Flashbacks

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's 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. (Apr.)

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 -