Hedrick Smith: Neil Sheehan forced an American reckoning
Reporter who died last week had a profound moral fervor about the people’s right to know the truth.
(Brendan Hoffman for the New York Times)
Author Neil Sheehan poses for a portrait in his home office on Thursday, September 10, 2009 in Washington, DC.
By Hedrick Smith | For The New York Times
| Jan. 12, 2021, 2:14 p.m.
Washington “It looks like a coup,” Neil Sheehan said. “I’ll call Mordecai. He’ll know whose tanks those are.”
It was Saigon, January 1964. I had just shared with Neil the news that I had seen tanks in the streets surrounding the home of Gen. Duong Van Minh, then the South Vietnamese leader. It was normal for tanks to be on guard to protect Big Minh, as he was known, but what caught my eye was that the tanks’ guns were pointed at the house, not away from it, menacing Minh instead of protecting him. It struck me that someone might be putting the commander in chief under house arrest.
Tommy Raskin, a Harvard Law student who took his own life, was buried last week in a simple Jewish graveside service. The next day, his father, Representative Jamie Raskin found himself hiding with his House colleagues from a violent mob incited by President Trump, and fearing for the safety of a surviving daughter, who had accompanied him to the Capitol to witness the counting of electoral votes to seal Joe Biden’s victory.
Holyoke family, friends remember Neil Sheehan
Reporter Neil Sheehan is shown in an office of The New York Times in New York, May 1, 1972. AP FILE PHOTO
Journalist Neil Sheehan is shown in New York, Nov. 29, 1988. Sheehan, a reporter and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who broke the story of the Pentagon Papers for The New York Times and who chronicled the deception at the heart of the Vietnam War in his epic book about the war, has died. He was 84. AP PHOTO/ED BAILEY
Published: 1/10/2021 7:25:18 PM
HOLYOKE A short time after writer Neil Sheehan earned the Pulitzer Prize for his in-depth account of the Vietnam War, his deep family roots in Holyoke brought him back to the city for recognition at the St. Patrick’s Parade.
El periodista que desnudó el Pentágono / Artículo de Albert Garrido elperiodico.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from elperiodico.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.