decent into darkness. watch live beginning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on wednesday. join the discussion. now an american history tv pulitzer prize winning photographer nick ut and david hume kennerly talk about their war time work in vietnam. they'll talk about how the images affected american perception of the conflict. part of the conference at the lbj presidential library in austin on the vietnam war. please welcome mr. tommy hodinh, chairman and ceo of mag rabbit. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the power of a picture presentation. we are going to meet two

renounced photographers who pictures change public sentiment toward the vietnam war. it is an honor for me to be here today. my name is tommy hodinh. i was born and raised near dhang ang from vietnam. i moved here from college when i was 18. when i was about 14 years old, i remember the marine landing on the beach. the marine were very generous to everybody. giving candy to children and inspiring -- their future. they were truly the statement of freedom and democracy. there are many tragic images

from the war and from my home town. but they were also some good memories and events which should not be overshadowed by the destruction of the war. today i live in austin with two sons born here and my wife tanya. i'm lucky i am a chairman of mag rabbit inc., a global software company founded 25 years ago in austin. we have several offices, but two offices that are dear to me, aray and dan ang city. i personally want to thank the soldier who risked their life in the vietnam war and also for the united states of america which had afforded me the opportunity

to make the most of my life here in austin and this country. ladies and gentlemen, david hume kennerly had been shooting in the frontlines of history for 50 years. at 25 years, he is one of the youngest winners of the pulitzer prize, when he won for capturing the loneliness and desolation of the vietnam war. he went on to be a personal photographer, serving in the white house throughout president's administration. kennerly has served as a contributing editor for news week and politico and he served as a contributing photographer

for time and life magazine. american photo magazine named him one of the hundred most important people in photography. now meet nick ut, a vietnamese photographer. he worked for the associated press for more than a half century. he spent almost a decade covering the vietnam war. beginning at the age of 16 -- 1-6. he won the 1973 pulitzer prize for spot news photography for the terror of war. you may remember his iconic photograph of vietnamese children fleeting from napalm

bombing during the vietnam war. it is also my pleasure today to introduce to our moderator, miss angela evans. the dean of the lbj school of public affairs at ut austin. she is a fellow of jack bicco region chair in public affairs. miss evans is also a former deputy director of the congressional research service and is a fellow of the national academy of public administration. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our panelists. [ applause ] good afternoon, everyone and

welcome. we are so pleased that you're here. and what we're going to be doing today, this is how we're setting this up. obviously we have two very distinguished photo journalists and many of us who lived through the vietnam war and saw the war through their eyes and through their camera lens. they have chosen several photographs to be shown to the audience. siri adams will take david's photographs first and we'll watch those and land on a david and ask him some questions an then we're going to turn to nick and he's also chosen some photos to share with us and we'll do the same thing. so let's start with david's photos.

david, why don't you talk to us a little bit about why did you get into photo journalism and why did you decide that you wanted to go to vietnam and shoot the war? >> okay. i think we needed background music here, everybody is so quiet. it made me nervous. i got -- i've been a photographer since i was a kid. i'm a native oregonian and grew up in a little town called roseberg. and all i could remember was wanting to get out of that town. and i was always looking over the ridge to the next place. and my career took a path from oregon to los angeles, to new york, to washington, d.c., working for upi. and i -- during the course of the vietnam war, when it

started, there was a brilliant photographer, larry burros, arnette and some of the other people knew him, i never met him, but he was an inspiration to me. he did a story called yankee poppa 13 for life magazine and it came out in 1965. i was a senior in high school. and the story was, to this day, it is still with me. i do a lot of lectures on photography and i particularly like to talk about this -- this story about a young helicopter crew chief and the first frame he has a smile, he has a -- carrying a machine guns out to the helicopter and then during the course of this mission, they let off some vietnamese soldiers in the field and one of the other helicopters gets shot

down. and they go out and rescue the helicopter pilots from the other one and the coverage of the magazine was this guy and he's screaming and there is -- one of his colleagues is dead in the foreground. but the picture that really did it to me was the last frame, was the same young guy bent over and crying alone in a hanger. the arc of the story, it was something arnett and everybody were talking about, stories you didn't see. and we were getting our information from life magazine and all of that. but i wanted to do that. i want tods be able to cover a war. by the time i got to washington, d.c., i was 23 years old. i was getting -- i had my first ride on air force one when i was -- as a upi photographer at 23. i'm reminded of of that because

i found the flight certificate the other day. that is the kind of thing -- the kind of job people want to get -- they go to vietnam to do something like that when they get back. but that wasn't what i wanted to do. and i felt like mr. roberts on a supply ship in a back water watching the destroyers going into combat and i wanted to be on that ship. and finally i got the opportunity to do it. and one of the other things -- i mean for me it is a news photographer, it was my generation's story. hi four of my classmates from westland high school, people i knew who i had photographed them for the annual were killed in combat. there were vietnam army -- or army soldiers. and so i finally fin angled my way into it. and i didn't want to be one of

those kind of people who 20, 30 years later was making excuses about why i didn't go to vietnam. >> you have this passion. it sounds like you had this passion. and what surprised you when you got there? were things different than what you would find when you got there? >> before i got there, and this was -- one of the worst days of my life, really, was -- i think people in my -- photographers particularly are always under a be-there mentality and right before i left and i was all set to go, a helicopter carrying larry burros and andre uit -- and --

>> the japanese. >> the japanese photographer. and kent potter of upi. i was on my way to replace kent potter and they got killed. one of my photo heroes was killed and it just scared the hell out of me. all of a sudden, this was not an abstract notion about going off to war, even though i had a lot of my friends that had been over there and come back. but it was -- i seriously thought that -- that maybe i didn't want to do this. and i don't admit -- i mean, on numerous occasions, i remember being terrified. but i finally overcame that and got to siagon. and i had not been overseas. the only country i had been to prior to that was the netherlands, which is not exactly vietnam. it had its fine points,

certainly. [ laughter ] and i got there and it was so exciting for me. i must say, it was -- just the energy in siagon and going to the bureau, the upi bureau and all of the people that had been there. and knowing i was setting off on something that i couldn't have anticipated. and i do remember within a week or so, i was up in icor on a convey going down the road and there was a dead person on the side of the road. this is something you weren't seeing in new york city. and once again, i had this feeling of great fear. i mean, it was just a dead person by the side of the road. i didn't even take a picture. but it was astonishing. it is one of those we're not in kansas any more moments. but i pushed on.

and i -- i have a real dedication, not only to my profession, but to telling stories and taking pictures of things so other people could see them. i don't take my pictures -- people ask me why i'm on facebook. i'm on facebook because i like people to see what i do and see what i see. and that has been part of the drive of my career. >> one of the things that you talked about, as you start to get inter grated into the society and the war and the fear, one of the things i asked david in the back and he said oh, this is going to be a touchy-feeling question and i said yes, it is. and you see all of this emotional, raw emotion, some of the worst of humanity and how do you keep yourself whole, how do you keep your eye focused on what you -- the story that you want to tell without getting really in deep despair. how do you do this? how did you refresh yourself? >> it is a good question.

i think a lot of my friends and people in this room, certainly veterans, and i will say this, this is -- this whole idea of photographing wars was not really about glorifying my profession so much as showing what is happening to other people. and i think that the ability to do that, the fact that i was in vietnam without somebody telling me to go, i wasn't drafted, i actually do do service, to a degree i went into the national guard to get out of going to vietnam. and i have one of those more interesting stories. hi to get out of the army to go to the war. which -- the general who signed off on it didn't feel it would create an ugly precedent. but when i got over there and

experienced close situations, close calls and thall of th-- a and i thought about this a lot, why have i been able to put this in the rearview mirror and others can't. it is lucky for me. i have friends in themill and they had -- military and they had more of a problem, if you are in a situation and you have to be there for 12 or 13 months as a draftee or that is your tour in vietnam, you had no choice about what would happen to you and you are also the one with the gun doing the shooting and i certainly was at much risk, any of us covering the war were at risk. particular my photographers who have to be there on the front lines. i can't answer why. i covered -- actually a story -- the only story that ever gave me nightmares was jonestown. and if you saw that, i had the cover picture on time magazine

of jonestown. and i had horrible nightmares from it. and i saw the dead body of jim jones rising to get me. i swear to god, i still -- it doesn't plague me now, but i remember the nightmare. and i have not had one bad dream about vietnam. the other night i had a bad dream about the north koreans dropping the statue of liberty on me. that was weird. but generally, my dreams are of -- not quite so substantial as that. so i -- i'm lucky. but i haven't -- i'm incredibly sympathetic to people with problems. my own colleagues and veterans, because from my class in high school, i had -- and in my career, i've just met so many people and been at different wars up to and including the recent conflict. but i don't have a good answer for why i didn't suffer from the

ill-effects. >> one of the things i think about, there was so much controversy back home about the war. and a lot of opposition for the war and support for the war and as a photographer did that come into your mind in terms of the pictures of how that may sway either side in terms of how that person might view the war? >> well, when i went to vietnam, it is maybe kind of hard to figure, because i was covering anti-lbj demonstrations. i remember when hubert humphrey came to oregon in '66 and i just started -- this is my 50th year as a professional photographer. nick has been with a.p. for 50 years and he is only ten years younger than i am. but i -- i didn't have a political dog in the hunt on that one. i think it is because i was brought up in a -- what i hope is not old-fashioned way, but in

the news business, where trying to be objective, we are not objective by nature. i mean, you see things, we all see things differently. we may be watching the same incident, but i didn't have pro-war or anti-war feeling about it. to me it was a story. it directly impacted me. it was taking the lives of people i knew. my career has been based on curiosity and i wanted to see why -- what is going on over there. and by the time i got there, it was already 1971. and eddy adams our friend and the guy that took the picture of shooting the vietcong suspect and a person that i admired but he was my competitor, he was a.p. and i was epi and he told me, just before i left, that all of the good pictures had already been taken.

this is the kind of guy that he was. anybody that knows him. arnett would understand that. and when i won the pulitzer prize, something -- by the way -- that i didn't know that i had been put up for. the first i heard about it was -- the no anxiety award. i hadn't given it a second thought. i got all of these cables, i was in siagon and one of them was from eddie adams that said, i was wrong, congratulations. >> oh, that was nice. >> he went really overboard on that cable. but -- [ laughter ] and how my pictures affect me, i'm hoping that the pictures that i take really create awareness of what is going on. and it is only one person's point of view. like any photographer will tell you, we do the best we can to try to honestly portray what is

happening. and other people could make up their minds. and with nick's photo of kim folk running down the road, the picture could be used on both sides of the equation about, look, this is what happens because of war, which is a really good point. but whose fault is it? it is all of our faults to allow that kind of thing to happen. but i didn't look at it as a political tool as much as an informational vehicle, really. >> one of the things that i think about sometimes, is your typical day, there isn't a typical day, obviously. but you go out and you shoot a lot of different pictures. which ones do you decide to send forward and which ones do you decide to keep back and have you kept back photos that only you will see and the rest of us won't? >> well, i used to -- generally my day was like a week or two going into the field.

somebody once asked me what was the worst thing about vietnam. i said it ruined camping for me. [ laughter ] seriously, my kids have never been camping. and they still don't get why i don't want to go do that. but i would just ship the film back. we try to get -- it wasn't like today where you could upload photographs from a battlefield or wherever. but we would ship our film, if we were up in den ang or somewhere and try to get people to carry the film back down to siagon. they picked the pictures. i had nothing to do with it. pretty much in my career -- now the digital era has changed that with -- in a bad way, i think. where editors are being cut out of the mix. i felt like for writing or taking pictures you need a good editor. and somebody who -- a professional editor is somebody

who is very helpful. and you don't always agree with their choices, but the idea -- but the pictures went to siagon and photos were picked there and transmitted out. it wasn't like people say, well, i remember tv brought the war into your living room, which is did. vietnam was the first time. but if television brought it to your living room, the still photo is taken directly to your heart. there is a great show at the newseum in washington, d.c. about the vietnam war and there are a lot of these famous pictures and nick's pictures are in there and eddie adams pictures are in there but people stop and they are fixated by the photographs. and you don't get the same thing out of moving pictures. they both have their place.

a lot of people don't remember, but eddie's picture of the execution, there was an nbc cameraman -- i think nbc. >> yeah. >> who was there with eddie and has a film of the guy shooting the -- the guy in the head. and nobody remembers it. and it was a brutal. you mean you don't want to see it. i'm sure it is out there on you tube along with everything else. but the still picture, once you've seen it, it just embedded in your brain. and that is why joe rosenthal iwo jima photograph, i gave the eulogy at joe's funeral and i had known him since 1968, to still be the best photograph ever taken. but -- and nick was there at the funeral, eddie had already died and i said that -- that nick was the last surviving member of the

god damnests pictures i've seen and the other two members were joe rosenthal and eddie adams where iwo jima was about a brave moment in history, brave marines raising the flag over the mountain on iwo jima and the exact opposite, the underbelly, the dark side of war, which is nape aum and siagon execution but the pictures -- they are three of the most influential pi pictures ever taken. and you could look at them any way you want in terms of what they meant. >> how did your photographs change over the time that you were in vietnam? did they change? how did they change? >> well, there was never a day where i felt the war was a good idea. my pictures changed where -- any time you go somewhere for the first time, particularly going

from the united states into southeast asia, into siagon and then vietnam all around, every day was a new day. i think my pictures were better the first few months i was there because i fell into what i call the familiarity hole. and one of the hardest things for professional photographers or anybody in gem is overcoming familiarity of being in a situation day in and day out. and i give people an exercise now taking photographs, like a photo fitness workout where you go in your neighborhood and you take pictures of something, you look at every day but you don't see. a professional photographer has to do that all of the time. and granted, there wasn't like the same thing was happening all of the time. but i was much more engaged with it early on. but i -- i don't think my pictures changed.

i really think my pictures have gotten better over the years. i've become more thoughtful about it. some people would disagree with that. but i really do think more about what i'm doing, not as an artist, but as -- what is a better way to tell the story. >> thank you. i think we'll give nick a chance to talk to us as well. >> yes, yinick. >> so we're going to look at the photographs that nick chose for us to view today.

nick, one of the reasons that you got into photo journalism is your brother was a photo journalist and he was killed in the war. and you were 16 when you started this. so your war was about your people and about -- and your country so talk to us about what you saw and your role in photo journalism in terms of the war. >> the picture -- my brother, he took the picture when he was wounded in 1965. then he went back on assignment again, nine or ten months -- i think six months later.

october of 15, 1965. and the vietcong killed all japanese in the delta and they killed my brother. and then after -- before my family, he said you will die. and then nick [ inaudible ]. then in 1966, i had a job with a.p. and -- >> 16 years old? >> 16 years old. and i come back and from 1966 to 1969 in siagon. >> so nick, we all know about your picture of kim folk when you went. could you tell us what happened that day before that picture was taken and then what happened after that picture was taken?

>> yeah. the vietcong, they locked out highway one, about 25 miles west of siagon. but it was near siagon. and they were fighting for three days, june 7th. then june #th in the early morning, at 8:00 in the morning, i went to siagon and a lot of bombs outside of the border. i took a lot of pictures. then i traveled with the 25th division in the army, about one month. and then you get a picture. and then i went to highway one again and i saw the army, and there was smoke coming up and you hear two airplanes coming. the first one dived in, a-37 and the a-1 sky rider, they drop

ball. i have the picture. i saw the bomb explosion. it was napalm. and i stood on the highway, from my side. [ inaudible ]. everybody is all gone. and after the black smoke, i saw people running. i said, oh, my god, there are people in there. and then someone was care y-- cashying a baby. he died on the camera. they stopped me, help me, my child. and i hold my camera and you look at the black smoke and i saw a girl with her arm running. i said why is she naked. and then i run inside of the pag oda and i keep running -- and her left arm was burned so bad and her skin and back and i think she died within a minute. and i put water on her body right away. and then her ankles, we ask the

children to help. and i had my van there, the car with my driver. i put all of the children in my van. her brother had a picture and she come up and sat down on the floor of the car. and then about 25 minutes to the hospital and i keep watching her die in my car. because i know she will die. and nobody want to help her. because they say, sorry, we don't have enough medicine. and so many soldiers and the farming people that came to take the children, the men in siagon and the children. i said, they will all die. i show my pass, i'm a.p. photographer. if you hurt the kids, you will be in trouble tomorrow. and then i let them. i let all of the kids go. and that is why i went back to siagon right away with my order.

and with any japanese editor. if you look at the picture of my photo, i say, why do you show a naked girl. i said, no, that is the bomb that burned her clothes. and we make one picture 5 x 7 and he looked at my picture and said why can we send this to new york. and i said we can't take a picture of a named girl. and they talked about that, after later, my picture from siagon went to new york and it was around the war, the picture. >> so there was a possibility of censorship because it was the first time there -- they were looking at a nude girl and there was question about that and as soon as it got over there it was on the new york times front page and it was a very uninfluential picture in terms of war. >> yeah. >> so nick, tell us about how you -- how you felt about

actually taking photographs of your people. because many of your photographs are about people and in their everyday living in a war circumstance. could you talk to us about that approach to the war? >> i would like to mention my brother. he took a lot of people dying every day. and he would bring pictures to show me. and i learned from him. and i remember when american landing in dan ang or at the housing, that is why i wanted to become a photographer. i tell my mother, i want to one day be a photographer. i tell my father. and when my father died, i said, i want to become a photographer. he said, you're too young. you're only 16. you can get this job later. i traveled everywhere in vietnam, from the delta, central vietnam, lao, cambodia, and army, marines, over in vietnam.

and that is why -- i have pictures every day. >> how did it change you as a photographer, doing -- photographing your own people in some of these terrible situations? >> well, a picture doesn't change much because the memory is over 40 years ago. i show that you carry the back, and they put in a camera and you look over your shoulder and there you carry it. and everything. it is very heavy. and i'm a short guy, too. heavy for me. and after a while, my body so tired. but i'm a young man, you know. and either you had an army or marines or vietnamese, they were happy for my pictures. >> good. >> that is why i make the pictures, because vietnam -- it helped me and the vietnamese

soldier. >> i'm going to ask both nick and david one more question and then we're going to open it up for the audience. and the question is, making the transition, after you make the transition out of the vietnam, did that transition help you do other things in your life? david, you were talking about mr. ford and where you were. i'd like you to share that story with the audience. i think that's a profound story. >> well, when i came back from vietnam in '73, i was over there a little more than two years. i actually had come back after i won the award. i had been in vietnam a year and a half and came back to the states and all i wanted to do was turn around and go back. i literally cut the trip short. i was not comfortable in the states. it's as if the war wasn't going on and i kept looking around,

why weren't people more concerned about this? and it was really uncomfortable for me. the only people that had any empathy for what i was going through were my friends who had been in vietnam but that was it and there were other photographers, bill who passed away was one of them and dirk halstad was a mentor of mine and -- but i went back and then as the war started to wind down. the story was really evolving in the united states with watergate and all that. i came back and one thing led to another, fast forward, i became president ford's white house photographer and what happened at that point was vietnam started unraveling. i was -- sent on -- went on a trip with general frederick dispatched by the president to see if there was anything that

could be done to stem the tide of advancing, you know, north vietnamese. they had taken over and started to move south. i went around individually, e went to several places. i went to cambodia. air america flew me there. the place was totally surrounded. you couldn't get in unless you had a special aircraft. in fact, the guy didn't even stop. they had to hop out. he said he would take me over there but he wasn't stopping. [ laughter ] >> i was like jesus, next time i'm going first class, you know. [ laughter ] >> but i saw what was happening and the president wanted another point of view from someone who didn't have a dog in the hunt, not the military, not -- and strangely, there are two high-ranking cia agents on the -- or executives on the

plane and frank here today was a young cia officer in saigon at the time, whom i met at the time and after i got back, the cia had always had it almost to the inch degree about straight scoop about what was going on. the military had another point of view. i'm not condemning the military. to hear it, i told the president when i got back that i thought my estimation from my, you know, all my worldly experience was vietnam and he wrote this book, by the way. i'm not telling stories out of school. i was always careful about that but he quoted me as saying mr. president, vietnam has only got three or four weeks left and anyone that tells you differently is bull shitti in, g

you. three and a half weeks later it fell. there were other people thinking they could perhaps contain it and all that but what we had talked about as i was in the room when the president made the decision to end the war in vietnam was nsc meeting in the roosevelt room under a portrait of teddy roosevelt, one of the most active u.s. presidents ever charged the hill and the picture that i -- that sticks with me on that was there's the director of the cia and the deputy of secretary of defense, state, sitting here last night, nelson rockefeller chairman of the joint and the president and me taking pictures and no one was saying anything. it was after the president made the decision to start the withdraw and went through the next 46 hours or so.

one of the stories we didn't hear last night that would be interesting for you-all was how kissinger announced the withdraw was a success, all the americans were out and then went back and got a bulletin that said there are 25 american marines on the embassy rooftop who had been brought out and see, this is why i love being a photographer because there were some really interesting photographs of that moment, and ultimately had to go and correct that one, but being someone who had been in vietnam as a photographer when i went back on that trip vietnamese friends were asking me to take my kids out, it was really emotionally difficult and what i showed the president when i came back were photographs i took of

refugees, of wounded people and we put -- i put the photographs and replaced all those cheery photos in the west wing of state dinners and all that with these bleak black and white photographs that i had taken on the trip. the night they went up, someone took them all down and the president heard about that and got incredibly angry and said you've got to put those pictures back up. i want everybody in this building to know what's going on over there. and i think the pictures -- because the subject of this is about the effect of pictures on people. when i showed him what was going on and i don't think anybody has ever made a report to the president of the united states like that, a trusted person that he really saw what was happening with the vietnamese people and in part, not in part, and people told me this later, that he was

so moved by it that he continued to see to it that more vietnamese were evacuated from vietnam and it's -- when i look at what is going on today in the world with refugees and all that in this phobia about refugees coming to this country it makes me sick really. the vietnamese community -- [ applause ] the vietnamese community is the strongest of society. nick and i have, you know, went frequently and we both live in california and it's vibrant. i'm working right now on a project with a vietnamese, a phd worked for nasa. it was involved with the mars rover program, on and on and on

and i'm really happy that i had some minor role to play in that. >> thank you. nick, how about you? how did you make the transition out to where you are today? >> before saigon, i had ap and american tiger, an end and allowed everywhere and i would be sent to vietnam. vietnam war over. he told me. then he came, a friend of mine. >> oh, my. >> uh-huh. >> then i applied with the

helicopter and i chop helicopter and coup 30 people and helicopter helicopters. >> i have to show my family and try to go and come other. then i go back to vietnam on every year and marine and trail and little border china vietnam and lend my story and look.

>> so you keep continuing. >> continue, yeah, uh-huh. >> good. well, this has been a pretty special afternoon for me. i hope it's been for you. we'd like to take some questions. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you. [ applause ] >> that picture, is that kim there? >> yes. >> you mentioned several iconic pictures and how they were interpreted when used. adams is a particular instance where i think he regretted to a great extent in the way that picture influenced the outcomes, particularly reputation of general. do you have any comment or opinions on how your pictures ended up? because unlike the written journalist we talked to, you have no control over how people look at your pictures. >> david? >> what is the exact question?

>> i didn't hear well? >> yeah. >> how -- unlike the written -- the journalist print, you had little control how people viewed and used your pictures. do you have any feelings about for example in the picture of the girl, you had people confessing to be responsible for that happening when they were nowhere near what happened, nowhere near the event. >> i think that's the beauty of photographer. everybody can make up their own mind about it. we take the pictures and put them out like with nick and he and i have talked about this at some length is he took the photograph because it was happening. it wasn't to make a point or political point and that picture has been controversial certainly but i think we appreciate that our pictures can agitate can

make people get emotional about it and say whatever they won. >> i hadn't intended to cast any aspirations on your work. >> no, no, we didn't get that. good question. >> first of all, thank you very much for coming here today. i'm a phd student in journalism working on a dissertation on photo journalism and my question for both of you is kind of tied into what i'm intrigued with is the comparison between being the reporter with the camera and the artist with the camera. how much are you conscious of the composition and here you are in a war circumstance and it's happening all around you and go to raise that camera in front of you. what are you trying to see? are you trying to isolate if that's something that comes into your mind when you do that?

>> that's why god created cropping. [ laughter ] >> we're happy to get something in there we could deal with later. composition, for me it's really important if you can do it. you know, it's the rare case where a picture is framed perfectly like, is that what you were talking about how you see it like artistically or -- >> yes. >> artistic is not a word that goes through my mind at that moment, usually. >> [ indiscernible question ]

>> you know, again, it goes back to what i said earlier. nick and i are both professional photographers both actually i spent five years of wire photographer. really our job. it's that simple. don't you think. >> picture showing a story. >> always the right story. >> it's quite fascinating, very interesting. my question was, when you were in country, were there any areas you were specifically forbidden

to go to or simply explicitly told you should not or were there any subjects or area you felt were off limits that perhaps that wouldn't be beneficial for your camera? >> good question. >> well, i know we were talking about coverups on the government side. my experience was i found the military incredibly helpful wherever i wanted to go, hitch a ride on a chopper. a few were stupid enough or excited enough to get into action, you could get there. if there were americans or vietnamese, i never had one instance where i wasn't able to go where i wanted to go, see what i wanted to see and one of the profound experiences that i had was when i would show up in the field with a group of american gis and questions

intelligence to show the world what was going on to them and i had almost 100% really good cooperation with the government that didn't extent to what reporters going on in washington but by the time i got in there it's the last time by the way. this has not happened since where we just had a free hand to go where we wanted to go but there was never -- if you had the where with all to get into somewhere and usually the photographers would be going to where the action was. >> we had a military path and

vietnam, played and we didn't want trouble. >> proper. >> not proper at all. >> getting there -- >> so easy. >> getting there wasn't the problem. >> today more difficult. >> today is -- >> iraq -- afghanistan, i think from vietnam war to other thing. they are having more freedom to travel that shows they got a poor camera. >> uh-huh. >> uh-huh. >> thank you. >> we have time for one more question. >> verification question. i wasn't clear what happened to the young girl that was burned so badly. did she survive? is she still alive?

what's -- could you tell us something about that? >> that's a picture of her, by the way. the photo was taken by kim. >> she still alive today. she's now 54. she live in toronto, canada. i talk to her one a week. she come here this week but she speaking today and she's married with two children and travel everywhere in america and talk about her picture. >> and she's still suffering from those burns. she has great pain from the burns. i want to thank -- this has been a privilege to be on the stage with you all and i want to thank you for coming and i want to thank you as well. i have a few announcements. okay. i just want -- you can come up afterwards perhaps and ask because what we're going to be doing now is right after this, there's going to be a ceremony of the pinning of the vietnam vets so if there is any vets in the audience to go and mark up

will be awarding them the pin. and i'd like to also recognize the vietnam vets that are in the audience, if they are here, can you please stand so we can celebrate you? [ applause ] >> thank you for coming. we appreciate it. we can take their question. >> thank you. >> oh, thank you. [ applause ]

>> i just kept walking and following people. >> we'll have more american

history tv this week on c-span 3. this year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the final report on cia, fbi, ira and nsa intelligence activities. the report was based on hearings held by a senate select committee on u.s. intelligence activities shared by senator frank church. we'll look back on the hearings and report thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. the vietnam war will be released in 2017. the audience watched clips from the film just before the talks started. we're unable to show you the clips due to licensing restrictio restrictions. there is about 40 minutes. >> please welcome to the stage mr. mark k, director of the lbj, presidential library,