The Hanoi action is mostly focused on British-born American writer-reporter Howard Simpson (Donald Pleasence). Simpson's sources of confidential information include French Union military men (Patrick Catalifo, Eric Do), an Agence France Presse correspondent (Jean-François Balmer), an influential Vietnamese nationalist (Long Nguyen-Khac), a Chinese contrabander (Thé Anh) and a Eurasian opium dealer (Maïté Nahyr). Simpson sends scoop-worthy news to the San Francisco Chronicle daily newspaper, through a Hong Kong-based agency, in order to elude French military censorship that existed at the time in Hanoi and the rest of Indochina.