U.S. News Media and The Vietnam War - Tet, 1968

Tet, 1968

Although admittance to North Vietnam by western correspondents was difficult, it was not impossible, especially when the northern authorities (who heavily oversaw and restricted any such visit) saw an advantage in the situation. During a bombing halt in December 1966, Harrison E. Salisbury of the New York Times became the first correspondent from a major U.S. newspaper to go to North Vietnam. His reporting of the bombing damage to civilian targets forced the Pentagon to admit that accidents and "collateral damage" had occurred during the bombing campaign. For his effort, Salisbury received heavy condemnation and criticism from his peers, the administration, and the Pentagon. Other correspondents who later made the journey to North Vietnam included Mary McCarthy, Anthony Lewis, and Michael McLear from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and R. K. Karanjia from India, while Agence France Presse maintained a bureau there throughout the war.

The highly dangerous task of reporting with the NLF and North Vietnamese forces in the South was left to Wilfred Burchett, an Australian who had begun reporting on the war in 1963. He free-lanced for the Japanese Mainichi group, the British communist daily The Morning Star, and the American National Guardian. Burchett made no pretense of his communist sympathies, but his reporting of communist schools, arsenals, hospitals, administrative structure, and logistics made what Phillip Knightley called "intriguing reading." Because he reported from the Communist side, Burchett was regarded by many in Australia as a traitor and was persona non grata with the Australian government - yet he also possessed extraordinary information. He was later joined by Madeline Riffaud of the French communist newspaper L'Humanité.