Vietnam: A Reporter's War [Hardcover]

Hugh Lunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1986

From February 1967 to March of 1968, Australian journalist Hugh Lunn reported on the war in Vietnam for Reuters. He joined several military missions into the combat zones, learning the terror of jungle warfare from the front lines. Lunn's record of his experiences reveals attitudes to the war from numerous sides-American soldiers, foreigners living in the capital, and Vietnamese, some intrigued by the American presence and some outraged. Throughout Vietnam, Lunn discovers telling signs of how wrongheaded American strategy was and how desperate American journalists were to show the war as progressive.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Australian journalist Lunn arrived in Saigon to cover the Vietnam War for Reuters in 1967 and left shortly after the Tet offensive in 1968. It was during this period that the futility of the American position began to emerge to the outside world, and Lunn here tells how that realization grew among his press colleagues and then spread. Reporters in the capital were given daily handouts by the U.S. military and usually did not deviate from the official line. Those who went to the front, however, developed misgivings as they toured "pacified" areas that were far from secure and suspected that many of the peasants who professed allegiance to Saigon were instead loyal to Hanoi. Exacerbating the problem, the author maintains, was the contempt that many GIs expressed openly toward the Vietnamese, who often returned that sentiment forcefully. Lunn's excellent study also includes an affecting human-interest storythat of Dinh, the Vietnamese factotum in the Reuters office, who finally escaped to Australia. Photos.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Australian journalist Lunn provides a fine memoir of his experiences as a reporter for Reuters news agency, while stationed in Saigon from 1967 to 1968. The most vivid sequence is his account of the 1968 TET offensive, and the hectic and dangerous business of assembling news and dispatching it via telex. He also discusses the role of Australian troops, who operated in areas largely remote from heavy combat. His friendship with Pham Dinh, a Vietnamese fellow reporter from Reuters, adds a nice human dimension to the narrative. No desk-bound journalist, Lunn joined the Marines and the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment on combat missions, and reports quite well the fearful emotions of a journalist armed with a camera instead of a rifle. Recommended. Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Stein & Day Pub; 1ST edition (November 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812830881
• ISBN-13: 978-0812830880
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,556,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Merits a Review, May 23, 2009

By 

desertflier "sweetNlow" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vietnam: A Reporter's War (Paperback)

There are countless books on the Viet Nam war - some cover individual battles, many are reminiscences of enlisted men and junior officers, and there is the self-serving fiction of many senior officers. There are also accounts by journalists who never fired a shot and were responsible for no military decision. But they were present and necessarily are excellent writers. Hugh Lunn has an additional qualification - he is an Australian journalist and had no ax to grind. Much of his chronicle occurs in and near the Reuters office in Saigon. He interacts with many people, some very important and others whose individual efforts have little effect on the war's outcome. He attempts to reach the field and witness the most strenuous fighting. He succeeds often enough to encounter a reality at odds with that of the American high command. This presents the challenge of dancing his way around censorship to present his version of the truth. What makes this book outstanding are the observations of an outsider about how Americans made war; even details of the PX are scrutinized. Lunn's take is fascinating, refreshing, and unique. Fortunately Lunn was in country for the Tet Offensive. His return to Australia shortly thereafter destined that offensive to be the crescendo of the book as it was of the war.

In short, this is a wonderful book.