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Politico-Religious. Shrewd, tough, fiftyish General Le Van Vien is one man who could well afford to regard the lifting of a few million francs' worth of uninsured gems as petty thievery. Not long ago he ruled supreme as czar of the underworld in French Indo-China. The sixth son of a rural outlaw who built a modest fortune on stolen water buffalo, Le Van Vien showed early promise of becoming a successful chip off the old block. In the early days of the Sino-Japanese War he left home to fight with Chiang Kai-shek's armies...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: FRANCE: A Miserable Little Robbery | 3/25/1957 | See Source »

When he was working for them, the French dignified Le Van Vien's private army of 8,000 bloodthirsty gangsters as a "politico-religious organization," but Le Van Vien himself put it to more practical uses, including piracy, highway robbery, kidnaping, smuggling, pandering and an elaborate system of shakedown rackets. By the early 1950s, however, his chest adorned with France's own Legion of Honor for other services rendered, General Le Van Vien was a respectable servant of empire with a household of wives and concubines and a zoo full of wild beasts on a spacious estate overlooking...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: FRANCE: A Miserable Little Robbery | 3/25/1957 | See Source »

...most powerful men in Indo-China, the undisputed lord of every profitable vice in the land, the czar of the police force, which he bought cash-down from Bao Dai for $1,000,000, he became a close crony of France's puppet Emperor. Between them, Le Van Vien and Bao Dai, who preferred the seclusion of the French Riviera to his own embattled empire, split a daily take of some $25,000 from Cholon's infamous bordello and gambling casino Le Grand Monde, the most spectacularly profitable hot spot in the East...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: FRANCE: A Miserable Little Robbery | 3/25/1957 | See Source »

Indecent-Ridiculous. After the debacle of Dien Bien Phu, Le Van Vien stayed briefly on in the new independent state of South Viet Nam, and even made a brief, last-ditch attempt to hold his ground before the moralistic new broom of Premier Ngo Dinh Diem. Then he prudently fled to Paris, taking with him one wife, a few children and an estimated 3 billion francs ($8,570,000). There in the suburbs, while the remnants of his army intrigued among themselves back home, the old buccaneer settled down to a life of refined retirement. No marquis...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: FRANCE: A Miserable Little Robbery | 3/25/1957 | See Source »

Whether or not the robbers were mere French second-story men or furtive Binh-Xuyen agents bent on some dark political mission, no one could say, and General Le Van Vien declined to guess. "I don't suspect anyone," he told the bewildered police blandly. "I didn't think there was anyone who disliked...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: FRANCE: A Miserable Little Robbery | 3/25/1957 | See Source »

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