Vu Ngoc Nha

▪ 2003

      Vietnamese spy (b. 1924, Thai Binh, French Indochina—d. Aug. 7, 2002, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), served as a trusted adviser to two presidents of South Vietnam while simultaneously leaking information to the Viet Cong and their communist allies in the north. Nha was initially instructed to infiltrate South Vietnam in 1955, and he became a top aide to Presidents Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu. He was arrested in 1969 after a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency probe and was sentenced to life in prison, along with South Vietnam's political affairs assistant, Huynh Van Trong, who had been one of his major sources of information. Maj. Gen. Nha was returned to North Vietnam in 1973 in a prisoner exchange and released.

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