air Florida jet
of helping the normalization take was being raised-. from the Potomac
place because that's way down in the River. "Daddy," Hiunphrey says his
priorities. It's time to let the dust loud bbeen on~thatr airplane. Then'
settle where it has to settle." Y
He has considered resettling.. in ...You'd never~be coming-back to us.". ,'
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