Pham Xuan An, who reported on the Vietnam War for Time magazine and led a double life as a spy for communist North Vietnam, died yesterday at 79 in Ho Chi Minh City.

In the history of wartime espionage, few were as successful as An. He straddled two worlds for most of the 15-year war in Indochina as an undercover communist agent while also working as a journalist, first for Reuters news service and later for 10 years as Time magazine’s chief Vietnamese reporter a role that gave him access to military bases and background briefings.

He was so well-known for his sources and insight that many Americans who knew him ironically suspected he worked for the CIA.

An later revealed his true identity as a Viet Cong commander, but said he never reported any false information or communist propaganda while in his role as a journalist.

“I fought for two things independence and social justice,” he said in 2000 interview with the Associated Press.

At 16, he joined a nationalist movement that later became the communist Viet-Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh. Following Vietnam’s independence in 1954, he was an aide to Col. Edward Lansdale, the U.S. intelligence officer who directed early U.S. support for the fledgling anti-communist regime in Saigon in the late 1950s.

An told ex-colleagues in later years that he made secret trips to the jungle to confer with Viet Cong leaders. He said he knew in advance of major communist initiatives, including the 1968 Tet Offensive and North Vietnam’s 1972 invasion.

An’s Western connections caused senior Hanoi officials to distrust him despite his wartime record, and they sent him to a postwar “re-education” school. He sometimes spoke candidly of being disillusioned with Vietnam’s victorious leaders.

At the same time he was made a brigadier general in retirement. He was later promoted to major general.