Ex-South Vietnam Pilot Fights On, a Folk Hero : Legend: 'The Vietnamese James Bond,' a former O.C. man, battles for overthrow of Communist regime.

By DE TRAN

Nov. 30, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WESTMINSTER — The latest chapter in the extraordinary life of Ly Tong began in September when the former South Vietnam air force fighter pilot and one-time Orange County resident hijacked a commercial plane over Ho Chi Minh City and tossed out 50,000 leaflets calling for the overthrow of the Communist regime. The naturalized U.S. citizen then parachuted to the ground and was promptly arrested.

The act by the man they call “the Vietnamese James Bond” made him the latest Communist-fighting hero to Vietnamese emigres. While the Vietnamese government characterized him as a terrorist who endangered the lives of 115 passengers and crew aboard the airliner, Tong has taken on an almost mythical quality among Vietnamese overseas. He is already famous for his 17-month, prison-breaking, 1,600-mile odyssey across three countries to find political asylum in the West.

Those who know Tong say that his spirit can spark a revolution by both Vietnamese overseas and at home to rid the Southeast Asian country of Communist rule.

Earlier this month, the announcement that the Vietnamese government was going to put Tong on trial renewed a series of protests by Vietnamese all over the world. Hanoi, without explanation, then postponed the trial. No new date has been set.

In Orange County, Vietnamese-Americans have organized a “Ly Tong Spirit Task Force” to mobilize support. Attorneys in the Little Saigon district have written to the White House and Capitol Hill on his behalf. Lawyers, including those experienced in the Vietnamese courtroom, have offered to travel back to lend pro bono help. Buddhist temples have set up a couple of prayer ceremonies for Tong, a born-again Zen Buddhist.

For weeks now, local Vietnamese-language papers have kept minutiae about Tong on the front page. “He’s the biggest news after the election,” said Yen Do, editor of Westminster’s Nguoi Viet, perhaps the largest Vietnamese-language paper in the United States.

Some publications ran excerpts from his autobiographical book, “Black Eagle.” And his old air force buddies are compiling a book on “The Life of Ly Tong.”

The phenomenon is by no means limited to Southern California. He dominates the news in virtually every Vietnamese enclave in the United States, Canada, France and Australia.

Vietnamese newspapers in Toronto, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento, New Jersey, Washington, Seattle and Houston printed “Ly Tong special editions.” One Houston magazine sponsored a poetry contest, with Tong as the sole subject. A Vietnamese radio station in San Jose has been reading excerpts from Tong’s book for an hour each day. And plans are in the works for a scholarship in his name.

His story, as reflected by these publications, offers a glimpse into the revolutionary psyche of the Vietnamese, a characteristic that enabled the small Southeast Asian country to thwart numerous invasions by the Chinese, its giant neighbor to the north, as well as the Mongolians and the French.

“Vietnam nationalism is what’s kept Vietnam together all these years,” said one Vietnamese-American writer.

Some doubt that Tong’s action will force any change by the current regime in Hanoi, but its visceral effects are strong. “Their action won’t contribute to the strategic or tactical effects,” Do said. “But it makes a difference; it proves again the indomitable spirit of the Vietnamese.”

Tong followed a long line of underdog Vietnamese heroic figures, those who were rich in symbolic acts, but low on concrete achievements.

Winning is not a prerequisite for a hero in Vietnamese society. Rather, it’s based on battling something much larger than oneself, no matter how high the odds. “Heroism is not based on achievements,” Do said. “Even when someone tries and fails, he’s a bigger hero.”

Douglas Pike, director of Indochina Studies at UC Berkeley, points to the example of the Trung sisters. The duo rode elephants to battle a larger, vastly superior Chinese army about the time of Christ, won some battles, but eventually lost the war. Rather than surrendering, they committed suicide by jumping into a lake, thus becoming a pair of Vietnamese Joans of Arc. He also pointed to the Buddhist monk who immolated himself to protest religious persecution in the 1960s.

“The Vietnamese take great pride in people like that,” Pike said.

It’s hard to foresee whether such acts will have any effect in the long run, Pike said.

“We saw this sort of thing in the Soviet Union with (Alexander) Solzhenitsyn,” he said. “Everybody said it wouldn’t amount to anything.”

There are some who wonder whether such acts are quixotic and outdated.

“Somehow the 19th-Century idea of heroism doesn’t translate well in the 20th-Century world of new order,” said a Vietnamese-American journalist who asked not be named because any criticism of Tong can bring threats from hard-core anti-communists.

Some are turned off by Tong’s propensity for self-promotion and self-aggrandizement, but there’s no denying his passion.

His exploits are legendary.

He was already well-known before he commandeered Vietnam Airlines Flight 850 on its way from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City. The leaflets he scattered over the city called for a general strike and an uprising against the Communist government.

Everything about Ly Tong touched the realm of fiction.

He was supposed to have been born in 1950, but that is doubtful because it meant he was only 15 when he was sent by the South Vietnamese air force in 1965 to train at Texas’ Lackland Air Force Base. Those who knew him said he was probably born in 1945 in the old imperial capital of Hue. His parents were wealthy landowners, and his grandfather had been a herbal medicine doctor for the royal family.

His real name was Le Van Tong, and there are two versions of why he changed his name. One had him adopting the surname of his close friend, Ly Hanh. Another said the name change allowed him to re-enlist in the air force after he was kicked out for punching another officer.

One thing that is undisputed is his courage.

“Everyone is afraid of death; he’s just afraid less,” said former South Vietnamese Lt. Col. Tran Manh Khoi, commander of Tong’s Fighter Squadron 548 “Black Eagle.”

The first lieutenant volunteered for many kamikaze missions. “In his courage, he sometimes did reckless stunts,” Khoi said, adding that he had to reprimand Tong at times to “reduce that courage.”

His daredevil feats caught up with him in April, 1975, a few weeks before the fall of Saigon. His A-37 Dragon Fly jet was shot down, and he was captured by the Communists.

A few months later, he tried his first escape, but failed. He was put into a Conex, the infamous 8-by-4 1/2-foot freighter container that U.S. forces left behind. Temperatures inside the metal box went above 100 degrees during the day, and freezing at night.

But that didn’t stop Tong from plotting his next escape. He toughened himself by sleeping on winter nights with no blanket, and performed hard labor on scorching days without a hat.

Nguyen Bay, a former prison mate and fighter jet instructor, recalled Tong asking questions to refresh his memory about the workings of an A-37. Bay didn’t know it at the time but Tong had planned to steal an A-37 to leave Vietnam, typical of Ly Tong’s flair.

In July, 1980, he escaped from prison and walked about 300 miles to Ho Chi Minh City, where he survived for a year by selling fake identification papers. He even sneaked into Tan Son Nhut Airport, only to discover that the American jets there weren’t working because there was a shortage of parts. To prove that he was there, he carved his name all over the airport, said his friend Duong Ngoc Cu of Anaheim.

Later, he took a bus to the Cambodian border and walked across. Thus began his 1,600-mile trek during which he walked, swam, hitchhiked, biked, rode a train and buses through Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia. He was imprisoned twice in Cambodia, and twice he escaped and earned the nickname “Papillon,” referring to the famous Devil’s Island escapee Henri Charrie’re. He was detained once more in a Thai refugee camp, but that didn’t hold him for long.

Finally, he swam across Johore Strait from Malaysia to Singapore, where he caught a taxi, arriving at the U.S. Embassy there still wet.

U.S. officials checked out his story and granted him asylum. He chronicled his journey in the book, “Black Eagle,” which contains as much detail about his incredible escape as his James Bond-like luck with women. The book even featured the love letters and poems he received over the years. He donated the book proceeds to orphans in Vietnam.

His bravado turned off a lot of people in the community. When Harvard University turned him down, he declared: “Today, I asked to be a student at Harvard, and was turned down. Tomorrow, if Harvard asks me to teach, I will turn it down.”

He then left Boston for Orange County, where he dated a well-known Vietnamese actress for a while. Afraid that having too many friends in Little Saigon would distract from his study, he enrolled at the University of New Orleans to study political science, hoping that the discipline would enable him to help Vietnam later. He made the dean’s list and had almost completed his studies when he left for Vietnam.

His life in the United States was not free of tragedy. He killed a 15-year-old burglar in New Orleans. Friends said he tried to forget by immersing himself in the teachings of Buddha.

All during this time, he would not forget Vietnam and the struggle he had left behind. He often told friends he wanted to go back and fight the Communists.

Before he commandeered the airliner, he sneaked into a Thai air force base and tried to jump-start a jet to bomb Vietnam but failed. The Thai government confirmed Tong’s account.

Tong now sits in a Vietnamese prison, waiting to see whether Hanoi will put him on trial.

“There’s some doubt that he’ll be put on trial,” Vietnam scholar Pike said. “The smart thing for the Vietnamese to do is to expel him from the country. . . . That way, he won’t become a martyr or a hero.”

Hanoi officials were on assignment and couldn’t be reached for comment. Officials from the Vietnam Mission at the United Nations had no comment beyond confirming that the trial had been postponed indefinitely.

State Department officials, citing privacy laws, said they couldn’t comment on the case.

“There isn’t anything the U.S. can do about it legally,” Pike said. “He did hijack a plane.”

Vietnamese overseas are waiting to see how the latest Tong saga will unfold.

“It’ll be interesting to watch how his legend will end up,” editor Do said. “It’ll be interesting to see how the Communists will play with this legend.”

How this chapter in his story will conclude is anybody’s guess. But, it seems, there is always a second act in Ly Tong’s life.