My agent David Halpern of the Robbins Office is practically family. For over thirty years, Kathy Robbins and David have been taking care of me, steering me away from publishing pitfalls and securing my writing career so carefully I can’t imagine life without them.
Thank you, Christy Macy, Anne Garrels, and Karen DeYoung, again, for reading the early pages of You Don’t Belong Here and giving me honest feedback.
Along the way, many friends encouraged me to stick with this project, however vague it seemed. Thanks, especially, to Diane and Dennis Kenny, Lynne Bundesen, Ann and Walter Pincus, Ann Cooper, and Larry Heintzerling; to my friends from Indochina days: Steve Heder, Victoria Butler, and Timothy Carney; to Murray Hiebert, John and Karen Burgess, Robert Kaneda, and Mark Storella; and to the Capitol Hill women’s group of Megan Rosenfeld, Bonny Wolf, Lis Wackman, and Gayle Krughoff. Thanks, as well, to the congregation of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church led by Rev. Michele Morgan.
And I have been inspired, as always, by the examples of Rithy Panh, Mu Sochua, and Pung Chhiv Kek (Galabru), Cambodians who have enriched their country and never given up.
This book is dedicated to my family, the blending of the Becker-Nash clan. On my Becker side that includes my sisters, Sue, Janice, and Mary, my son, Lee Hoagland, my daughter, Lily Hoagland, son-in-law, Thomas Minc, and grandson Raphael Minc. On the Nash side is Bill’s sister, Jean Firmin, his daughter, Rebecca, son-in-law, Matthew Engelke, grandchildren, Harriet and Louis Engelke; his son, Bill, daughter-in-law, Susan Kaufmann Nash, and granddaughters Charlotte and Julia Nash. You don’t know how good it is to have a family of such love and care.
Bill is my trusted first and last reader, my love who keeps life interesting. Mackey, our dog, gets us up in the morning.
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WILLIAM NASH
ELIZABETH BECKER is an award-winning journalist and author who began her career as a war correspondent for the Washington Post in Cambodia. She later became the senior foreign editor of National Public Radio and a New York Times correspondent covering international economics, national security, and foreign policy. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the duPont-Columbia Award and accolades from the Overseas Press Club, and was a member of the Times team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in covering 9/11. She is the author of three previous books, including When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, the definitive book on the event that has been in print for thirty years. Elizabeth Becker lives in Washington, DC.
Notes
EPIGRAPH
1. Richard Eder, “Shallow Graves—Two Women and Vietnam,” Los Angeles Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1986.
2. Peter Arnett, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World’s War Zones (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 220
PREFACE
1. Sylvana Foa to Elizabeth Becker, August 7, 1972, in the author’s possession.
2. Emory Swank, “Expulsion of Sylvana Foa,” confidential cable to US embassy, Phnom Penh, Cambodia (ID:1973PHNOM3809_b), April 22, 1973, declassified 2005.
3. Sydney H. Schanberg, “Credit Due on Deep Throat,” Village Voice, June 29, 2005.
CHAPTER 1: PETITE LADY
1. Description of jump based on Catherine Leroy, “Vietnam Narrative,” unpublished manuscript, Dotation Catherine Leroy (DCL); Jacques Menasche, dir., Cathy at War: Volume 1: Vietnam (DCL, 2016), 72 mins.; and Leroy letter to father, DCL, February 1967.
2. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking Press, 1983), 512.
3. G. C. Lorentz, J. H. Willbanks, D. H. Petraeus, P. A. Stuart, and B. L. Crittenden, Operation Junction City, Vietnam 1967: Battle Book (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1983), prepared for Advanced Battle Analysis, US Army Command and General Staff College.
4. Robert Pledge interview with Don McCullin, March 17, 2012, in Menasche, Cathy at War.
5. George P. Hunt, “A Tiny Girl with Paratroopers’ Wings,” Life, February 16, 1968, 3.
6. John Garofolo, Dickey Chapelle Under Fire: Photographs by the First American Female War Correspondent Killed in Action (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2015).
7. Author interview with Hal Buell, January 7, 2019.
8. Author interview with Dominique Deschavanne, September 14, 2018.
9. Catherine Leroy, “Synopsis,” unpublished, DCL.
10. Gary R. Hess, “Franklin Roosevelt and Indochina,” Journal of American History 59, no. 2 (September 1972): 353–368.
11. Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2012), 224–231.
12. Logevall, Embers of War, 458.
13. Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 55.
14. Author interview with Christian Simonpietri, December 20, 2018.
15. Author interview with Simonpietri.
16. Pledge interview with Horst Faas, March 1, 2011, in Menasche, Cathy at War.
17. Jack Baird, “Ann-Margret and Her Band Perform in Vietnam,” Stars and Stripes, March 17, 1966.
18. Description of photographing Buddhist crisis from Leroy letter to mother, DCL, April 8, 1966.
19. Description with gravestones from Leroy, “Vietnam Narrative.”
20. Description of sleeping eighteen hours from Helene Cantin interview with Leroy, Radio Canada, Quebec, May 29, 1989.
CHAPTER 2: AS DIRTY AND TIRED AS THEY ARE
1. Daniel C. Hallin, The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 9–10.
2. Department of Defense, “Public Affairs Guidance (PAG) on Embedding Media During Possible Future Operations/Deployments in the (CENTCOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR),” declassified January 3, 2003, Federation of American Scientists, https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/embed.html.
3. Jonathan Schell speaking at “Journalists Under Fire: Vietnam and Iraq,” University of California television, April 16, 2005.
4. Catherine Leroy, “Vietnam Narrative,” unpublished manuscript, Dotation Catherine Leroy (DCL).
5. Leroy, “Vietnam Narrative.”
6. Leroy letter to father, DCL, September 20, 1966.
7. Nina Strochlic, “Daring Life of a Female War Photographer,” National Geographic, August 17, 2018.
8. Leroy letter to mother, DCL, April 8, 1966.
9. Brothel incident based on Leroy, “Vietnam Narrative.”
10. Leroy letter to father, September 20, 1966.
11. Author interview with Christian Simonpietri, December 20, 2018.
12. Interrogation in Co Luu based on Leroy, “Vietnam Narrative.”
13. William M. Hammond, “Who Were the Saigon Correspondents and Does It Matter?,” Joan Barone Shorenstein Center for the Press and Public Policy, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, May 17, 1999.
14. Leroy letter to mother, April 8, 1966.
15. Author interview with Alain Taieb, July 16, 2019.
16. File of Catherine Leroy, in “Discreditation or Suspended Accreditation Correspondents Files,” US Forces in Southeast Asia, Saigon, National Archives and Records Administration, released July 16, 2019, under the Freedom of Information Act.
17. “The unwashed one,” in note by Clif Thompson, Da Nang, “Discreditation or Suspended Accreditation,” October 26, 1966.
18. “Ugly Caucasian,” “Discreditation or Suspended Accreditation,” October 30, 1966.
19. Peter Arnett, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World’s War Zones (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 220.
20. Col. Rodger R. Bankson letter, “Discreditation or Suspended Accreditation,” October 24, 1966.
21. Lt. Paul E. Pedisich letter, “D
iscreditation or Suspended Accreditation,” October 27, 1966.
22. Author interview with Paul Pedisich, April 25, 2019.
23. Horst Faas letter to MACV, Saigon, “Discreditation or Suspended Accreditation,” December 1, 1966.
24. Author interview with Tim Page, January 30, 2019.
25. Author interview with Page.
26. G. C. Lorentz, J. H. Willbanks, D. H. Petraeus, P. A. Stuart, and B. L. Crittenden, Operation Junction City, Vietnam 1967: Battle Book (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1983), prepared for Advanced Battle Analysis, US Army Command and General Staff College.
27. Denby Fawcett, “Walking Point,” in Tad Bartimus, Denby Fawcett, Jurate Kazickas, Edith Lederer, Ann Bryan Mariano, Anne Morrissy Merick, Laura Palmer, Kate Webb, and Tracy Wood, War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2002), 12–13.
28. Fawcett, in Bartimus et al., War Torn, 11–13.
29. Anne Morrissy Merick, “My Love Affair with Viet Nam,” in Bartimus et al., War Torn, 105–106.
30. Denby Fawcett, “Nine Others Win Their Case,” Honolulu Advertiser, August 3, 1967.
31. Author interview with Denby Fawcett, November 12, 2019.
32. Jurate Kazickas, “I Became a Feminist in Vietnam When the Officers Invited Me to Dinner—But Not to the Front Line,” Veteran Feminists of America, Inc., VFA Pioneer Histories Project, September 2018.
CHAPTER 3: FORTUNATE FEMALE
1. Joshua Kurlantzick, A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017), 125.
2. Author interview with Frances FitzGerald, April 6, 2018.
3. Frances FitzGerald, “Comparative Calm in the Hurricane’s Eye,” Village Voice, March 24, 1966.
4. Desmond FitzGerald letter to Frances FitzGerald, March 15, 1966, Frances FitzGerald Collection (FFC), Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
5. Bank account according to author interview with Frances FitzGerald, January 15, 2019.
6. Frank Wisner letter to FitzGerald, FFC, December 21, 1965.
7. “Telegram from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to the Embassy in Vietnam,” DEF 6181, March 2, 1965, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968: Volume II, Vietnam, January–June 1965, ed. David C. Humphrey, Ronald D. Landa, and Louis J. Smith (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1996), 395.
8. William Fulbright to Lyndon Johnson, in Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking Press, 1983), 418.
9. Author interview with FitzGerald, January 15, 2019.
10. “Debutantes: The Smart Set,” New York Journal-American, October 5, 1958.
11. Author interview with Ward Just, July 7, 2018.
12. Ward Just, To What End: Report from Vietnam (Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1968), 20.
13. Frances FitzGerald, “My Autobiography,” black watch plaid notebook, FFC, 1952.
14. Author interview with FitzGerald, January 15, 2019.
15. Author interview with Meg Douglas-Hamilton, February 18, 2019.
16. Frances FitzGerald, “The Caliphate and the Kingdom,” History 187, Radcliffe College, FFC, November 15, 1961.
17. Author interview with FitzGerald, January 15, 2019.
18. Marietta Tree letter to FitzGerald, Geneva, FFC, July 6, 1963.
19. Author interview with FitzGerald, January 15, 2019.
20. Martin Luther King Jr., “Opposes Vietnam War,” New York Times, November 11, 1965, cited in “Vietnam War,” Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University.
21. “Flamingo-pink ghetto” from Gail Sheehy, “Gail Sheehy Remembers Clay Felker,” New York Magazine, July 2, 2008.
22. Adlai Stevenson encounter in FitzGerald, red EasyRite notebook, FFC, July 15, 1965.
23. Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared; The Early Years of the CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 322.
24. Clay Felker making a pass in FitzGerald, maple leaf notebook, FFC, circa December 1965.
25. Richard Paddock, “Thich Tri Quang, 95, Galvanizing Monk in South Vietnam, Dies,” New York Times, November 20, 2019.
26. Don Moser and Sam Angeloff, “Irony of Riots on the Heels of Hard Fought Victories,” Life, April 22, 1966.
27. Karnow, Vietnam, 444.
28. Author interview with Just, July 7, 2018.
29. Author interview with FitzGerald, June 19, 2019.
30. FitzGerald, Vietnam notebook, FFC, April 21, 1966.
31. Author interview with FitzGerald, June 19, 2019.
32. Author interview with Daniel Ellsberg, June 11, 2019.
33. Moser and Angeloff, “Irony of Riots on the Heels of Hard-Fought Victories.”
34. FitzGerald, Vietnam notebook.
CHAPTER 4: A WHOLE NEW MEANING TO THE PHRASE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
1. Frances FitzGerald, visiting Qui Nhon Hospital, typescript, Frances FitzGerald Collection (FFC), Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, undated.
2. Neil Sheehan, Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1988), 580–585.
3. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking Press, 1983), 444–451.
4. Desmond FitzGerald to Frances FitzGerald, FFC, April 6, 1966.
5. Frances FitzGerald, “Background of Crisis: The Trivia in Truth,” Village Voice, April 28, 1966.
6. John Phillips, “Language of Madness,” Village Voice, May 5, 1966.
7. William Prochnau, Once upon a Distant War: Young Correspondents and the Early Vietnam Battles (New York: Times Books, 1995), 273.
8. Michael Herr, Dispatches (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), 233.
9. Author interview with Ward Just, July 7, 2018.
10. FitzGerald, loose paper addition to Vietnam notebook, FFC, August 1966.
11. Description of Alsop visit from Ward Just letter to FitzGerald, FFC, undated.
12. Author interview with Daniel Ellsberg, June 11, 2019.
13. Author interview with Frances FitzGerald, June 19, 2019.
14. Description of Frankie’s house from author interview with FitzGerald, June 19, 2019.
15. Frances FitzGerald, “A Quiet Afternoon in a Rustic Setting,” Village Voice, May 19, 1966.
16. Author interview with Just, July 7, 2018.
17. Author interview with FitzGerald, June 19, 2019.
18. Marietta Tree letter to FitzGerald, FFC, June 4, 1966.
19. Ward Just, To What End: Report from Vietnam (Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1968), 167–191.
20. Author interview with FitzGerald, June 19, 2019.
21. Author interview with Just, e-mail, July 26, 2019.
22. William Fulbright quoted in Karnow, Vietnam, 486.
23. George Kennan, “Vietnam Hearings,” closed hearings before Senate Foreign Relations Committee, US Senate, February 1966, www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/vietnam.
24. Niall Ferguson, Kissinger: 1923–1968; The Idealist (New York: Penguin Books, 2015), 681.
25. Author interview with Ellsberg, June 11, 2019.
26. Henry Kissinger to FitzGerald, FFC, August 12, 1966.
27. Author interview with FitzGerald, June 19, 2019.
28. Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2012), 190–193.
29. “Frances FitzGerald: Author of Fire in the Lake Talks About Covering the War,” interview for Vietnam Reconsidered: Lessons from a War conference, University of Southern California, February 1983.
30. Sheehan, Bright Shining Lie, 526.
31. Frances FitzGerald, “Life and Death of a Vietnamese Village,” New York Times Magazine, September 4, 1966.
32. Robert Shaplen, “Letter from Saigon,” New Yorker, October 1, 1966.
33. Jonathan Schell, “The Village of Ben Suc,” New Yorker, July 8, 1967.
34. FitzGerald, Vietnam noteboo
k, September 2, 1966.
35. Desmond FitzGerald to Frances FitzGerald, FFC, September 10, 1966.
36. Author interview with FitzGerald, April 6, 2018.
37. Just to FitzGerald, FFC, December 1966.
CHAPTER 5: VIOLENCE, MADNESS AND FEAR AND AGONY
1. Thomas C. Thayer, The War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1985), 4.
2. Lewis Sorley, Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam (New York: Mariner Books, 2012).
3. Neil Sheehan, Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1988), 643–645.
4. Catherine Leroy letter to mother, Dotation Catherine Leroy (DCL), January 5, 1967.
5. Leroy, “Vietnam Narrative,” unpublished manuscript, DCL.
6. Robert Pledge interview with Horst Faas, March 1, 2011, in Jacques Menasche, dir., Cathy at War: Volume 1; Vietnam (DCL, 2016), 72 mins.
7. Catherine Leroy, “Up Hill 881 with the Marines,” Life, May 19, 1967.
8. Peter Howe, “The Death of a Fighter: Catherine Leroy, 1944–2006,” Digital Journalist, August 2006.
9. CBS request according to Hugh Lunn, Vietnam: A Reporter’s War (Lanham, MD: Cooper Square Press, 2001), 75.
10. Howe, “The Death of a Fighter.”
11. Helene Cantin interview with Catherine Leroy, Radio Canada, Quebec, May 29, 1989.
12. Operation Hickory from Maj. Gary L. Telfer, USMC, Lt. Col. Lane Rogers, USMC, and V. Keith Fleming Jr., U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967 (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, US Marine Corps), 26–30.
13. Menasche, Cathy at War.
14. “Cathy Le Roi Hit by Mortar,” UPI, May 21, 1967.
15. S.Sgt. Russ Havonrd, “Lensgirl Faces Peril to Make It,” Stars and Stripes, June 16, 1967.
16. Leroy, “Vietnam Narrative,” 16–17.
17. Horst Faas letter to Forest Edwards, Hong Kong, DCL, May 25, 1967.
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