Police Authenticate Letter on Fire That Killed Vietnamese Editor

Garden Grove police investigators on Thursday verified the authenticity of a letter written by an anti-communist terrorist group that claimed responsibility for an arson fire that killed Vietnamese editor Tap Van Pham.

It marks the first time that a U.S. law enforcement agency has verified the existence and activities of the group, the Party to Exterminate Communists and Restore the Nation, Orange County Vietnamese community leaders said.

“All evidence accumulated to this point tends to indicate that the letter is genuine and the author of the letter is responsible for, or directly connected to, the crime,” Garden Grove Police Lt. Scott Hamilton said.

Do Ngoc Yen, editor for Little Saigon’s Nguoi Viet newspaper, expressed surprise, as did other Vietnamese refugees, regarding the Police Department’s findings.

First Verification of Group

“Until now, never had any of the authorities verified their activities,” Do said. “This is the first time the existence and activities of the organization, which has claimed responsibility for terrorist incidents since 1981, has been verified.”

Pham, 45, of Garden Grove, died Aug. 9 when a 2 a.m. fire swept the small, one-story publishing office at 10708 Westminster Ave. He also was known by his pen name, Hoai Diep Tu.

The letter, dated Aug. 9 and postmarked in San Jose, said the Vietnamese Party to Exterminate the Communists and Restore the Nation was responsible for the arson. It was received by at least two Vietnamese newspapers in Orange County but did not mention any intention to kill Pham.

The typewritten letter said, in Vietnamese, that the “order to destroy” Pham’s offices was a result of his publication of ads for three alleged pro-Communist Canadian companies that the group opposes.

Pham had previously been threatened for publishing the controversial ads in the July 31 issue of his Mai magazine, Pham’s friends and associates said. The magazine was a popular publication that covered entertainment news.

‘Motive for the Crime’

On Thursday, police said the publication of the so-called communist ads “appears to be the motive for the crime,” Hamilton said.

No arrests have been made but a number of leads are being pursued, Hamilton said.

Police also said that about $80,000 in gold, jewelry and cash were found by police investigators during a search of the burned building. The editorial offices had also doubled as Pham’s home.

In recent weeks, police investigators had traveled to Montreal, San Francisco and San Jose--cities with substantial Vietnamese populations--attempting to determine the letter’s authenticity. Meanwhile, a Vietnamese translator had examined the letter searching for similarities, such as grammar, key words and phrases, to other letters received from the same organization claiming responsibility for other crimes.

Details Withheld

Police did not disclose precisely how they determined that the letter was genuine. “Details of how it was determined to be genuine cannot be released so that future letters, if any, can (also) be validated,” Hamilton said.

Some Vietnamese said they will now pay closer attention to the police investigation of Pham’s death and to communiques from the terrorist organization.

Police investigators suggested that the scope of the group may have enlarged in recent years, in view of other letters claiming responsibility for arson, murder and attempted assassinations in Montreal, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

‘Nationwide Scale’

“The activities of this group, and groups like that, are occurring on a nationwide scale and have been occurring for several years,” Hamilton said.

Last year, the same group claimed responsibility for the shooting of Tran Khanh Van of Santa Ana. Tran, once a top housing official of the South Vietnamese government, was shot twice in Westminster on March 20, 1986, after an assailant made an extortion demand for $10,000 to help pay for anti-communist efforts.

Tran, who survived the assassination bid, believed that he was targeted because he had been portrayed as favoring normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam.