Back Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959-1975 (two volumes)

Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959-1975 (two volumes)

More than 80 writers | Includes in full: Daniel Lang’s Casualties of War and Michael Herr’s Dispatches | 64 pages of photographs More

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

“Simply fascinating reading. Some of it may bring a tear. Bits of it may cause a chuckle. All of it will provoke thought.”— USA Today

Overview
News & Views
Table of Contents
Contributors

Overview

Interviews “One backward glance” — Daniel H. Weiss on Michael O’Donnell and the tragic era of Vietnam

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

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

This unique two-volume anthology from the Library of America evokes a turbulent and controversial period in American history and journalism. Drawn from original newspaper and magazine reports and contemporary books, Reporting Vietnam brings together the work of over eighty remarkable writers to create an unprecedented mosaic view of the war and its impact on an increasingly fractured American society.

The first volume traces the deepening American involvement in South Vietnam from the first deaths of American advisers in 1959 through the controversial battle of “Hamburger Hill” in 1969. Malcolm Browne, Neil Sheehan, and David Halberstam report on the guerrilla warfare of the early 1960s; Marguerite Higgins and Frances FitzGerald observe South Vietnamese politics; Jonathan Schell records the destructive effects of American firepower in Quang Ngai; Tom Wolfe captures the cool courage of navy pilots over North Vietnam. Writers who covered the bitter controversy at home are included as well—Meg Greenfield describing an early teach-in, Norman Mailer at the Pentagon March, Jeffrey Blankfort exploring the sorrowful impact of the war on a small town in Ohio. Thomas Johnson and Wallace Terry examine the changing attitudes of African-American soldiers fighting America’s first fully integrated war. Included in full is Daniel Lang’s Casualties of War, the haunting story of a five-man reconnaissance patrol choosing between good and evil.

The second volume traces events from the revelation of the My Lai massacre in 1969 through the fall of Saigon in 1975. Here are 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; 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.

Each 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.

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

Interviews “One backward glance” — Daniel H. Weiss on Michael O’Donnell and the tragic era of Vietnam

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

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

News Ken Burns cites LOA’s Reporting Vietnam as “go-to source” for his new film
Table of Contents

VOLUME ONE

TIME
Death at Intermission Time
First U.S. Advisers Killed in South Vietnam: July 1959

Stanley Karnow
Diem Defeats His Own Best Troops
Challenges to Diem: January 1961

Malcolm W. Browne
Paddy War
Guerilla War in the Mekong Delta: December 1961

Homer Bigart
A “Very Real War” in Vietnam—and the Deep U.S. Commitment
Increasing American Involvement: February 1962

Malcolm W. Browne
“The Enemy Had Left a Display for Us”
Massacre in the Ca Mau Peninsula: February 1962

Bernard B. Fall
Master of the Red Jab
Interview with Ho Chi Minh: July 1962

Homer Bigart
Vietnam Victory Remote Despite U.S. Aid to Diem
A Skeptical Assessment: July 1962

Neil Sheehan
Vietnamese Ignored U.S. Battle Order
Battle of Ap Bac: January 1963

David Halberstam
“An Endless, Relentless War”
Helicopter Assault in the Ca Mau Peninsula: April 1963

Malcolm W. Browne
“He Was Sitting in the Center of a Column of Flame”
Suicide in Saigon: June 1963

Marguerite Higgins
The Diem Government, Pro and Con
Politics in Saigon: August 1963

Joseph Alsop
In the Gia Long Palace
Nhu and Diem: September 1963

Stanley Karnow
The Fall of the House of Ngo Dinh

David Halberstam
“They Can Win a War If Someone Shows Them How
Profile of John Paul Vann: 1962-1964

U.S. News & World Report
“We Are Losing, Morale Is Bad… If They’d Give Us Good Planes”
A Pilot’s Letters Home: November 1963-March 1964

Beverly Deepe
“The pink cloud became black”
Christmas Eve Bomb in Saigon: December 1963

Russell Baker
Befuddled in Asia
Confusion Over Policy: March 1965

John Flynn
Marines Get Flowers for a Tough Mission
First Combat Troops Land: March 1965

Roger Rapoport
Protest, Learning, Heckling Spark Viet Rally
First Campus “Teach-In”: March 1965

Meg Greenfield
After the Washington Teach-In
Controversy Over the War Intensifies: May 1965

Don Moser
Eight Dedicated Men Marked for Death
Struggle for Loc Dien: Summer 1965

Bernard B. Fall
Vietnam Blitz: A Report on the Impersonal War
American Buildup: September 1965

William Tuohy
A Big “Dirty Little War”
Terror and Counter-terror: Autumn 1965

Tom Wolfe
From The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Ken Kesey Addresses an Anti-War Rally: October 1965

Specialist 4/C Jack P. Smith
“Men All Around Me Were Screaming”
Death in the Ia Drang Valley: November 1965

Susan Sheehan
A Viet Cong
A Defector Tells His Story: 1965

McCandlish Phillips
Two Hilltops in a Marine’s Life
Letters Home: April 1965-February 1966

Henry F. Graff
Teach-In on Vietnam By…The President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of State
The Administration Defends Its Policies: February 1966

Afro-American
No Room in the Cemetery
A Soldier’s Burial: May 1966

Ward S. Just
Reconnaissance
Combat in the Central Highlands: June 1966

Frank Harvey
“Only You Can Prevent Forests”
Spraying Defoliants: July 1966

Martha Gellhorn
“Suffer the Little Children…”
Civilian Casualties in South Vietnam: August-September 1966

Neil Sheehan
Not a Dove, But No Longer a Hawk
Veteran Reporter Reassesses the War: October 1966

Frances FitzGerald
“The Long Fear”
Politics in the Mekong Delta: 1966

Harrison E. Salisbury
U.S. Raids Better 2 Towns; Supply Route Is Little Hurt
The Bombing of North Vietnam: December 1966

Bernard B. Fall
“Unrepentant, Unyielding”: An Interview with Viet Cong Prisoners
U.S. Offensive in the Iron Triangle: January 1967

Jonathan Randal
U.S. Marines Seize 3d Hill in Vietnam After 12-Day Push
Khe Sanh Hill Fights: May 1967

Ward S. Just
Saigon and Other Syndromes
A Reporter Looks Back: December 1965-May 1967

Don Moser
The Vietcong Cadre of Terror
War in Saigon: June 1965-July 1967

Jonathan Schell
From The Military Half: An Account of the Destruction in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin Southern I Corps: August 1967

Richard Harwood
The War Just Doesn’t Add Up
Conflicting Views: September 1967

Michael J. Arlen
A Day in the Life
A TV Crew At Con Thien: September 1967

Norman Mailer
From The Armies of the Night
The March on the Pentagon: October 1967

Peter Arnett
Hill 875
Battle of Dak To: November 1967

Tom Wolfe
The Truest Sport: Jousting with Sam and Charlie
Air War Over North Vietnam: December 1967

Charles Mohr
U.S. Aide in Embassy Villa Kills Guerilla with Pistol
The Tet Offensive: January 1968

Don Oberdorfer
From Tet!
The Viet Cong in Hue: January-February 1968

Lee Lescaze
A Third of Mytho Destroyed in Delta Fighting
The Tet Offensive: February 1968

John T. Wheeler
Life in the V Ring
Khe Sanh Under Siege: February 1968

Walter Cronkite
“We Are Mired in Stalemate…”
Aftermath of Tet: February 1968

Don Oberdorfer
“An Ending of His Own”
Lyndon Johnson Changes Course: March 1968

Mary McCarthy
Hanoi—March 1968
An American in North Vietnam: March-April 1968

Thomas A. Johnson
The U.S. Negro in Vietnam
Black Servicemen and the War: 1968

Norman Mailer
From “The Siege of Chicago”
The Democratic Convention: August 1968

Steve Lerner
A Visit to Chicago: Blood, Sweat, & Tears
The Democratic Convention: August 1968

Joe McGinniss
From The Selling of the President 1968
The Nixon Campaign and Vietnam: September 1968

Kevin Buckley
A Small Contribution
Firefight Near Loc Ninh: October 1968

Zalin Grant
“We Lived for a Time Like Dogs”
American POWs in a Jungle Camp: July 1968-January 1969

Jeffrey Blankfort
Our Town: The War Comes Home to Beallsville, Ohio
A Small Town Mourns Its Dead: Spring 1969

David Hoffman
Hamburger Hill: The Army’s Rationale
Battle in the A Shau Valley: May 1969

Wallace Terry
Black Power in Viet Nam
Racial Tensions in the Military: September 1969

Daniel Lang
Casualties of War
An Atrocity and Its Aftermath: November 1966-October 1969

VOLUME TWO

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
Joseph Alsop
Stewart Alsop
Michael J. Arlen
Peter Arnett
Russell Baker
Keyes Beech
Homer Bigart
Jeffrey A. Blankport
Peter Braestrup
Malcolm W. Browne
Kevin Buckley
Tom Buckley
Fox Butterfield
Philip Caputo
Fred J. Cook
Walter Cronkite
Beverly Deepe
Gloria Emerson
George Esper
Bernard B. Fall
Frances FitzGerald
Karl Fleming
John Flynn
Martha Gellhorn
Henry F. Graff
Zalin Grant
Francine Du Plessix Gray
Meg Greenfield
H.D.S. Greenway
William Greider
David Halberstam
Frank Harvey
Richard Harwood
Michael Herr
Seymour M. Hersh
Marguerite Higgins
David Hoffman
Arnold R. Isaacs
Thomas A. Johnson
Ward S. Just
Peter R. Kann
Stanley Karnow
Doris Kearns
Michael Kinsley
Donald Kirk
Joseph Kraft
Daniel Lang
Le Kim Dinh
Steve Lerner
Lee Lescaze
Flora Lewis
John S. McCain III
Mary McCarthy
Philip A. McCombs
Joe McGinniss
Norman Mailer
James A. Michener
Charles Mohr
Don Moser
Don Oberdorfer
McCandlish Phillips
Jonathan Randal
Roger Rapoport
Rudolph S. Rauch
John Saar
Harrison E. Salisbury
Sydney H. Schanberg
Jonathan Schell
Robert Shaplen
Neil Sheehan
Susan Sheehan
Jack P. Smith
James P. Sterba
Bob Tamarkin
Wallace Terry
Hunter S. Thompson
William Tuohy
Paul Vogle
Bernard Weinraub
John T. Wheeler
Tom Wolfe
John E. Woodruff

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