Table Of ContentBreaking News
Richard Pyle
Published by Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Princeton Architectural Press
37 East Seventh Street Breaking news : how the Associated Press has covered war,
New York, New York 10003 peace, and everything else / reporters of the Associated
Press ; with a foreword by David Halberstam.
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ISBN-13: 978-1-56898-689-0 (alk. paper)
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Editing: Nancy Eklund Later
Design: Deb Wood
Special thanks to: Nettie Aljian, Sara Bader, Dorothy Ball,
Nicola Bednarek, Janet Behning, Becca Casbon, Penny
(Yuen Pik) Chu, Russell Fernandez, Pete Fitzpatrick,
Wendy Fuller, Jan Haux, Clare Jacobson, John King, Mark
Lamster, Linda Lee, Katharine Myers, Lauren Nelson-
Packard, Jennifer Thompson, Paul Wagner, and Joseph
Weston of Princeton Architectural Press
—Kevin C. Lippert, publisher
Princeton Architectural Press
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contents
6 FoREWoRD David Halberstam
18 PREFACE Thomas Curley
20 gLoSSARY oF WIRE SERVICE TERMS
22 WAr I: 216 WAr II:
A Circuit to Anywhere Soldiers of the Press
Richard Pyle Richard Pyle
54 TrIAls: 254 ForeIgN corresPoNdeNTs:
Crime and Punishment A Rare Breed
Frances R. Mears Larry Heinzerling
86 Freedom oF INFormATIoN: 306 PhoTogrAPhs:
A Fight Is What This Is Why Not a Camera?
Nancy Benac Hal Buell
106 AvIATIoN: 340 dIsAsTers:
Like a Monster Bird A Walk Through Hell
Howard Benedict Jerry Schwartz
130 sPorTs: 366 The WhITe house:
Thrills to Last a Lifetime The Ultimate Road Trip
Darrell Christian Terry Hunt and Cal Woodward
160 elecTIoNs: 402 A BRIEF HIST oRY oF AP Walter R. Mears
When Is AP Going to 414 AP gENERAL AgENTS, gENERAL
Call This Thing? MANAgERS, AND CEoS
Tom Jory 414 oFFICES oF THE ASSoCIATED PRESS
IN NEW YoRK CITY
190 cIvIl rIghTs: 415 ACKNoWLEDgMENTS
A Different Kind of Conflict 416 CoNTRIBUToRS
Mike Feinsilber 418 ENDNoTES
428 INDEx
Foreword
David Halberstam The third man, Faas, was a German citi-
zen, officially a photographer but every bit as
good a reporter (in fact, he was a great observer)
as the other two, and he missed nothing, either
about the war taking place right in front of him or,
Who kneW at first glance back in the sum- for that matter, the idiosyncrasies of his col-
mer of 1962 that it would become a legendary leagues. He was quite possibly the most cerebral
place, one that would have a special niche in jour- man in the entire Saigon press corps. “A lot of
nalism’s modern history? It was the least imposing photographers who did what Horst did saw them-
of offices. The Associated Press bureau at 153 selves as photographers first and journalists sec-
Rue Pasteur in downtown Saigon was tiny and was ond, but Horst was different—he saw himself as a
in no way fancy. It felt more like a converted closet journalist first and a photographer second—he
than anything else; if there were two people there always knew what the story was, and he was,
at the same time it seemed overcrowded. The toi- whether with camera or with pencil, always report-
let doubled as the photo lab, where Horst Faas, ing,” said Hal Buell, his boss, who assigned him to
the resident photographer, back from covering Vietnam.
combat that morning and often still in his fatigues, The oldest of the three was Browne,
developed his pictures of the fighting. It was said thoughtful, almost, I thought, scholarly, and
that the decision to move to larger quarters took immensely talented, who had arrived in 1961, a
place in 1964 after Wes Gallagher, AP’s general year before the others; he was the old man of the
manager, visited the bureau, needed quite badly bureau in 1962 at the grand age of thirty-one.
to go to the bathroom, but was told to wait Faas was twenty-eight, and Arnett was only
because Faas was working in the loo (and might twenty-seven, about to turn twenty-eight that
well be working there for another hour) develop- year when by chance they both arrived in Saigon
ing his photos. on the same day, June 26, 1962. “Mal was very
If the quarters were not particularly different from any AP man I had met before,” Faas
imposing, then the three journalists who worked remembered. “Very serious. Very studious. Very
there were also an unlikely lot. Mal Browne, the tall. Always the red socks. No other color. And
bureau chief, had started out life as a chemist, had very good sources. Lots of spooks coming by the
become bored with the world of science, and office to see him and to whisper secrets to him,
found journalism to be a great deal more fun. and Peter and I would have to go outside the
Peter Arnett, the number two man, had kicked office so they could talk in private.”
around a bit in Asia but had not worked for any Browne had grown up in New York in a
big-time news operation. Arnett was from New home that was at least partially Quaker, had gone
Zealand and looked a bit like a rougher Kiwi ver- to Friends Seminary there and, in time,
sion of the French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. The Swarthmore, had started out life as a chemist but
phrase two-fisted might have easily been applied then had worked for stars and stripes in Asia.
to him, and if he had not been a journalist, it some- That had taken him to the Middletown (n.Y.)
times seemed that his alternative career might record, where he spent a year and a half before
have been that of a prizefighter. joining AP in Baltimore; he wanted, he made it
8 Halberstam
abundantly clear to his bosses, to get back to studying the journalists around him, absorbing
Asia, and when the then Saigon bureau chief lessons from them every day about how they
needed to leave for family reasons, Browne got worked, his confidence constantly building. And
the assignment. He arrived in November 1961, he was always fearless—but it was a double kind
just as the first part of the Kennedy buildup was of courage, not just the courage to go out into
taking place. battle again and again, year after year, but the
Browne was a very good bureau chief; he other, rarer kind of courage as well: the courage
operated in the way that Wes Gallagher, the new to report stories that the American mission and
general manager, wanted. He began to write lon- Washington hated because they went against the
ger pieces—takeouts, they were then called—two official optimism. His stories were the ones that
thousand words long, trying to give a better per- always propelled the bureau into controversy. He
spective on what was happening in the war and kept getting better and better, and on some days
why it was different from other wars. He also set before he was even thirty, he was well on his way
an important tone in the bureau in two critical to being, in the judgment of peers, the best com-
ways. First, he backed his people up when they bat reporter of that war.
were challenged by the Saigon officialdom, some- The third man, both brilliant photogra-
thing that was very important and that greatly pher and skilled observer, was Faas, who had just
liberated those who worked for him to do their begun to distinguish himself as a talented and
best work. Second, he never big-footed the story. fearless journalist. He had arrived in Saigon after
That protected the bureau from pettiness and serving a two-year tour in the Congo and Algeria,
backbiting. Browne did not big-foot for two rea- which before Vietnam had been the most danger-
sons: because he thought it was morally wrong ous assignments in the world. Born in 1933, he
and because his own philosophy, which soon had grown up in the bitter embers of World War ll,
became the philosophy of Arnett and Faas as well, and as a photographer he would prove to have an
was that there was going to be enough here for almost magical touch; he was, thought Buell, able
everyone—plenty of war, plenty of heartbreak, to get the action photo that AP badly needed
plenty of stories. every day. He never let you down on getting the
Arnett was a natural for the Saigon assign- basic photo. But Buell thought there was always
ment: fearless, physically indefatigable, with an more to what he did, something that a lot of com-
almost pure instinct for reporting combat. I had bat photographers working for the wire services
always thought if you were going to invent the lacked—an artist’s eye. Faas had displayed that
perfect reporter to cover the Vietnam War it touch from the start, and his bosses were just
would have been Peter Arnett. It was fascinating beginning to understand that they had someone
to watch him grow—the learning curve was so special when they assigned him to Vietnam. The
quick. In the beginning he had no idea how good work he did there was phenomenal. “I put together
he was, but the demands of the job, risking his life the portfolio of Horst’s photos for his first Pulitzer,
every day to watch other men risk theirs, was and I remember being dazzled by it,” Buell
something that he was obviously born to do. He recalled, “by what he had done and how often he
had a natural affinity for the men who did the had done it—again and again and again. It wasn’t
fighting, as they had an affinity for him. One could like it is sometimes for the Pulitzer, when there’s
watch him even back then in 1962 and 1963, one super photo that is obviously the winner.
9 Foreword
Rather, it was the sheer cumulative effect of his cricket in Riverton, New Zealand, Faas had been
work, so many battles, so many photos that both twelve, trying to survive in a brutal world that had
told the story and had that special element that been collapsing on top of him.
was artistic as well.” Because he had replaced a photographer
Faas was one of the first Germans to work named Fred Waters, who was extremely popular
at a high level for an American journalistic organi- with his peers, Faas came slowly by the accep-
zation so soon after World War ll, and he was very tance of some of the older reporters in the region.
aware of an undertow of resentment that some- Something like that sounds small, but it was very
times seemed to be there. He was exceptionally important, given the overheated, incestuous little
sensitive to careless phrases tossed off by col- universe foreign correspondents work in. But
leagues, or by imitations of his accent, done with- soon, among reporters of his own generation, he
out malice but painful to him nonetheless. Because was in turn accepted, then admired, and then
he was different—German, stockily built, with a loved. He was smart, talented, and incredibly gen-
very heavy accent—and kept his more compli- erous—the rarest of colleagues. Not only could
cated thoughts private, it was very easy to get he do the work at the highest possible level him-
Faas wrong, and a great many people did. They self but also he could teach, and he did a brilliant
believed he was a kind of combat machine, good job assembling a small army of Vietnamese string-
because he felt nothing, always immune to the ers to take photos, painstakingly teaching them
terrible suffering around him. The truth was very how to work their cameras and gently telling them
different; he had a finely tuned, almost delicate how to work the apertures and that if they shot at
sensibility, which fortunately for AP was balanced a certain opening, “we’ll save you in the dark-
by an enormous sense of duty and honor. That room.”
sense of honor was special. It was not by chance Faas was also very smart about the war.
that long after the war was over, Faas was the He had his own rules—one of them was to be the
coauthor of a book paying homage to those pho- first man out of a chopper because in the noise
tographers who had not been as lucky as he: and the confusion of a chopper assault enemy fire
requiem was a poignant collection of photos by was often inaccurate in those first moments. But
all of the photographers who had been killed on most of his rules were based on a kind of worst-
both sides of the war. outcome scenario. You were, he told others,
But in the beginning it was easy to under- always to take a three-day supply of food because
estimate him and to wound him. Arnett later things could go badly very quickly. You checked
remembered being with him on one of the early out the units you were going into battle with—this
occasions they had worked together, on an assign- was particularly true in the days when reporters
ment near Pleiku, and Arnett had said something went out with South Vietnamese troops. Avoid
in a German accent, and Faas had been furious, troops with rusty weapons and avoid troops who
and he had taken it for a while, and then he had seemed to care more about their ducks and chick-
called Arnett on it. “What the hell do you know ens than their weapons. Later in the war, when the
about it anyway?” he had said, meaning the war, Americans were pulling out, he added a new one:
the old one that had ended in 1945, and Arnett always carry a money belt with extra money in
had realized he was right, that when he himself order to encourage stretcher bearers to get you
had been ten years old, a carefree kid playing on a chopper. “I thought he was the smartest of
10 Halberstam
us,” said Richard Pyle, who spent five years in the as Faas said, he kept getting better and growing
country, three as bureau chief. “We would be and becoming different—he kept wanting to know
thinking of what was going to happen and after why things were happening. From the start he had
that happened, what would happen next, but a great feel for the story. He had staked it out
Horst was always thinking what would happen early, and he committed every ounce of his being
after that. He was always one or two steps ahead to it: this was, after all, a job that a young New
of the rest of us.” Zealand boy, wanting to make it in the larger
Faas remembered meeting Arnett for the world of international journalism, could only dream
first time even before they got to Saigon; the lat- of. He never seemed to wear down. “He was,” as
ter was running a small English-language paper in his colleague George Esper said, “physically inde-
Laos, and he was obviously a young reporter anx- fatigable. He could work at a very high level when
ious to make a connection to something bigger he was surely exhausted, but he managed never
and get out of Vientiane. There had been an ear- to give in to the fatigue.”
lier story about a coup in Laos that Faas had heard In the end, all three won the Pulitzer prize:
about; with the communications temporarily Browne in 1964, Faas in 1965, and Arnett in 1966.
down, and all the Western news agencies on the Faas actually won it twice, once in Vietnam, and
other side of the Mekong, Arnett had swum the once for covering Bangladesh; and Arnett nearly
river to get the news out, carrying his stories in a won it twice. [He was nominated for a second
plastic bag so they would not be ruined. On Pulitzer two years after receiving his first, but the
another occasion there had been a second coup, nomination was subsequently withdrawn on the
and somehow Arnett had gotten the story to all thinking that a reporter should not win twice for
the wire services, but he had given AP some fif- essentially covering the same story.] In 1975,
teen minutes in lead time. Eventually, that helped Arnett returned to the bureau to help out when
connect him to a job. Saigon was about to fall, and as ever he did bril-
Faas thought Arnett bright and brash, liant work there. Later, when he heard that AP was
with a certain kind of cockiness that he had seen going to put him up for the Pulitzer again, he
before in the Congo: the kind of young man— talked his bosses out of it and demanded that
there had been a lot of them in Africa—from instead they nominate George Esper, the wonder-
Australia or New Zealand or South Africa who ful reporter and, in time, bureau chief who had
eventually ended up on Fleet Street, quick and been there for more than ten years, had stayed to
hardworking and instantly brave, eager to work, the end, and had filed the last dispatches from
and just as eager to play. However full of himself Saigon. AP did, and Esper came very close to win-
Arnett might have been when he first arrived, ning. “I’ve already got mine,” Arnett told Esper; it
Faas was never intimidated by him. “When we was typical of the kind of generosity and selfless-
first met I had already been a real war correspon- ness that had endeared Arnett to his colleagues
dent dealing with real bullets in the Congo and for more than a decade.
Algeria, and the war in Laos, where he had worked, The fourth man, who was not a member of
was mostly a war without bullets,” Faas said. the bureau but who was critically important in its
“There was a lot of Fleet Street in Peter at first, creation and perhaps even more important in
and I could see him getting an offer from one of standing up for the reporters who worked there as
the British papers and ending up there.” But then, the government’s complaints about the bureau’s
