The Reporting of The Vietnam War |
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| So you wanted to report on the war in Vietnam? This is what you'd need, what I needed, in 1963. Strong boots, mosquito net, rain cover, medical kit, knife, hammock, light blanket, water bottles, pack to carry it all in – and the uniform hanging up at the entrance to my Saigon apartment. And all from the Saigon black market, because the American military policy was for reporters to be issued no official gear from supplies. And we had to carry all that stuff, along with food and our camera equipment, sometimes for days on end through Vietnam's thick, wet jungles. You had to be young and fit, and you had to keep up with the soldiers. The war became as controversial as the Buddhist crisis had been, particularly in the early years when the Vietnamese military had only US advisors for support. And it was those advisors, most prominently Colonel John Paul Vann, who fanned the controversy by giving interviews and information to us reporters. Vann, working with Vietnamese troops south of Saigon, was critical of their leadership and tactics, and blamed corrupt senior officers and their incompetent government. |
Colonel Vann believed in fighting the war against the communists. And he also believed that a critical press could persuade the American government to make the necessary changes and improve the war effort. I visited him many times. He shaped my thinking on the war. But Vann's comments to us angered the American military command, including General Paul D. Harkins, the senior officer in Vietnam. He had Vann fired and sent home. Vann later returned as a civilian official in the US aid program but his valuable military advice was ignored. General Harkins was always optimistic in those early years, and reflected the judgment of his boss, the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, seen meeting here with President John F. Kennedy and a general officer. But the view that everything was going well with the early war effort in Vietnam was challenged by the press. David Halberstam of the New York Times, my AP bureau chief Malcolm Browne, Neil Sheehan of UPI in particular challenged the official view of the war, just as they were also reporting on the growing Buddhist unrest. I backed up Browne's reporting and eventually took over his job when he left in 1965. |
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