Back Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1969–1975

Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1969–1975

“I could quote these pieces forever. They are remarkable, and The Library of America has again produced a tremendous collection.”— American Journalism Review

Overview
News & Views
Table of Contents
Contributors

Overview

News The Battle of Huế, fifty years later: the first draft of history as “a vital public service”
February 13, 2018

News Geoffrey C. Ward on Reporting Vietnam: “An astonishingly polished first draft of history”
October 19, 2017

News Ken Burns cites LOA’s Reporting Vietnam as “go-to source” for his new film
October 6, 2017

Reporting Vietnam Part Two: American Journalism 1969–1975, along with its companion volume, captures the bravery, fear, cruelty, suffering, anger, and sorrow of a tragic conflict. This second volume traces events from the revelation of the My Lai massacre in 1969 through the fall of Saigon in 1975. Here are Peter Kann on the ambiguities of pacification; Gloria Emerson on the South Vietnamese debacle in Laos; Donald Kirk on declining American morale; Sydney Schanberg on the fall of Phnom Penh and the victory of the Khmer Rouge; Philip Caputo, Keyes Beech, Peter Arnett, and Malcolm Browne on the last days of South Vietnam.

Writers who observed the turmoil in the United States are included as well: Francine du Plessis Gray on factions within the protest movement; Michael Kinsley recounting a confrontation between Henry Kissinger and his Harvard colleagues; James Michener meticulously reconstructing the Kent State shootings; Doris Kearns listening to Lyndon Johnson’s anguished recollections; Hunter S. Thompson watching veterans protest Richard Nixon’s renomination.

Included in full is Dispatches, journalist Michael Herr’s acclaimed impressionistic memoir of his immersion in the exhilaration, dread, and sorrow of the Vietnam War.

This volume contains a detailed chronology of the war, historical maps, biographical profiles of the journalists, explanatory notes, a glossary of military terms, an index, and a 32-page insert of photographs of the correspondents, many from private collections and never before seen.

The advisory board for Reporting Vietnam includes Milton J. Bates, professor of English at Marquette University; Lawrence Lichty, professor of radio, television, and film at Northwestern University; Paul L. Miles, professor of history at Princeton University; Ronald H. Spector, professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University; and Marilyn B. Young (1937–2017), professor of history at New York University.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959–1969 is kept in print by a gift from the J. Aron Charitable Foundation to the Guardians of American Letters Fund.
News & Views

News The Battle of Huế, fifty years later: the first draft of history as “a vital public service”
February 13, 2018

News Geoffrey C. Ward on Reporting Vietnam: “An astonishingly polished first draft of history”
October 19, 2017

News Ken Burns cites LOA’s Reporting Vietnam as “go-to source” for his new film
October 6, 2017

News What Michael Herr didn’t tell Stanley Kubrick
July 27, 2016

News Lary Wallace: How Fort Dix prepared Michael Herr for Dispatches
July 27, 2016
Table of Contents

Peter R. Kann
A Long, Leisurely Drive Through Mekong Delta Tells Much of the War
Pacification and Vietnamization: November 1969

Seymour M. Hersh
The My Lai Massacre
An Atrocity is Uncovered: November 1969

Francine du Plessix Gray
The Moratorium and the New Mobe
The Anti-War Movement: November 1969

T.D. Allman
Massacre at Takeo
Cambodia: April 1970

James A. Michener
From Kent State: What Happened and Why
Kent, Ohio: May 1970

Mike Kinsley
“I think we have a very unhappy colleague-on-leave tonight”
Kissinger and Harvard: May 1970

Don Oberdorfer
Dawn at Memorial: Nixon, Youths Talk
Washington: May 1970

Fred J. Cook
Hard-Hats: The Rampaging Patriots
Violence in New York City: May 1970

Stewart Alsop
The American Class System
Fairness and the Draft: 1970

Peter R. Kann
Vietnamese Alienate Cambodians in Fight Against Mutual Enemy
War in Cambodia: July 1970

James Sterba
Scraps of Paper
From Vietnam A Reporter’s Collage: 1969–1970

John Saar
You Can’t Just Hand Out Orders
An Army of Reluctant Draftees: October 1970

Doris Kearns
from Who Was Lyndon Baines Johnson?
LBJ Remembers Vietnam: 1970

John Saar
A Frantic Night on the Edge of Laos
An Accidental Bombing: February 1971

Gloria Emerson
At Border Crossing Into Laos, the Litter of Troops and History
The Invasion of Laos: February 1971

John E. Woodruff
The Meo of Laos
The Hmong: February 1971

Gloria Emerson
“A small despairing scene”
Copters Return from Laos with the Dead: February 1971

Gloria Emerson
Spirit of Saigon’s Army Shaken in Laos
“They all become dust”: March 1971

Karl Fleming
The Homecoming of Chris Mead
A Veteran Returns: March 1971

Donald Kirk
Who Wants to Be the Last American Killed in Vietnam?
Troop Withdrawals and Morale: August 1971

Tom Buckley
Portrait of an Aging Despot
A Visit with General Loan: 1971

Gloria Emerson
We Are All “Bui Doi”
A Reporter’s Life: February 1970–February 1972

Zalin Grant
“Don’t Sell Your Soul”
Dissension Among POWs: April 1971–April 1972

Robert Shaplen
We Have Always Survived
Life in Saigon: Spring 1972

John Saar
Report from the Inferno
The North Vietnamese Offensive: April 1972

Sydney H. Schanberg
The South Vietnamese Retreat
Quang Tri is Abandoned: May 1972

Rudolph Rauch
A Record of Sheer Endurance
Battle of An Loc: June 1972

Peter Braestrup
The South Vietnamese Army
Commanders and Soldiers: July 1972

Joseph Kraft
Letter from Hanoi
“We have been fighting eleven centuries”: July 1972

Hunter S. Thompson
From Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72
Protests at the Republican Convention, Miami: August 1972

Sydney H. Schanberg
The Saigon Follies, or, Trying to Head Them Off at Credibility Gap
The Military and the Press: 1972

Fox Butterfield
Who Was This Enemy?
Writings by North Vietnamese Soldiers: 1973

Flora Lewis
Vietnam Peace Pacts Signed; America’s Longest War Halts
The Paris Accords: January 1973

Arnold R. Isaacs
War Lingers in Hamlets as Cease-Fire Hour Passes
After the Cease-Fire: January 1973

H.D.S. Greenway
A Night with the Vietcong
Visit to a PRG Zone: March 1973

John S. McCain III
How the POW’s Fought Back
A Navy Pilot in North Vietnam: October 1967–March 1973

H.D.S. Greenway
Last GIs Leave South Vietnam
“Our mission has been accomplished”: March 1973

Sydney H. Schanberg
Bomb Error Leaves Havoc in Neak Luong
War in Cambodia: August 1973

Philip A. McCombs
Scars of Delta Savagery
War in South Vietnam: March 1974

William Greider
Viet Vets: A Sad Reminder
“The old anger, the old pain”: March 1974

Donald Kirk
“I watched them saw him 3 days”
A Khmer Rouge Execution: July 1974

Sydney H. Schanberg
In a Besieged Cambodian City
Suffering in Neak Luong: January 1975

Bernard Weinraub
A Highlands Mother Escapes, but Pays a Terrible Toll
The Fall of Ban Me Thuot: March 1975

Paul Vogle
A Flight Into Hell
The Fall of Danang: March 1975

Le Kim Dinh
For Those Who Flee, Life is “Hell on Earth”
Refugees at Cam Ranh Bay: April 1975

Philip Caputo
The Battle of Xuan Loc
“Pulverized stone and charred timbers”: April 1975

Sydney H. Schanberg
The Fall of Phnom Penh
Cambodia: April-May 1975

Philip Caputo
“Running Again—the Last Retreat”
Refugees on “the street without joy”: April 1975

Keyes Beech
We Clawed for Our Lives!
A Reporter Flees Saigon: April 1975

Bob Tamarkin
Diary of S. Viet’s Last Hours
The Evacuation Ends: April 1975

George Esper
Communists Enter Saigon
“Then we drove into Saigon”: April 1975

Peter Arnett
U.S. Embassy Looted
“Documents floated about”: April 1975

Malcolm W. Browne
Tenderness, Hatred and Grief Mark Saigon’s Last Days
“Vietnam’s black fate”: May 1975

Michael Herr
Dispatches—A Correspondent’s Memoir: 1967–1975
Contributors

T. D. Allman
Stewart Alsop
Peter Arnett
Keyes Beech
Peter Braestrup
Malcolm W. Browne
Tom Buckley
Fox Butterfield
Philip Caputo
Fred J. Cook
Gloria Emerson
George Esper
Karl Fleming
Zalin Grant
Francine Du Plessix Gray
H.D.S. Greenway
William Greider
Michael Herr
Seymour M. Hersh
Arnold R. Isaacs
Peter R. Kann
Doris Kearns
Michael Kinsley
Donald Kirk
Joseph Kraft
Le Kim Dinh
Flora Lewis
John S. McCain III
Philip A. McCombs
James A. Michener
Rudolph S. Rauch
John Saar
Sydney H. Schanberg
Robert Shaplen
James P. Sterba
Bob Tamarkin
Hunter S. Thompson
Paul Vogle
Bernard Weinraub
John E. Woodruff

32.00 List Price: $40.00 (Save: 20%) Free shipping on orders $50 and over

Or buy from our partners

Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Request product #201089

ISBN: 978-1-88301159-8 857 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

N° 105 Library of America Series

Subscribers can purchase the slipcased edition by signing in to their accounts.

Related Books

Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1963–1973 LOA N°138

Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959–1969 LOA N°104

Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1941–1963 LOA N°137

Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1944–1946 LOA N°78

Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1938–1944 LOA N°77

Library of America

CURATOR

A champion of America’s great writers and timeless works, Library of America guides readers in finding and exploring the exceptional writing that reflects the nation’s history and culture.

Learn More

PUBLISHER

From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely recognized as America’s literary canon.

Browse our books Subscribe

NON-PROFIT

With contributions from donors, Library of America preserves and celebrates a vital part of our cultural heritage for generations to come.

Support our mission

Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1969–1975

Related Books

Get 10% off your first Library of America purchase.