Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam [Hardcover]

Morley Safer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Newsman Safer, who returned to Vietnam in 1989 to film a report for 60 Minutes , describes meetings with several Vietnamese, including a woman who won a "Hero American Killer" medal during the war, a former Time correspondent who turned out to be a North Vietnamese spy and General Vo Nguyen Giap, conquerer of the French, American and South Vietnamese armies. Safer made his name in 1965 for his television coverage of the destruction of Cam Ne hamlet, an account that caused a furor in the U.S. with its indelible image of the Marine with the Zippo lighter. Here he tells the "story behind the story" and its equally sobering aftermath: the Marines charged him with betraying their trust, President Johnson accused him of having "Communist ties" and Secretary of State Rusk argued that the report was staged. Readers will find much sympathy for the Vietnamese people in these pages, much admiration for Safer's wartime colleagues and much residual contempt for American and military leaders who "ran" the war. Photos. First serial to New York Times Magazine; author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

A war correspondent in the 60s, Safer returned to Vietnam in 1989 and has written this lucid and intriguing account of what he found. His peripatetic journey begins in Hanoi, and then proceeds south throughout a now politically unifed country. Familiar landmarks--sometimes a bar, sometimes a museum--and his conversations with a variety of Vietnamese people evoke Safer's memories of his wartime tours. It is through these flashbacks that a deft connection between the war years and the present is made, giving readers a sense of how things have changed since Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City. Safer's anecdotes illustrate larger points about the war, about defeat, about politics. Interviews with former North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers give voice to the opposition, as does Chanoff and Van Toai's Portrait of the Enemy (Random, 1986). Readers also get an insider's glimpse of life as a war correspondent. Ever the professional journalist, Safer's observations are a welcome addition to already popular Vietnam collections. --Matthew A. Kollasch, Cedar Falls High School, IA -
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 206 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (March 31, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394583744
• ISBN-13: 978-0394583747
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #593,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating and riveting, March 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam (Paperback)

In August 1965, Morley Safer's report on the destruction of a Vietnamese hamlet called Cam Ne -- along with film footage of a U. S. Marine using a Zippo lighter to ignite one of the thatch huts -- ignited a firestorm of protest back in the States. In 1989 Morley Safer returned to Vietnam with a 60 Minutes film crew to meet with and interview North and South Vietnamese military and political leaders and other survivors of that war. "Flashbacks" is the illuminating and riveting story of that journey. Whatever your feelings were about that war, you will find this book a fascinating glimpse into what we did there and how things look now. Safer's writing is superb

3.0 out of 5 stars Did the Vietnamese People Really Win?, April 8, 2000

By 

Jason K. Morioka - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam (Paperback)

Morley Safer traveled back to Vietnam in 1989 to see how that country has changed in the fourteen years since the end of America's involvement in the war. Did the Vietnamese people really win? Morley's goverment provided guide, Ms. Mai, is assigned to escort and provide him access to the sites he reported from during the war. Ms. Mai envies the freedom that women in America have. All throughout the country it is apparent that the Vietnamese people still live with the scars of the war. It is an inescapable reality of their existence. Now, under communism, the Vietnamese people are worse off ... and it is made very clear in this book. Morley writes that the one thing many Vietnamese citizens resent the most is that they do not have the ability to hop on a Freedom Bird to escape the harsh realities of their daily existence. This book provides a fair perspective on what the Vietnamese people think of their victory.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There were no winners in the Vietnam War., November 14, 2010

By 

Kevin M Quigg (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam (Paperback)

Twenty years after Safer left Vietnam, he returns to a now unified and impoverished Vietnam, where these is homelessness in Saigon, and where a corrupt elite now rule from Hanoi. He visits the victors and those who suffered for supporting the wrong war. This is a book of 25 of his encounters, including meeting a Time correspondent who was a Viet Cong spy, to a former Mike commander living in poverty.

Safer relives and reviews some classic stories. He relates how he got the Stone Face name. He relates how the North Vietnamese were not always the masters of the conflict. One man relates how he blew up four tanks he thought were South Vietnamese, only to find that they were his, a form of enemy friendly fire. This is a good story about the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

I recommend this book, and am surprised that Safer has not written more. He is a good author.