The Definitive SourceBehind the News
Recalling Vietnam’s ‘Real War’
Longtime Associated Press correspondent Peter Arnett remembered that journalists were 「rarely unwelcomed」 by the American soldiers fighting the Vietnam War. After all, AP stories were being clipped from hometown newspapers and mailed by family members to the men in the field.
As Arnett put it, 「We made sure they would never be forgotten.」
Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his war reporting, was onstage Thursday evening at New York’s 92d Street Y in a discussion of the stories and images gathered in 「Vietnam: The Real War,」 the AP photographic history published in October by Abrams Books.
Arnett was joined by veteran journalist and author Pete Hamill, who reported from Vietnam as a columnist for the New York Post and wrote the book’s evocative introduction, and AP intelligence writer Kimberly Dozier, who served as moderator and drew on her own experiences working in combat zones.
「The photos became the verifying part of … what was in the story,」 Hamill said. So much so, according to Arnett, that he once went to an antiwar rally in Central Park with AP colleague Horst Faas and they saw that some of Faas』 stark images from Vietnam had been enlarged for display by the protesters.
Dozier mentioned the challenges she’s had with the Pentagon’s practice of embedding reporters with combat troops, whereas in Vietnam a journalist could simply hop on a military helicopter to the front.
A video of Thursday’s program will be available on the 92d Street Y’s website sometime in the next few weeks.
