Transcripts For CSPAN3 Women Reporters In Vietnam 20240622

Evolved, because theres such a rich history and what you see and hope for moving forward. I was talking to tim about this earlier coming in. So the print, i want to say the print is the median age is probablily early 60s. We Just Launched a new website the main demographic at thenation. Com is 25 to 34. The continuity in change, the ability to bring people in and i mean, i want subscribers who are 105 and i want readers who are 12, and we had writers who are 13 and writers who are 104. So i think thats a great span, and its complicated, because i remember tom frank, many years ago did a cover story for us, what is hip . And i got angry calls, this is years ago. Richard was sitting anyway, what do you mean . What about my Health Insurance program . [ laughter ] so we got straddled. But i take great, i take heart in bringing in a new generation and thats partly the interns, its partly the student nation program, we have 60 campus correspondents all around the country, all kinds of campuses. Do you want to add something, victor . No, i agree. Well weve been privileged this evening. Victor, thank you. Thank you. Katrina, thank you. Soon some of this material will be on the web. We want to you make use of it, learn from it, and given the candor with which both of you spoke today, i cant imagine, i cant wait to read your papers. Thank you all for your attention. Thank you. Goodbye, thank you. Dbka first Lady Helen Taft called knellie made several notable chanlgz to the white house. The most obvious replacing the white male ushers with africanamerican staff. Also while in washington she led an effort to raise funds to create a memorial for victims of the titanic but her greatest legend is bringing thousands of japanese Cherry Blossom trees to the capitol. We examine the public and private lives of the women who filled the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. From Martha Washington to michelle obama, sundays at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. We recently sat down with david hadley, ph. D. Candidate at Ohio State University to talk about the cia and the press in the early days of the cold war. This interview is from the annual meeting for society of historians of American Foreign relations. Its 20 minutes. David hadley, graduate of Gettysburg College and a doctoral candidate at the Ohio State University in columbus, lets talk about times like these, the press and the cia brought in the early cold war, in researching this, what did you learn . Well, what i really learned is that the cia and the press had a pretty at times contentious and very multivaried relationship between the two of them, and it was really founded early on in this common understanding of cold war struggle that the United States is facing this new threat after world war ii, and the soviet union, and that theres in the early days, theres a really strong sense that had to Work Together in order to advance american interests, but over time, that really declined, and so when the press starts as an institution pushing back against the cia more, thats when the agency really got into trouble in a big way in the first time in the United States. How so . Well, byc  1975, the cia, wh has for most of its existence been trying really hard to avoid permanent congressional investigation of its activities, finds itself under investigation by two different committees and the two houses of congress, the Church Committee and the senate, and the Pike Committee and the house of representatives, that really turn out a lot of the cias, what you might call its dirty laundry. There was a cia report that was called the family jewels, that basically was a collection of illegal or at least questionable cia activities that had gone on from 1959 until 1972, and that gets aired to the American Public and its really, because theres a greater willingness on the part of the press to challenge the cia, the entire thing starts because Seymour Hirsch in december 1974 publishes a story that the cia has a massive domestic Surveillance Campaign going on in the United States, which is in direct contravention of the agencys charter as its prohibited from operating within the confines of the United States. On cspan radio a couple weeks ago we played the audio of senator frank church, democratic senator from idaho, and if you listen to what he said back then about listening in on phone conversations and trying to ta. Into your information, we could play that today, and it is the same argument. Yes. Lot of the lessons about intelligence we kind of first a lot of the questions i should say first really started going during these investigations, and its interesting with the National Security agency today, and those questions is, the church in Pike Committees are looking at the cia, the fbi, and to some extent the nsa, and they really recognize that the biggest threat in terms of you know, potential violations of privacy, and listening in on americans do come from increasing electronic communication, but theyre all sharing this idea that surveillance does change things, that knowing youre under surveillance will have an impact, and that by having a Surveillance Program against the cia specifically looking at antivietnam war protesters under the belief that they might be influenced by some foreign power in order to, you know, work against american interests, that cia surveillance there could be really damaging to the Free Expression of ideas. The cia also werent helped by the fact that the name of that program was called chaos, and had very negative connotations, even though the cia insists that it was just a randomly chosen code name. 40 years later, we are still talking about these two committees. Just how significant were they . Well theyre very significant for the cia and the fbi. The fbi had been conducting its own very questionable activities under j. Ed dpar hoover, and those get very tcurtailed. The Central Intelligence agency permanently established by the senate by the congress thats not just a kind of blip on the radar. Its permanently under supervision, which is why we get now for example dianne feinstein, who has an investigation into the cias enhanced interrogation tactics, thats kind of coming from the foundations of oversight that get laid down by the church and the Pike Committees, and theyre also very important for ushering in a new era in the cia in the sense that a lot of the more active or more you might say reckless things the cia had done in the cold war for some time at least get curtailed now, how long or if theyre just changing to different ways of doing things rather than what theyd been doing, back in the cold war, thats a question for debate. But i think the church and Pike Committees really changed the environment in which the cia is working in. It knows that theres some people looking at it now when it hadnt known that before. This is a minor point but its only been relatively recently that if you travel in northern virginia, you can identify where the cia is. It used to say it was a transportation or highway office, but on a larger issue of before the cia was developed after world war ii, what did we do . Well, you have military intelligence agencies that are, you know, the office of Naval Intelligence or the bureau of military intelligence for the army, and they essentially were focused on the tasks that were deemed important for their specific services, and they often didnt talk to one another very well. The state department had something called the black chamber that was actually pretty effective in reading diplomatic mail, and intercepting cables, but it gets closed by the secretary of state henry stimpson, who says at least according to the story that gentlemen dont read each others mail, and so going into world war ii, theres not a real central organizer of the american intelligence effort. T intelligence effort. And thats really where the cia gets created after the war, because a lot of people look back at world war ii, and especially on pearl harbor, and the lesson is, you know, not that we didnt have reason to suspect that the japanese were going to attack at pearl harbor but that all of the different elements of the early American Intelligence Community werent talking to each other. So thats kind of the cias initial role, is its less about operations and more about coordination of effort. But you can actually see that this happens again and again. The 9 11 Commission Report has very similar conclusions, that the problem wasnt a failure of collection, but a failure to put all of the pieces together in time to prevent, you know, such a major attack. I was just going to ask you about 9 11. Researching this topic, does it surprise you that that break down occurred, leading up to 9 11 . It doesnt really. And part of the reason for that is that the cia, even though its originally conceived as something thats going to be, you know, working with all these different agencies and kind of a central hub for intelligence to work through, it pretty quickly gets directed more towards covert action, towards, you know, aggressive activity against communist nations or potential communist nations in third world or in the eastern bloc during the cold war, and i actually argued that part of the reason for that change is the nature of the press coverage. That from reporters who support the mission of the cia, or who dont talk about its activities, you know, they kind of give a certain amount of cover to people who want the cia to be a more active and aggressive agency. Whereas, every time theres, you know, an event that happens that is somehow against u. S. Interests, the cia in its early years is getting blamed. Why didnt you predict this . And so theres riots in bogota in 1948. Those disrupt a conference that secretary of state george mar marshall is at. So the cia gets blamed for not predicting violence arising in bogota. So youve got this kind of dynamic going where covert action is either supported or at least not talked about, whereas the more analytic, the more predictive side is attack from early on. I dont think it gets the chance to really develop as strongly as it might have. In its nearly 70 years, who are among the cia directors who have made a difference, who have played a significant role in shaping the agency . Well, really significant early on is alan dulles. Alan dulles is the brother of the secretary of state during the eisenhower administration. So 1953, the eisenhower dulles is kind of in charge of the United States public interaction with the world, and alan dulles gets in charge of the notsopublic interaction with the world. Its under him that the cia first successfully overthrows a Foreign Government in iran in 1953. And he is very much an advocate of this more aggressive, covert actionoriented agency. But theres others, very important, come later that leave their own distinct mark and change the agency and shift it. I dont want to suggest for example that theres no analysis being done, but cia, and you get a guy like john mccomb in the 1960s whos, hes director of Central Intelligence during the cuban missile crisis. And he really buckles down and focuses especially on providing good intelligence and keeping a lower profile. So id say those are two of the most important early directors of the cia. Why did you get interested in this topic . I got interested in this topic, based on a conversation i was having with one of my professors. We were reading about the overthrow of the government of guzman in guatemala, in 1954. And my adviser wondered, what did the American People think about this . And that really led me to start investigating how the cia and the press interacted with unanother. The press is really how we as a people know what our countrys actually doing. And so what i found is theres some stories about whats some stories about whats happening withy9 reasonable, you know, analytical person looking at press coverage in 1954 can tell that were doing something in guatemala, but that its not nearly as, you know, investigative or sustained in its investigation as it would be later. And yet, its ironic, because reporters want to know everything, and this is an agency that prides itself in secrecy. So describe that interaction between this agency, these agents and the press. So, where you get this interaction is that, well, the press wants to know things, and they look to the cia for information. They dont necessarily want to write about the cia, so the most basic relationship you have between the press and the agency is, you know, a reporter will go and have lunch with an agent at the cia, and hell get some Background Information that he can use. And the cia is often a valuable source of intelligence for reporters. At a certain point, intelligence work and the press, theyre doing the same kind of thing for very different reasons, in terms of getting information. So if youre getting a lot of good stuff from the cia, you dont necessarily want to do anything thats going to aggravate them or to close down that source of information. The press wants to keep access. The New York Times had a, you know, an arrangement with the cia, during the 1960s, that every once in a while, theyd send reporters from the Washington Bureau to the cia headquarters and get briefed on world events for deep background, so it was a mutually beneficial relationship between the two of them. And then there were some reporters who just really wanted to cooperate with u. S. Intelligence. Theres joseph and stewart alsop. Two famous americans who went beyond just Trading Information to working with the cia on some of their projects out of a sense of patriotism and adventure. Joseph alsop took a trip to visit orwells wife. The animated animal farm gets a lot of support from the cia because of its antisoviet message. Joseph alsop offered to get a reporter briefed by the cia, so all this information that the cia wants out, that it cant necessarily just come out and tell people about, and then send those reporters to europe and have them report things that the cia is giving them. And presenting it as information that has come about through just basic reporting practice. So, if david hadley had unfettered access to go to the cia headquarters in virginia, see everything, talk to anyone, what would you look for . I would look for any file on arthur hayes sulzberger, who is the publisher of the New York Times for the early part of my project, hes there until the 1960s. And whether or not the cia actually paid him to cooperate with them, because thats a question thats been debated quite a bit. Id really like to find out about that. How did you go about researching this dissertation in where did you go for information . Who did you talk to . And what was available to you . Well, a lot of things are available in terms of government files from the freedom of information act. The freedom of information act reve reveals a lot about some communications between the cia and the press. The New York Times has a really great archive that i looked at, if you want to look at records of how reporting was done in the 1940s and 1950s, thats a great place to go. And honestly, i read a lot of newspapers. I read about 26 years worth of newspaper stories rs anything relating to intelligence in the times, the washington post, the Chicago Tribune to kind of see what kind of an impact the cia has, so that even if you cant see the precise impact, you can see kind of the wake that it leaves behind it, like its a whale in the ocean. You might not necessarily see it, but youll definitely see, you know, the waves coming after it. Theis is, of course, one aspect of the cia story as you move ahead and look at other areas of this topic, what would be next . Well, i especially want to form a more indepth information of the church and the pipe committees, because they kind of show up at the end of my work now, and i think that theyre very important for understand being the country that we live in today, and the way that this huge part of our government, the National Security, you know, apparatus, really functions, and i think its important to try and better understand what they got right, what they might have gotten wrong and why it happened the way it did. Two final points. First, in terms of your research, you provided a couple of examples, but anything that really surprised you . Anything that was really a wow moment for you. One thing that was surprising to me is that in 1967, the cia is discovered to have been involved in the National Student association and has a much bigger role in private affairs than i necessarily, than most people necessarily would have suspected. And the New York Times is so disturbed by this that they have an indepth investigation as to whether theres been any inappropriate contact between them, their reporters and the cia, and they find some really interesting stories that theres an official, a member of the Associated Press in hong kong whos accusing everybody of being a communist and who is almost certainly working for the krft ia, at least according to this one secondhand reporter, that the cia approached a times reporter in berlin in 1948 to spy for them, that he had a secret rank within the government at least according to this reporter to conduct operations for them. And it was really surprising how out in the hope it was. How much of an open secret it was among members of the press. And finally, why is this relevant today . I think its relevant today, because the cia is going to continue to be a part of our government and our nation and forms an important task, but in order to keep track of what its doing, the most reliable oversight has been done by the press and not by congress. And so we really need to understand how the press interacts with the cia, how the press performs its watchdog function in the democracy to make sure that these necessary parts of the u. S. National Security State dont go to the kinds of abuses that have happened in the past. Will this be a likely course offering for professor david hadley . I very much hope so. I very much hope so. Good luck with your project, from Ohio State University, doctoral student, david hadley. Thank you very much. Friday night on American History tv, the cold war. At 8 00 eastern time, real america with an army film about exercise delaware, a joint u. S. Armed forces operation to defend against a potential soviet invasion of iran. At 8 30. Lectures in history, with a look at the 20th Century Nuclear arms race, and at 9 25, a discussion about the korean war and how it led countries to crackdown on perceived threats from their own citizens. American history tv at 8 00 eastern time, here on cspan 3. This sunday night, on q a, institute for policy fellow phyllis bennis. On the war on terrorism. Who is isis, what are their origins, what do he ththey beli . Why are they so violent. Its something we can do something about. What is the u. S. Policy regarding isis . Why isnt it working . Can we really go to war against terrorism . Are we just doing the war wrong . Or is it wrong to say there should be a war against terrorism at all. I think those are the questions that in some ways are the most important and will be the most useful. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Coming up on American History tv in prime time, the history of journalism in america. Next, women reporters discuss their experiences in covering the vietnam war. Then, a look at the longestlasting weekly magazine, the nation, on its 150th anniversary. And later a discussion about the relationship between the cia and the press. Youre watching American History tv in prime time, on cspan 3. Now a panel of women journalists discuss their experiences in covering the vietnam war. They talk about the challenges they faced in a field of jurgeism that previously excluded women. The museum hosted this hour and 20 minute event. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the museums theater. Im john maynard, director of programs here at the museum. In may, the Museum Opened reporting vietnam, a provocative new exhibit marking the 50th anniversary of the vietnam war. The museum explores the stories of how journalists brought news about the war to a divided nation. Tonight we are so thrilled and honored to be joined by four courageous women who covered the vietnam war. Their stories are both unique and fascinating, and we look forward to hearing from them. Our panel is denby faucet, who quit letter job as a reporter for the Honolulu Star bulletin. She was hired by the honolulu advertiser and was sent to saigon and reported on everything from marine combat patrols to buddhist uprising. Another used her 500 winnings from the game show password to buy a oneway plane ticket to saigon. She covered the war as a freelance reporter. She reported from many battle scenes, including one where she was wounded while interviewing marines for wrr radio. Edith letterer was the first woman assigned fulltime to the Associated Press staff reporting the vietnam war. She has covered the 1973 middle east war, the war in afghanistan, the first gulf war, the conflict in northern ireland, and many other conflicts around the world. Since 1998, she has been aps chief correspondent at the united nations. And laura palmer left for vietnam after graduating from college in 1972. She covered the war for Rolling Stone and reported on the u. S. Evacuation of saigon for time magazine. She is the author of shrapnel in the heart. She currently works as a hospital chaplain in pediatric oncology. Were in good hands tonight with our moderator, cnn pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. She joined cnn in 2001 and during that time has made repeated trips to afghanistan and the horn of africa. Shes also reported directly from the persian gulf, russia, central america, and the chinesenorth korean border. Tonight is just one of the many programs the museum has hosted and will host about vietnam. We hope youll keep an eye on our website where well be talking more about photojournalists. And the legacy of press on the military. I want to give a special welcome to our press pass members and friends of the First Amendment society. Id also like to thank our Corporate Engagement Program members who make programs like this possible. Also i want to acknowledge Cbs Corporation for their support. Their support was done in memory of bob simon, the correspondent whose legendary war reporting over five decades began in vietnam. It is now my privilege to introduce Barbara Starr and our distinguished panel. Thank you. [ applause ] good evening to everybody. Sorry for bringing all my stuff out here, but i was trying to stay organized a little bit. Its just delightful to see everyone here this evening for this conversation, and i had a whole plan of how to start until i was talking to edith letterer backstage. Shes going back new york tonight yeah, i have to share. Shes going back to new york tonight to cover the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The top military guy at the pentagon. Hell be at the u. N. Tomorrow. The pentagon said to me, no, no, no press. Edith got her way into it. [ laughter ] i think thats where we start tonight. But if it makes news, youre got to give me a full. Absolutely. I expect that we will have an absolutely fascinating conversation tonight. I want to start by saying one thing. I am not a war correspondent. Im a pentagon correspondent, and im thrilled, honored, and humbled to be with these women tonight. I work out of the pentagon. I have traveled to war zones, but nothing, nothing, approaches what these women have done and what so many journalists, regardless of gender, i think you would all agree, men and women, did in opening the way to covering battlefields, to bringing the stories of american troops fighting in faraway places into our living rooms, into the front page of our newspapers. If nothing else, that era was such a turn in journalism that i probably dont have to explain to anybody in this room. And i thought that if were not all totally familiar with these womens backgrounds, we would just start by going down the line and have all of you briefly tell us how you came to be in vietnam. Its a far away place a long time ago. So let me start with you, denby. Lets just go down the line for a few minutes here. How did you get there . I got there it seems hard to believe, but someone in our day, like barbara, would be a pentagon correspondent. The women of our day, we reported on things like parties and gardening and cooking. We never really made the news because womens lives were so confined that we had our section, but the stories of women werent even news because their lives were tiny and circumscribed, so i got very bored at my job. I was reading papers all the time, so i decided i wanted to go to vietnam. So when i asked my editors, i was the lowest person in that womens section covering the parties the Party Reporter didnt want to cover. I went in and said i want to go to vietnam and be a war reporter. They just about fell out of their chairs laughing. So i thought, oh, well, im just going to be on my own and be a freelancer. You can see it there, but this is you. Yes. If youre not getting it, were going to show you these women as they practiced their journalism in the middle of a war zone. So what year was this . This was 66. And i was getting ready to go when the editor of the morning paper approach immediate and asked me if i would like to be a reporter but they didnt pay my way. I had to pay my own way to get there. He promised me 35 per story. At the time, i was making 80. If i wrote three stories, that would be a raise. After i got there, six months later i was hired as a fulltime reporter. And he paid me back for paying my way. Tell us a little bit about how you got there. Well, i was working at look magazine as a researcher just reading day in and day out coverage of vietnam and there was nothing else going on. It was the biggest story and it was my generation covering it. I knew i wanted to be a journalist. And like denby, i asked look magazine to send me, and they said absolutely not. Inexperienced and female. Same thing. I quit look magazine, bought my oneway ticket to saigon, and showed up as a freelancer. And you had to get credentials. You needed outlets that you were writing for. I got my press pass and i was ready to go. Edith . I had a very different kind of experience because i was working for the Associated Press in san francisco, and i was covering the Antiwar Movement among many other things, which was, of course, a very hot topic. Every year, the ap would give you a form that asked basically what do you want to do when you grow up, and i would say that i wanted to be a Foreign Correspondent. But in the ap, that was really an impossibility because the ap had a Foreign Editor who refused to have a woman on the foreign desk, and that was the prerequisite for going overseas. So in 1971, i had been to europe. I had never been to asia. And with one my girlfriends, we got one of those incredible panam around the world tickets where in those days, eat your hearts out, you could stop every single place that panam stopped for the same price. Do you remember what you paid for the ticket . Do you remember what you paid . I think it was it was about it was under 1,000. It was like 995. I remember. I had one. I traveled the world in 99 days. It was quite incredible, and one of the places thats why panam is out of business. [ laughter ] one of the places they stopped was saigon, so my girlfriend Nancy Goldner and i decided we were going to see this war witch i had been writing about, which she had been involved in also. She was a teacher. So we went to saigon for four days as war tourists, and the ap staff adopted us. What was fabulous was they took us to the 5 00 follies, which was the daily military briefing. We got to go on a helicopter ride over the mikong delta. And then we got on a plane and went to bangkok. You can imagine my surprise the following summer where, again, i had put on my, what do you want to do when you grow up form that i wanted to be a Foreign Correspondent to get a phone call from the president of the ap asking me if i wanted to go to vietnam for six months. And the first thing i said to him was, does that mean i have to go work on the foreign desk . He said, no, no, no, no. Youre just going to go to vietnam. Because we still had the same Foreign Editor and he still refused to have a woman on the foreign desk. Edith, tell me quickly what year did you join the Associated Press. 1966 in new york city. And still getting the scoops and still beating some people on this podium. [ laughter ] laura, tell us how you came to vietnam. I hitchhiked to vietnam. Vietnam was the last place i ever expected to go, unlike my wonderful colleagues. I had started college in 1968. I had been to every major protest movement, probably some that edith covered. I was deeply opposed to americas involvement in vietnam, and while i was taking my science requirement in california, i had gone to visit a friend in oregon and was hitchhiking back to the bay area with my teenage sister. We were told by the Highway Patrol we would be arrested if we didnt leave the interstate. I said to my sister, the next car has got to be it because we had no other way to get back there, and it was 100 degrees and she was in a bad mood. And i was thinking, what have i gotten us into. So i see a car coming down the highway. I see fishing poles. 6 i think, its a hippy car. Theyll stop. The driver of the car turned out to be a pediatrician, and that was who i went to vietnam with two months after graduating. My plan for my life was to go to law school and get black panthers out of jail. I was deeply committed to social justice issues, and the doctor and i were going he had finished his training and the plan was that he would take a job abroad, and we would do that for a few months. I was at home working as a cocktail waitress earning some extra money. I got a call from him saying ive been offered a job in vietnam. Do you want to go . I said yes without missing a beat. I went for since month six months, and i stayed for two years. I had to work in vietnam and the only jobs that paid anything were working for the embassy, which was not on my list of things i could do, and then working for the media, so i made the rounds to all the news organizations. And it was, all i could answer was no. Do you have any experience in journalism . No. Do you know anything about the military . No. Do you speak vietnamese . No. How long have you been in country . Two months. Did you major in journalism . No, i majored in political science. So abc was looking for a radio stringer and it was 1972 and there were five people who applied. One of whom was denby. Denby was actually qualified for the job. She had a significant track record as a reporter, but she was married to an nbc correspondent and in that era that was not possible, so i was hired and i was hired by new york. And i was hired because it was 1972 and the New York Times was in the midst of a sex Discrimination Suit and the word was out that we need women in prominent places, so on my very first day at abc the bureau chief was sitting where eddie is. He looked at me and said, first words, i just want you to know of all the applicants, you were the least qualified. [ laughter ] that was the beginning. And there we are. You know what strikes me by the way, very shortly, were going to get to questions. We have microphone stands on either side of the room, so get your questions lined up in a few minutes. What strikes me, you know, john very nicely talking about in my era we imbedded, and im sure many of you in the audience have seen when you turn your tv on in the years with iraq and afghanistan, you would see reporters standing there on a military base going out with military. It has come to be really the only way during the years of massive u. S. Military involvement that youre allowed to cover them because no longer do they allow what was so common and so interesting in your era, which is show up and get on a helicopter. Show up and go out in the field. Denby, i was reading that, in fact, in one instance in vietnam, you actually went not to just accompany them on patrol, but you walked point and you called in fires. Tell us tell us about i mean, today, no way. Id like to tell you about that, but i think the important thing to bring up, too, is we didnt just go there and then get out and cover combat. Once you got there, then the problem became vietnam was very free. Almost anybody could get accredited. There was no censership. To actually go out with a unit, you needed the unit commanders permission, and that was the roadblock for us. There were hardly any women there. Maybe five, maybe three. Then they would say, no. For me, they said to me, i was 24 then, i would never let you come out because you remind me of my daughter. You think, holy cow, they would never say that to a man. You remind me of my son. You might get killed. For me, that was the greatest difficulty in vietnam to convince people because there was so much prejudice in our era of women not being able to do anything, that they werent capable, and a woman could never report a war. For me, the miraculous thing that happened when i had almost given up is the u. S. Marines let me go out with them. I was surprised at the time, but someone reminded me later the marines love publicity. We all know the u. S. Marine and theyre the smallest branch of the service, so they need money, they need funding, they need to be important. The things that you describe calling in fire, that would be a violation of journalist ethics, but that was the first marines i went out with, the first people that allowed me to go out to a place when i arrived they were taking out bodies. I was like holy cow. I didnt think i would be in this hot of a place, but that evening, the marines we were being shelled. To combat the north vietnamese that were shelling our position, they were calling air strikes, so they asked me to call in the air strike. They wrote it out on paper. The pilots are navy pilots, so they cant see whats down below. So they wrote out a script. I called in the air strike. This female voice saying in all technical language and its wrong for a reporter to do that. I wanted to pay them back for helping me get started. But it was very funny. The navy pilot when he heard that said we were called girls. Hey, they have a girl down there. Howd you get a girl there . I suppose somewhat years later looking back it does Say Something about the lack of resources in that war that people were just beginning to understand. Very, very tough battlefield for so many Young American troops. Oh, yes. And i think all of you probably experienced that. Urate, i was reading edith and laura, the same thing. Its funny. Across the decades, across the years, what resonated with me when i looked at their histories and their stories, is youve all talked about remembering the faces, the kaleidoscope. I know, laura, you talked about vietnam, saigon being your hometown. Edith, you talked about the kaleidoscope. Urate, you talked about the faces. I just want to say that resonates with me so much about covering vietnam. Its interesting my era is a little different, but that resonates because in afghanistan, in iraq, i feel as though i know the faces of all the troops ive met. I dont know their names. I may not remember what units, but i see those faces and they all come back and the places come back. And im wondering if even all these years later, is it still something that resonates with you, seeing it in front of your eyes . Laura, do you feel that vietnam is still saigon is still so much of where your life was . When i said saigon is my hometown, i meant thats really where i feel like im from. Thats where i did work that i loved for the first time. Its where i met friends that i loved. Its where i felt for the first time that i mattered in life and where my life really began, so yes. I do feel that saigon is my hometown in some ways. New york city in others, but that was a very tender and precious part of my life. Do the images still come back to you . Oh, of course. People say vietnam is behind us. Well, why should it be behind us . Its in us. Its something we experienced. It was a Pivotal Moment of our lives. Its something i want to remember, to learn from, to grow from. As for the faces, i think the faces, i wrote a book called shrapnel in the heart. I think, for me, when the faces really clobbered me was when i went to see platoon and the opening montage in the film where kids just jumping out of choppers and i just sat there and wept. They were not only the boys i knew in vietnam. They were the ones i had written about in the book. I think that was one of the times i really cried for vietnam. I think what strikes me about the faces now when i see the kids that were sending to iraq and afghanistan is the faces stay the same. They still have that innocence. They still have that youth. They still have that fear. They still have when they come home that 1,000 yard stare, so i think thats what strikes me about the faces. They remain unchanged. They often talk about war sort of being the business of the young, isnt it . I think id like to say what was so unique about vietnam and different from current wars is this was a war of draftees. Now, they are military. Theyre professional. You know, they tow the line. Its a volunteer force. This was 18yearolds, 19yearolds. I was 24 and i was an old woman sometimes. Oh, i thought they were sending a girl. Not this and they were green. Some had never been out of their hometowns in small southern cities. They were afraid. They didnt understand the war. They were getting, you know, letters from back home writing about all the protests. So when you talk about faces, i mean, i saw fear, confusion, loneliness, and thats really, i think, what everybody knew someone who was in vietnam or had died in vietnam. These wars are very different, arent they . We are delighted theres so many young people with us this evening. If we still had a draft in this country, it would be a very different, a very different prospect, i suppose. Urate, can you tell us a little bit about being wounded . Well, you know, cason was a very big story, and i broke my rule since i was a freelancer, it was very hard to get things into newspapers. Never go where all the press goes. If everybody was up there, i was down in the delta, but this was such a big story. Marines were under siege since middle of january. I got the assignment from wr radio to interview new yorkers who were in kaeson. I hitched a ride on a helicopter. There was very limited press accessibility, and i saw, like we always did in vietnam, empty helicopter blades whirring. Being a girl, i had that advantage. I looked over and i said, where you going to kaeson by chance . Sure. Hope on. Public Information Officer was furious, because he had his roster of washington post, New York Times, upi, whatever. We made the fatal mistake of not throwing ourselves on the ground but running for the fox hole. When artillery shell hits the ground, it explodes this way. I got shrapnel in my legs, my face, and my back and whatever. And the pio officer later on said, well, she got what she was looking for. And that was not quite what i was looking for. Hardly. Well, thankfully, were past some of that attitude, but i just want to impress upon everyone here what you already know otherwise i dont think you would be here this evening. The women who are journalists today in war zones have so much to be thankful for for those who came before us. Eadie, one of the things youve talked about is, and were talking about being women, being women journalists, and being journalists. You were there when some of the pows came out. I think there are very few american journalists that can tell that story today. We all see the news clips, the old newsreel footage things, but you saw them. Yes, i did. I was lucky enough to be in vietnam before, during, and after the pullout of the last american combat troops. I think a lot of people dont realize that the last american combat troops left at the end of march in 1973 and then the vietnam war went on for another two years fought by the South Vietnamese military with diminishing military and Financial Support from the United States until saigon fell on april 30th, 1975. But after the last american combat troops left, i was sent to cover the release of the First Americans who had been held in the south, in South Vietnam, by the viet kong. And they came in, ill never, there are some pictures that always stay in your mind, but they came in on helicopters. It was like this whole circle of helicopters that came in and landed at the airport. And these totally bedraggled american soldiers got off. Some limping. Many emaciated. Some seeming not to know where they were. But at the bottom of the helicopters, when they got off, there was a general standing there, and he saluted every one of them. And what was fascinating was i think at that moment, for some of them anyway, they realized they were free because they saw he was an American General, and almost every single one of them saluted back. It was an incredibly moving experience, and you always have to wonder when youre talking about faces and people that you remember how it impacted the lives of those young men. I guess, among many other things, ive always wondered were they able to rebuild their lives and to have good families and decent jobs and to really have a decent life. I want to interrupt then and tell an anecdote. Im going to take one second here. I was inside the pentagon working on the morning of 9 11, and as we came to understand the people who perished inside the pentagon, there was a man, older man, civilian, worked for the department of the army. His name was max bilky. You know who max was. Max bilky died in the pentagon on 9 11. Max as a young army draftee is listed in American History as the last combat american soldier out of vietnam, and he came home and he had a good life. Thats good. By all accounts. And he died that morning. So vietnam, its just its just fascinating because it is so woven in the fabric of this country and the journalists who covered it are so woven into the fabric of our profession. You know, let me be the one to ask the trite question. As you look back now laura, want to start with you and lets go down the line. Through the prism of history, where did it matter what you were a woman, a female journalist in terms of being denied the options that others had . Lets talk about that. And as you look back seeing these americans come off helicopters, who on earth cares whether it is a man or woman covering that story as long as it is getting covered . It is partly looking through the prism of time. What am i going to do . Ask these women, did it matter being a woman in vietnam . Well, sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Talk to us about this. I was there so late in the war that i was standing on the shoulders of those who had made real sacrifices to give women the opportunity. As i mentioned, it was not only the women at the New York Times and the sex discriminate suit, but people like urate who fought to have women have access, so i didnt have obstacles in my path that way, but i think i knew as a woman i had to earn my place at the table. There were some things that were a given. I would never show fear. I would work as hard as any man, i think as i dont know what my colleagues think. I think as a woman i was someone who was always more comfortable talking about feelings, so it wasnt it was a natural far me. So if im interviewing a g. I. , ill ask the second and third followup question. Denby . My thoughts on it were that i think being a woman was important because it showed that women could do that. Even up to the end, edie and her boss and kate webb and other female reporters, we were kind of freelancer. I mean, i paid my own way there. Edie was among the first to become as a staffer, but her boss said no covering combat and also to tracy wood. He had sent them over. There was a push to have woman covering important things, but still you had this overhanging layer of my experience there, my worst we were almost on the edge of getting set back in my era. Mine happened when i was out at a forward fire base. William westmoreland, whom many of you probably dont remember now. The general in charge of the armed forces in vietnam, he happened to fly in because they were under fire and a lot of people had died. 36 people had died. It was very bad, so he came to give a pep talk. And he came around. I just waited until he was finished talking to the soldiers. And then he came up and he saw me and he said, oh, what are you doing here . And his family had rented a house near ours in hawaii and my mother played tennis with his wife. He said, oh, how long have you been here . I said, oh, two nights. He said, oh. Then he laughed. Then we heard later that urate and i and the few female reporters, he wanted to close it down for women reporters. He decided then that no women could spend the night in the field and that meant that we couldnt cover things because its not like you could call uber and say get me out of here. I have to be home for my bedtime. So, women all banded together, and we managed to get that changed. I think women matters because the women of our era were starting to get emboldened. It was the 1960s. What happened to women before us they would often buy into this myth that you cant do these things. I was a little bit that way myself, but the 60s are coming and the times, theyre a changing, so we were braver and we fought things. We didnt intend that to matter in the larger scale, but i think it did. Start thinking about your questions. Were going to get to questions in about three minutes. If you dont have ones, ill call on you anyhow. What do you think . I think the military at that time was very paternalistic with us, like denbys story. Oh, you remind me of my daughter, and they would really say things like why arent you writing about widows and orphans. Occasionally, they would say, okay, youre here. You know, youre such a morale boost. Could you just go around the fire base and pose for photos . Pose for photos with with the kids there. You know, there was this weird disconnect. You had this legitimate press pass and were trying to write about combat. And instead, and, yes, there were show girls in vietnam, and there were also nurses, but reporters very few. And it was very hard for them to see you as a professional. This is why i mean im sitting here and im just awestruck because anything we have been able to do in iraq and afghanistan, bosnia, the middle east, the horn of africa, really is owed to the women who have gone before. Edie, i suspect that maybe anybody who, any American General who told you you couldnt do something might have had an adjustment made to personality. I would like to start out by echoing laura and paying tribute to denby, urate and kate web. Kate web captured in cambodia and one of the very few people to come out alive, but i would also like to say that we were all products of the dawn of womens liberation. We were that generation that really started to believe that women could do anything that we put our minds to. And in a sense, thats what i think made a difference for all of the women who came of age and into this profession of being war correspondents and Foreign Correspondents starting in vietnam. We, as a whole group, were actually able to prove that women actually do have what it takes to cover wars and disasters. Unlike what aps then Foreign Editor ben bassett believed. Not that were naming names. I always felt that i was grateful that i could prove that he was wrong, and that i was able to do it not just in vietnam but in the many other wars i went on to cover. The other thing that i wanted to say about women was, you know, just because we were there and we were working hard doesnt mean that, at least for me, on many occasions i wouldnt use the fact that i was a woman to try to get information and to get stories because one of the things i learned instantly on arriving in vietnam was there was so few american women there that you could basically talk to any man about anything. And particularly in the military, where i actually did not know that much, you could ask them to explain things to you, or you could ask what might sound like a stupid question coming from a man and often would elicit great quotes for a story. [ laughter ] i got no problem with that. I really dont. If they want to cough up the information, thats theyre problem. Lets go to some questions. I think you were probably first. You want to tell us who you are and who youd like to ask a question of. My names dee young. Could you tell us something that you hear from American People and from vietnamese or any other nation countries that people say about and how do they express their emotion about the wars . About how people today when you were in vietnam, when you hear the people say, when americans say or vietnamese or some other countries stay how do people feel emotionally about the war when they were reporting . What kind of emotions did you hear from the people of vietnam, i think thats your question, about the war when you were there and reporting on the war . What did you hear . What do they feel about you how did they feel about you as american journalists covering the war . Anybody have something . I could answer just kind of briefly because i lived with the vietnamese family in the heart of saigon. They had a little curio store. They had one floor above me and i lived below. It was so bizarre. They were just going about their business in the war. They were trying to make a living and trying to survive. And they didnt think of me as anything unusual at all because i was working too, so we didnt really discuss the war at all. We were just kind of going about our business. Yes, getting through life. Im so sorry. No, no, please. One of my great disappointments about having been in vietnam for almost two years, i did not write enough about the vietnamese people. I was so focused on the americans. For a freelancer, i would be very hard to get a story published and i regret it terribly. Thank god for Gloria Emerson who went there and wrote day of day about the vietnamese people. We went through the villages and the devastation and people crying. It was heartbreaking to see how much the vietnamese people suffered. Id just like to say that i think i echo what they said. There was a tremendous amount of suffering, and one of the stories that i did want to write was about the impact of the war on the South Vietnamese because we wrote about all the american casualties, but we didnt write about the massive South Vietnamese casualties. And in order to do this, i had to go and find a South Vietnamese family that had lost this woman had lost either three or four sons, and she had one who was still fighting. She didnt know whether he was still alive, and she was living under the most horrible circumstances in a shack where she didnt even have walls of her own. She had a roof over the walls of the two adjoining huts, and so i think that there was a tremendous amount of suffering, but i think a lot depended on the economic class of the people. I think there was a certain middle class in South Vietnam that sort of rolled with the punches and some who made money, but i think a lot of the very poor, the poorer people, really, really suffered. Maam . My name is peggy lewis and im with trinity washington university. We are so proud of you and so grateful to all of you for being here. I have a number of students and faculty here from the university who are aspiring to be journalists, but i wonder what your thoughts were when you heard Brian Williams embellishing his experience and you were there. Im sure you had thoughts. Im going to leave it to these ladies to decide if they want to answer. Its your floor. As you kwish. And if you dont, i think there will probably be no hard feelings. Anybody want to is that a no thank you. Im not trying to make you Say Something you dont want to say, but im certain women who had been there covering it, to see a man who embellished and was taken out of the anchor chair for the embellishment is it a gender issue . I dont know that it is. But were delighted you have students here this evening . Are you guys up there in the rafters . Raise your hands. Oh, there you are. Hello. I think its an okay question, but it doesnt have to do with being a man. It would be anyone who would embellish and still have this position of stature and speaking out to the American People. You worry for them and feel sad and think, why did you do that. Journalism 101, accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. After that, theres really nothing. Its not about anybody else. Its about you and your accuracy. Im not commenting on mr. Williams. Im commenting on journalism, the journalism profession. Im a Political Communications student at gw. Im here with some students. Thank you so much for being here. Raise your hands. Theres a great book by tim obrien, the things theyve carried. I dont know if youve heard it before. Its a fictitious account. I was hoping that you ladies could possibly share either some things that you brought along with you in your own bags as you traveled along or some of the momentos you picked up along the way. Thats a great question. Did you have a good luck charm . Did you have something you always had with you in the bottom of your ruck . I know it was very important for me to still have some kind of femaleness. Im 6 feet tall. I wore a yellow tee shirt underneath my fatigues, and i did put on lipsticks surreptitiously every now and then. And one of the nicest compliments i ever got, after a couple days on patrol in the re rain, in the mud, sleeping in a foxhole with somebody, and a guy says to me, maam, i dont know how you do it, but you still smell better than we do. [ laughter ] i took, i was always thinking of eating. When im nervous i like to eat. We had crations which why canned. So i would sake an onion and toe ba tabasco, and there was a store, they had canned beaujolais. I would take a can of wine, thinking if this is going to be my last night on earth, im going to have some wine with my feast. I was also into the lipstick, nail polish. Sort of wearing combat fatigues but also trying to look like a woman. And id try and take that where, wherever i went, and i also tried to sneak along some business cu biscuits and cookies, stuff that was not part of any rations. I dont remember taking anything with me, but something that ive carried or kept, its a small helicopter that was made from hospital junk. Some iv tubing, some needle caps and its, its a perfectly constructed miniature helicopter with a small rotor. And it was made by a young boy who was, i think, about 10, who had been shot in the spine from an american chopper, and he was paralyzed. And what he did was create this helicopter from the junk in the hospital. He was selling it for i dont know. 25 cents or whatever, to raise money for himself and for his family. So ive always kept that very close by. Its usually on my desk. And i keep it as a reminder of what war does. Sir . Good evening. Gary thomas. Im just a retiree. First off, i have to remind denby, the marines arent the smallest force, it is the coast guard, and for all five of you, i honor you for what you do as role models. My question is for denby first. Early in your career you made career decisions about your professional life and your personal life that sometimes had to be conflicted and also dealing with the fact that bob was a journalist, brett was born overseas, how did you make those decisions, how did you judge your personal life, your professional life, and how did you make it all work out in the end . Gary and i know each other from honolulu, and he has a wife whos a pioneer also. Shes a rear admiral in the u. S. Coast guard. She ran the 14th district on our island of yoahu. I cant say there was a pattern. I was alone for a long time in vietnam reporting alone. And things kind of fell together and i always kept working when i was married. And i dont know how i did it. It wasnt really