memorial. >> american history tv this weekend. only on c-span3. ♪ >> this week, "washington authors ofatures books featured this year. join our conversation with authors about their popular books. coming up sunday, chris whipple with "the gatekeepers," how the white house chiefs of staff defined each presidency. the authors series, sunday at 8 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, and c-span radio app. >> vietnam is often remembered as the first television war. american history tv, journalists discussed the challenges they faced, their work conditions, tv network competition, and their relationships with military

officers and soldiers they covered. among the speakers were former abc news nightline anchor ted koppel and yasutsune hirashiki, author of "on the frontlines of the television war: a legendary war cameraman in vietnam." this event at the national archives in washington is about 90 minutes. now it is time to introduce our moderator terribly irving -- terry irving. he went into a career in television news, spending for decades covering wartime and political disasters throughout the united states. .e has one and number of awards ladies and gentlemen, please welcome terrier thing in our distinguished panelists.

-- terry irving and our distinguished panelists. [applause] terry: good evening. i should explain that none of these people are terry irving, but i am. [laughter] -- younow, we have here see, this is what you come prepared with everything you have ever written. we have barry who reported on virtually every major international event, wars, policies of seven u.s. presidents. barry covered the fall of selfie at nam in 1979 where he -- the

fall of south vietnam in 1979 yasutsaneet hirashiki. after retirement -- it's hard to believe you retire -- and he was awarded recognition of distinguished reporting on foreign policy and diplomacy. of "commentaryr by a former foreign correspondent. -- former foreign correspondent." next, a man who probably needs no introduction, but i'm going to do it bac

anyway, ted topol, who was my boss back in the 1980's, 1990's. youngestl became the correspondent ever hired by abc radio news working on the daily flair reports program, including the kennedy assassination in 1963 were he was scheduled to do a short report, but the crisis forced him to ad-lib for an hour and a half. and if you know ted, that was easy. ted: i have been talking ever since. terry: [laughter] in the following years he covered presidential campaigns, civil rights protests. and beginning in 1966, the vietnam war. you will see him coming up here, questionsare 15-year-olds were allowed to write to the tokyo bureau. he was the abc state news

correspondent. , her taking a year off became the first host of a new late-night news program "nightline." after 25 years as the host of "nightline" and 42 years with washington,d left d.c. he has written commentary for npr, has been a political analyst for bbc america, a special correspondent for nbc news, a special contributor for "cbs sunday morning," and the author "lights out: a cyberattack, a nation unprepared." he has one far more awards than anyone should receive, but has resolutely remained humble. [laughter]

i'll will think i have an intro for tony -- i don't think i have an intro for tony. yasutsune -- you became tony because -- who became tony because they thought it was too long to say in the battlefield. yasatsune, duck became tony, duck. he was hired by abc permanently and has worked at abc for the and has summarized

a determination not to learn english. [laughter] i'm going to throw a story in here. he had one of the best shots of 9/11. any video you pull of 9/11 will --e the shot of the tower second tower falling. after that, ted came up to do the aftermath, and tony is shooting out of the helicopter. years, andg -- 40 i'm still hanging out helicopters holding onto my belt. and has covered everything deserves every award. because so many of his friends encouraged him, he

did not put his material in for every award. and i am -- you heard about me. far as i know, the only thing you heard about was me. -- ihat happened was tony got a gmail out of the blue. i had never met tony. i had been there for 20 -- for 25 years. we never met. he writes and email. -- and email. he says he likes the way i wrote my first novel "courier." he liked how the vietnam vet was portrayed. led toe -- one thing another in no stretching myself -- which wass book written in japanese and 2013, but nobody who was in the book could read it. he translated it with

a dictionary. anyone who is ever had a inanese motorcycle, it was this strange netherworld language, and we rewrote it, without ever actually speaking to each other. we did the whole thing by email. we never spoke and we actually never met until about a month after it was on the market. ted: let me interrupt for a moment because you are being too modest. he is absolutely right. tony wrote this book in japanese. those of us who are featured in .he book could not read it we do not speak japanese. so tony translated from japanese to english and sent each of us the relevant chapter, and i remember reading that chapter about me and, forgive me, tony, i thought, this book is

terrible. [laughter] ted: it was awful. but tony has been a dear friend and a comrade in arms, and i did not want to say anything to him. two years go by. the book won the best nonfiction book of the year award in japan. obviously, in japanese, it was an awful lot better than in english. but the extraordinary job, quite from this -- tony was flown out to tokyo to receive the award. there was even, i think, a big cash reward. $10,000 award. .t is in fact a brilliant book who spoke only

english and could not read it in the original had any sense of how good it was, and here is where terry came in, and he is being too modest. imagine taking a bad translation of the book, and what tony did was to translate -- i mean, what terry did was to translate it from tony english into real english, and now you begin to -- a sense of what really is and i hope you get a chance to buy it, by several copies, give it to your friends. it is a wonderful book with a unique respect of of what happened in vietnam because it was written by someone who was not in american. i will stop in a moment, terry. terry: ok. ted: we need to explain there

was a reason that so many of the correspondence -- i mean so many of the camera crews in vietnam were japanese, korean, vietnamese, singaporean, australian. and it had a great deal to do with what is wrong with american media today. plain and simple the american outlook. pay to send want to american crews to vietnam where they would have had to pay insurance, far higher salaries, combat pay on top of those higher salaries. so we all ended up working with comrades over there and became dear, dear friends with men we otherwise would never have met simply because

the american networks were too damn cheap to send american camera crews out there. by the way, what we are seeing here, just so you know, the color pictures, the still photography, these are still -- single frames, primarily almost exclusively from tony hirashik i's 50 -- the abc tape library did a phenomenal job. you don't ever see what the camera man put into the camera, but that is what is going on behind the scenes. bookld like to read tony's and not talk anymore if i can help it. -- this is abut particularly important book for americans to read. we have a national inclination toward solipsism, a notion that

tonythose -- this is what wrote in the intro -- only those things we personally experience exist. that is how to many of us cover the vietnam war. the vietnamese became almost incidental to the battles being waged by our troops. the demonstrations on our college campuses, the experiences of our diplomats and politicians. an observer ofi with and -- of the war objectivity and compassion that gave weight to be experienced to thehat you -- experience. tony, why don't you go into what you wrote this? go wherever you want. book. i wrote this i think two motivation i had.

cameramans a tv news for abc, but 9 years was vietnamethe war in with about 40 correspondents. of course, they come and go. including ted, including -- correspondents. there are lots -- not fade away. just war is over. young correspondents came

back. after war is over, i tried to tell how we covered the war, how the correspondents were great, but nobody wants to hear. nobody wants to hear vietnam stories. after 40 years, japanesei start -- the people. [indiscernible] those people. introduce.

introduced to japanese people. they were surprised. covereder knew how we the war. other 8 years to make an english book. with this is terrible dictionary. english. very old andve it to a couple people they say, very good content, but you have to have it written in english. came and wrote the book.

tried to make it in english the way tony would if it were in japanese. abc, we lost two great acmeramen. -- cameraman. both came from singapore. this is first abc news -- towe took the bodies singapore, where they came from. said howmother, i great your son is.

one day i will write about how great your son was and how he reported. i course, by the time finished, his mother was already gone. this is the true motivation i wrote. terry: this is -- >> already did it. terry: i'm going to do another one. he met tony. she was working for canadian tv for a short period, and i'm going to read from one of his columns in the -- i love this -- the r. mc pelee are times artists. "it was now clear to non-was was going toa nang

fall very soon. fortunately my friend tony hir ashiki came to us the day before. he told me news organizations were taking people out the next day and he would do his best to get us on that flight. he was true to his word. getting to that plane was another matter. early in the morning the total panic of perhaps 2 million people was palpable and contagious. at the airport there were many thousands of south vietnamese and no commercial flights. somehow, tony got us through that chaotic maze and aboard the flight to saigon. , people were hanging from the wings of our plane and at least one was seen crawling into a wheel well. there were bumps as we took off that i fear were not people --

that i hope or not people, but i fear were. vietnam was a profound .xperience i have far fewer credentials than the others. significant period -- i will back up a little bit. i have worked for abc for 12 years. i was doing that work at that moment and shortly thereafter i return to abc. what that meant to me was there has been a discussion almost that thebeginning

united states really did not endede or shouldn't have ,he whole vietnamese exercise and it was largely because the congress of the united states had decided to cut off military after theth vietnam 1973 peace agreement, and it is true that congress did begin to that wason the eta going to the united states, but there was stuff going in. eyes duringith my nang where theda city of initially, i think, 500,000 had 2 million refugees from the south was in a state of total panic and it was palpable

and you could see it in people's eyes. one little thing that happened to us was we were taking pictures of soviet soldiers taking their uniforms off and throwing them away, throwing their guns into the gutter. werematter of fact, as we filming, the south vietnamese contact we had hired in saigon to work with the said, "we are out of here." i had been around long enough to know, ok. and me immediately scuttled away. and he looked at me and said -- anybody should you? taken,nted their picture and i understand that. that was the sense of panic in the city. that was being on the tarmac in trying to fly out of da nang.

did notetnam in my view lose the war because the united states congress did not continue its aid at the previous level. as a matter of fact, when the communists began their final , the soviet army had more than twice as many tanks as all ofd personnel the forces in north vietnam, but north vietnam had 1400 combat almostes, and they had two to three times as many troops that were trained in uniforms. what they didn't have was the

spirit to fight any longer. they had lost the will. and that happened over time, and if the united states congress had quadrupled or quintupled or what ever, they were never going to do it -- if they had done so, that kind of aid or statement would not have made any difference. the die was cast. da nang fell,at it was not that long after that saigon fell. i am grateful to have been there and to have seen things with my own eyes because it gave me a sense of what was happening there and i came back to work at the state department and ted went away and i ended up working a lot with henry kissinger and i remember having debates. feel ire that he did not

had won the argument. this is from tony's description of ted. "every time a new correspondent arrived, the camera crew tried to the euro will kind of person he or she was. we wanted to figure out if they were a good person, if they would take our suggestions for good shots, easy to work with, or a screamer? by the way, this is ted koppel and tony. would they eat sushi? the new reporter was asking the bureau managers and others the same things about us. these are things you need to know about someone when you live with someone for days and weeks. what was the problem with this koppel guy?

he might be one of the test correspondence we have. he is a very independent guy. this did not help a lot. what is an independent guy? look, this evening should be about tony and there is good reason for that. this wonderful book that tony has written and terry has translated qubes a view of what , totally on in vietnam different from anything perhaps you have seen report -- before, precisely because he was not upset us with the americans over there. he understood there was a country with a local population.

i should add that tony ended up some years later marrying a .ietnamese lady he kept a wonderful diary during his years in vietnam. what we get from him is a sense of what the vietnamese were thinking and feeling at the time , and it troubles me because makingays we seem to be the same mistakes all over again . we view everything through our own narrow prism. we are not very good at understanding the world as it is seen by the local population. tony is one of the bravest, most decent and most sensitive men i have ever known, and in righting

ais book, he will give you sense of the vietnam war that i promise you you have never had before. that does not mean the other books written about vietnam or the wonderful series can burns has done does not cover an awful lot. it does. but if you want to have the whye of what went wrong and , i recommend this book to you. terry: this is something tony wrote. this is part of chapter one. he wrote that vietnam, most of the journalists were graduates. there was no training for a war likeietnam -- a vietnam. this is a small unit action.

airborneunit of soldiers. minutes, they came over our heads. they made an enormous bank. with only a small number of men, the captain was calling in artillery as close as possible to drive back the enemy. it is a dangerous tactic because it depends on everything going precisely as planned. there was an informant noise. i thought i had been struck by lightning. at first, i could not hear anything. ,lowly, my hearing came back and i heard voices screaming, moaning. everything around me was a cloud of dust.

in to the shell had come my hit a tree and impacted where the captain had been talking on the radio. medic, medic! i was operating on reflex. tapped few minutes, they on my shoulder. tony, stop filming. stop and help. i looked at the abc correspondent and he nodded in agreement. i put my camera on the ground and we did what we could for the wounded soldiers. you've me water, give me a cigarette. wounded soldiers are just like kids. they want someone to stay beside them and care about them. we could do that. you, what was it like for a japanese raised in pacifist,

peacetime japan? yasutsune: those soldiers on that second day -- that day it was getting low, but many hours together. coffee.ning, they share getere not supposed to advantage from soldiers. food, water, coffee. we had a sort of bonds. the soldier is my best

[indiscernible] [indiscernible] i didn't know. cigarettes.ers world war i?m terry: world war i. yasutsune: [indiscernible] this type of eating i learn. choose.e, we have to serious.hing

do something. we don't know how to shoot. all we can do is help. --ecially correspondent [indiscernible] soldiers. and those things, we did. i am still checking. the two of them were wounded, so only one medic. terry: he is mad at us because i said their guard dog was a german shepherd. beyond that, i think they got it mostly right. betweenry, the conflict

new york and the reporters in the field in vietnam, this is a story actually, that you are seeing, a story that you and tony did coming out of dmt. -- they moved from north vietnam, but they always hoped to be able to return to their homeland. they found a building inside the demilitarized zone. now they were being told to move again. ted decided that following their home was veryther sympathetic. we were very impressed.

we were also very weary because this was only 1967 and almost all news reports going back to the united states were about soldiers in action with lots of shots of bang bang. i remember that the saigon bureau chief, elliot bernstein appeared to be unhappy about , this story and the stand ups specifically and said that ted was a little too emotional and displayed too much sympathy toward the refugees. and this is the new york and the field guys. cod ted koppel: i mean, there to things about that. one, again, it comes back to this notion of solipsism. you know, it only mattered if it involved us, that is, americans, u.s. troops. and, indeed, it's natural in american news agencies would be over there primarily covering what american troops were doing. but we needed to have an understanding of vietnam and of what the vietnamese people

were doing and feeling. and how they were responding to things that we may even have believed we were doing for their benefit. there was a picture, actually you see dawn north -- don north up there right now. i saw a picture a few moments ago of an old friend and colleague, bill brannigan, who tried desperately over the time that he was in vietnam to do stories about vietnamese politics, vietnamese culture, vietnamese people. he couldn't get those stories on the air. all that our bosses back in new york wanted at that time was as much combat footage as they could get. it was very short-sighted. and we haven't changed all that much. incidentally, while you're looking at that picture, that's an aracon 16-millimeter camera. how much did it weigh, tony?

a lot. terry: 30-35 pounds. ted koppel: yeah. so while the rest of us were carrying our backpacks with food and water, tony would be carrying that camera, and the sound of the battery pack, and whatever else he had to sustain him out in the field. and the stories that we did out there would take maybe two or three days before they got on the air. because the film would be sent back to saigon. from saigon, it would be shipped to tokyo. from tokyo to los angeles. l.a. to new york. new york, a motorcycle courier, terry's former career, would pick the film up, take it into abc news, west 66th street, the film would be processed. so the stories that we wrote out in the field, the scripts that we wrote had to be written

in the knowledge that they wouldn't see air until two or three days later. it meant that you had to broaden your perspective of a story. you couldn't just write about what has happened in the last half hour, because it would be 72 hours later before it would be seen. barrie dunsmore: i feel that -- terry irving: any word. barrie dunsmore: no, no, no, but i feel like i have to strongly echo ted's observations about tony's humanity and the fact that he was able, not only able, but was keenly interested in everybody, including the vietnamese on both sides. which was one of his major contributions professionally. as it happens, in preparation for this discussion, i happened to see couple of weeks ago in

the "new york times" a story. and it raises, i think, some interesting considerations. and that is, there are almost no female or relatively few female correspondents covering vietnam. terry irving: about 9 or 10. barrie dunsmore: according to this story, which was written by elizabeth becker who i knew working in the middle east, but at this point, she was working in vietnam. she was sent to several dozen in three countries over more than a decade. and the fact is that the women had a very difficult time. and they were also discouraged from doing things like helping people. and she mentions on one occasion where they went out and bought bags of rice. i actually remember doing that when i was there myself.

but she also points out, and i think this is apropos of this discussion and tony's perspective being a much broader one than ours was, and that is one of the very best books written about vietnam was "fire in the lake" by a woman. and she was the francis fitzgerald of "the new yorker." and she examined all of vietnam and its history, and its background, and its people and so on. and to this day, it's still one of the best books that was written. becker herself wrote profoundly important book on the khmer rouge and what happened after the vietnam war with the growth of the khmer rouge and what happened in cambodia. in fact, she was even called

back to testify at pol pots or the pol pot people put on trial in phnom penh in recent years. and i just mention that because i think it's true that women had, first of all, a very difficult time to work there. but some of the ones who did did very, very good work and particularly in this area outside of the banh banh. ted koppel: and just a footnote to what barrie said. many women couldn't be hired as staff correspondents to come out to vietnam. so many of the women there working as correspondents were freelance. they came out on their own dime. and they didn't get paid unless and until they were able to sell a story to a newspaper, or to a magazine, or to one of the networks. so you did have quite a few women reporters out there, but they were not staff

correspondents. barrie dunsmore: no, no. in fact, becker was a freelancer, yeah. terry irving: you mentioned cambodia which i got to tell you, writing this book, i thought cambodia was about the scariest place i ever even heard of. because there were no frontlines. there were no rear lines. the correspondents were in danger probably more than anywhere else. this picture is a picture that terry khoo shot of a massacre of ethnic vietnamese in a cambodian village by the cambodian army. and i guess this is, how do you get news out of a war zone when there's a heavy censorship. and i'd figure i read it anyway. in april 1970, a cambodian military spokesman reported that there had been a major battle between cambodian and viet cong forces in prasad,

a village along the vietnamese border. according to the official report, ethnic vietnamese villagers had been caught in the crossfire and many have been killed or wounded. something about that story just didn't smell right, and terry, and yuki, and steve bell drove out from phnom penh to check. now when they came back, the censorship was total on the phone lines coming out of phnom penh. i mean there was a guy with his finger on the button. and so the conversation, i'm going to let you translate it afterward. the conversation according to steve went like this: ted koppel: how are things going. this is in hong kong. steve: terrific, remember our old friend lieutenant calley? ted: sure, how the hell is he? steve: great! he threw a party last night that was so wild, i counted 97 men, women, and children who had such a good time and will

never go another party. ted: who was responsible? calley's friends? steve: no, it was the home folks. ted: who were the guests? steve: locals with ethnic ties across the border. ted: what else can you tell me? steve: well, i counted at least 20 more party-goers with bad hangovers. and some of them will probably never go to another party. and there were also about another dozen guests who were still in good shape. and that story was? ted koppel: well, we ended up talking a lot more and using references to american comic book heroes. so that when we were talking about air force, we talked about steve canyon. when we were talking about the army, we talked about beetle bailey. and over the course of about a 20-minute conversation, steve was really able to give me all the details of what had happened in this massacre. and i was able to quote him,

reporting that from cambodia on radio reports that i did then from hong kong. terry irving: barrie, did you ever have any situations where you were trying to get in this or any other conflicts zone trying to get news out over and around? barrie dunsmore: the middle east war of '67, i was in israel during the war and right after the war, i went around egypt. and the egyptians were very tough in terms of censorship and it was very difficult to work there, and it was very difficult to get information. i think we've all experienced the various difficulties that one can have, particularly, working as we all did at one point or another behind the iron curtain in the east blocks. they could be very, very nasty. and, in fact, as i was thinking about women reporters that i had been lucky enough to

meet and work with and get to know, abc had a woman whose name was ann garrels who worked for public radio, but she was the abc news correspondent in moscow. and was brilliant and incredibly brave. and the k.g.b. was on her case almost the whole time she was there and gave gave her a very including trying to set her up as being responsible for some deaths of people on a highway accident. and it was really difficult and she hung in there and really showed everybody the kind of courage it takes to work i think situations like that. -- work in situations like that. ted koppel: since our main focus is on tony. i was going to say, tony spent a lot of time in the middle east. and tony spent a lot of time in the middle east, and tony spent a lot of time covering the wars in lebanon. and if i'm remembering the story

correctly, tony, in lebanon, you had to have a different i.d. pass. right? for every faction. right? and there were many factions. and if you were stopped, you had to show the right i.d. card. now, i would let tony tell the story, but i need to explain. tony couldn't find the right i.d. card. so he pulled out all 12 i.d. cards that he had. [laughter] ted koppel: and gave the guard at the checkpoint a great big kiss on the cheek and said, you pick. right? [laughter] ted koppel is that right? a little bit different. terry irving: don't knock it. barrie dunsmore: go with that.

yasutsune: because, normally, beginning it's simple, right? right-wing, left-wing. so right-wing, i put right side. left-wing, left side. but sometimes we don't know who are you? i cannot ask who are you? and they ask us, who are you? which organization? do you have any press card? so it takes one minute to figure out. so because one time, one upa photographer gave a wrong card. and he was hard time, he was like two days and never came back. he was tortured or all those things. >> my first time in beirut, we did a story and it appeared in israeli television pirated. and we had trouble.

they all watch each other's t.v. yasutsune: jerry king did the radio report, but border people listened. they listened to his report through israel radio. so when he comes back, we hear you're from israel. you're israeli spy or those things. so very hard. terry irving: all right, i'm going to read and then we're going to go to questions because i think it's time. and this is the end of saigon of tony's book. i went back to my room at the continental palace hotel and packed a small bag to carry and put everything else in a suitcase. i left it with the bell captain to hold until i came back along with a good tip. i paid my bill and i was walking out when one of the room boys asked, "are you leaving too?" i said, "i'll be back soon." but i felt guilty. i was running away, abandoning people i had come to know in a

country that i really loved. i could escape and the others couldn't. i told myself that i was just doing my job, but that didn't matter to the vietnamese being left behind. to them, tony was running away and they were being left behind. as i left the abc office at the caravelle hotel, one of the cycle drivers who waited outside said to me, "what are you doing?" and i realized these were old friends, guys i would play chess with and usually lose money to. they liked me and i liked them. they had always treated me as one of them. "hey, tony, are you leaving too?" someone shouted at me quite loudly. i sensed the frustration in his voice. "see you soon," i said. "are you sure?" another driver said in a sarcastic voice. the fact was that i couldn't look them in the eyes. maybe they thought that since i was asian, i wouldn't runaway like the americans. i felt very small and sad. let me just get here.

he's on the last flight out. i finally took the camera off my shoulder. i had been shooting steadily from the time i left the caravelle hotel, only stopping to change film. i realized i was crying. and that had been why it was so hard to focus my shots. i cried quietly and it was lots of tears like a little kid who has been beaten. now, i was looking at a little vietnamese child. i tried to smile, but i couldn't stop the tears. finally, this was my war. as we flew, i cursed silently with every swear word i knew and cried. yasutsune: first 8 years, i always had that distance in my mind that this is not my war. because american people's war. vietnamese people's war. those viet cong, they're

fighting those people. i had some distance, kind of not to say neutral, but i seldom used word of "enemy" or bad word about other side. but we're covering only one side. world coverage cannot cover like a sports game. you know, i cover yankee side. i cover boston side. i cannot do that. so limited coverage. but first my thing that happened, when i lost my best friend by ambush, and then it was 1972.

suddenly, i felt, who killed my best friend? so i thought that anyone who kills my friend is my enemy. at that time, i really thought so. that period of north vietnamese soldier killed my best friend. but it took a long time to recover. and at the last moment, we sought this peace. and actually, 1973 when peace accord was signed, ted did the front of church, and church clock was 8:00 a.m. and hit the time. and all street enjoyed that peace and everybody getting into celebration.

but two years later, 1975, suddenly, those things happened. so i was covering everyday the losing side. so last moment, i cried, because i thought i don't know, it's just showing sort of now this war became my war. i thought, that's why i attending this way. but very difficult to be neutral to cover a war. terry irving: and i'm just going to pass this one on to you guys too. ted, you're the only person who went to vietnam and then was an embed of invasion of iraq. but you and barrie both lost friends, journalists photographers? , ted koppel: especially in cambodia. when were you reading about cambodia, cambodia, we would meet when we were in cambodia quite

literally, it was a limousine war for some of us. we rented these stretch mercedes. and you put, you know, cooler with soda in the trunk. and the driver would take us as far down the road as he could. and you would follow the sound of the war. and when you heard the war, and it was relatively close, you get out of the car, and you start walking. and there was no back up. there was no support. there was no american army. the american air force was there. they were bombing. and every evening, we would meet at the phnom hotel, the main hotel in phnom penh, at 5

:00. and we would have drinks around the pool. and the point was we would all pool and sitat the there until about 6:00 counting the numbers among our colleagues who were accounted for. that was where we met in the afternoon, because there was no other way of determining if someone was lost. and a lot of guys were lost and never found. sean flynn who was errol flynn's son. he did in reality many of the things his father only did on the silver screen. he disappeared never found. , and a lot of guys were lost in cambodia and there was no organization there that we could turn to.

i mean, we really depended a lot in vietnam on the u.s. military. the u.s. military was our support system. it was our defense system. you know, the notion that somehow american media undercut the u.s. military. that wasn't the way the grunts felt. and i wasn't able to see how many of you here are former military and how many of you may have served in vietnam, but all i can tell you, the generals back in washington, the people in the cabinet and lyndon johnson's cabinet, they may have felt that the media were the enemy. and were undercutting the vietnamese war effort. i never got that feeling from the privates and the corporals

and the lieutenants. and for that matter, the captains and the majors. maybe when you got up to the higher ranks, maybe there was more resentment. we depended upon one another. and, well, terry, i think we really should get to the questions. i would love to know what is on everybody else's mind. terry irving: we're dead on time. i'm so proud of myself. barrie, i didn't want to cut you off. barrie dunsmore: no, i think we can go to questions. terry irving: ok. if you could go to the microphones on either side, and please questions and not statements, if you can. sure. audience member: for the panel, when did you, presuming you did, when did you decide the war was actually lost? and how did that affect your reporting? ted koppel: it's a fair question.

i must tell you i never had much confidence that the war could be won. i mean, from the very first, i just didn't feel that we were connecting with the vietnamese. we were using the incredibly superior fire power that we had. and before i went to vietnam, i didn't see how any relatively small and backward country like north vietnam could resist american airpower and american armor and american helicopters. but i must tell you, i did not have much confidence in our ability to win that war from the very first, the very first year i was there in '67. i was back in and out of the vietnam because i became the

southeast asia bureau chief based in hong kong. and in those days, the tokyo bureau chief would come to vietnam for a month. he would go home, and then i would come to vietnam for a month. and then i go back to hong kong again. but, really, within a matter of a few months after i arrived in vietnam. barrie? barrie dunsmore: well, i think i when i wasid it speaking about it in the beginning. and that is i got there when it was all over effectively. i just watched what happened in that last few months. and by the time i arrived, it was quite clear that the south vietnamese had lost the will to fight. and it was definitely all over then. my experience in vietnam in the

earlier years is non-existent so i don't know what i would have felt had i been there reporting, as a person interested in what was going on in the world at the time. and i was working largely as a foreign correspondent in the middle east, africa, and so on. and i think to some extent, my sensibilities were more of an international nature than they would have been had i been actually working in the midst of it all. but my sense is like ted's, i never really thought i would guess from maybe the period of ted in '68 that there was any real likelihood that the united states would prevail. ted koppel: i'm sorry, terry, let me just add one other thing. you know, by way of almost like confession, i suppose. i was 26 when i went to vietnam.

the fact of the matter was, young people go to cover wars. and young people are easily influenced by the older people who had been there for a while. and the folks i looked up to were the neil sheehans of upi, malcolm brown of associated press. david halberstam of new york times. these were men who had been in vietnam for two or three years by the time i showed up. and their conviction already at that time, i must confess, heavily influenced me as a very young, very inexperienced reporter. so that's certainly part of, you know, guys who were 40 or 55 -- 50 years old didn't go to

vietnam. or at least very few of them did. or if they did, they went for two weeks or three weeks. those of us who went for a year or more were almost by definition, we were the younger guys. terry irving: tony, you covered, and this is just something i noticed. they pulled most of the american troops out by 1972. most of the american troops were out. but you covered an loc, you covered the defense against the eastern invasion. and i have to say that that the pictures you have of kon tum, where the south vietnamese were fighting, and it's just like one american. but you have the picture of the guy holding up the guy about the belt is an american advisor, they're bringing his south vietnamese

soldier behind the barrier so he could be helped. but you were there and covered all the way through yasutsune: my camera crew, and we concentrated on what's going on. and i was young. even after experience, still, one of my correspondents, no, my report was criticized. tony, you shoot very good world footage. but you don't have something, for those of you, the ideology, you don't have. but our weak point, i was young too. through view finder, i see what's going on. and our new york headquarter instructed us we have to be, how do you call? fact. terry irving: as it was. yasutsune: yeah, we have to

follow fact. no stage. how do you call this? stage. and make sure everything is true. so, we, of course, those days, like the states, many people divided, you know. and among our press corps in vietnam. and, of course, there's hawks and dogs. but once we go into the field, beyond the search stance and attitude to war, everything 74:55 is behind. we just focused on what happened now. so, until last moment, myself, i

didn't believe it would corrupt so quickly in the last moment. terry irving: so you watched them hold in '72. i'm sorry. audience member: so i grew up thinking of the fall of saigon as a terrible moment for america, right? a time when we betrayed our friends and we left them behind. and i know there's part of that that's true. and then i watched rory kennedy's documentary about the fall. and i was surprised to see kind of moments of incredible heroism and bravery by americans trying to help people. and so i'm trying to find out from people who saw it and experienced it, how do i process all of that? or is the answer just there will always be heroes and villains at a time like that? and there's no two-ways, there's not good and evil, there's just moments of good and moments of evil? barrie dunsmore: i think you may have something there. because, for example, the ambassador, the american ambassador at the time

of the fall of saigon performed really very shabbily. and others of his ilk, not much better. but there were many examples of americans and people like tony. and i must say, if i can put in a word or two for the abc news saigon bureau chief, kevin delany was responsible ultimately for getting more than 100 south vietnamese people who had worked for abc and their families, getting them out at that time. >> and that went all the way up to the board of abc. they had an absolute responsibility. barrie dunsmore: and, so, they were all able to come to this country. and to begin new lives and things of that nature.

and that was a very heroic thing for kevin to do, because it was not easy. and i think -- i have a pretty good idea because i have talked to him about it and he's no longer with us. but there wasn't universal support for such a notion. and i think he started with a very small number, but it finally ended up over slightly 100. so there were some good things, and there were some not so good things. terry irving: my particular favorite story of that period was the bureau, my manager from hong kong, who came, pat morris who came, and he was the person who would say, well, you can't spend $5 on x. and he was in there with kevin delany handing out bundles of piastres to get people through the gates. it must have been an education. yes, sir. audience member: thank you. just curious from everybody's

perspective on getting your scoops, and at that time, getting out of people's way and military saying, you can come with us, but stay back and do this. how did that work logically, if you were shot you were on your own. versus troops were supposed to be running ahead. anything from that perspective as well as the local people that helped you get the stories and told you something that, hey, should you go there tomorrow or the next day and and last but not least, did you visit the fcc? the foreign correspondence club that's on the river and now they serve pizza, and they claimed that was a place where the people in cambodia had nice drinks and food at the time. terry irving: don't look at me. i wasn't there. i was here. ted koppel: look, we got -- i cannot think of a single instance where any military officer or enlisted men tried to prevent us from shooting anything or

reporting anything. you know, what came to be known when i was covering the war, the invasion of iraq in 2003, i was embedded. in vietnam, i could go where i wanted, when i wanted. i had an identification. and since in later years, i was actually a bureau chief in hong kong that gave me the equivalent rank of lieutenant colonel. so i could get on almost any flight, almost any helicopter. the level of cooperation -- terry irving: let me make it clear. any helicopter going into the fire fights. not the ones coming out. ted koppel: well, the way it worked, obviously, the wounded first, then the dead, and if there was room on the helicopter, the

correspondents and the crew. but we understood that before we went out. and that was the right thing to do. yasutsune: very corporate. ted koppel: yes. yasutsune: we got altogether to the scene. >> terry irving: i don't know about them. it sounds like the club you stayed in the last day in da nang, the manager left, and you had all the beds. go ahead. ted koppel: are you talking about the fcc? audience member: yeah. the river. ted koppel: where? in saigon? audience member: in cambodia. ted koppel: oh, cambodia. oh, never, honest to god. i didn't know there was an fcc in cambodia. audience member: [away from mic] audience member: in your journalistic experience, what was your greatest conflict and greatest compromise in

covering the vietnam war? terry irving: conflict and compromise in covering vietnam. or any war. let's go there. ted koppel: no, we'll stick to vietnam. barrie dunsmore: well, i'm not probably the right person to answer this, given my relatively short stay there, because i really don't feel that i was even under any real pressure to compromise for any particular reason. given the circumstances that everything was falling apart, and you just sort of did what you could do, and, so, there wasn't any conflict there in my case. i'm sure that wasn't much less true at other times when there were many americans involved directly involved in the fighting and so on. because by the time i was there, that was not the case. ted, do you want to take a shot

at that? ted koppel: vietnam came to be known as the first "television war." and there was a tremendous appetite. i made reference to this before. there was a tremendous appetite headquartersork at for what they call bang, bang footage. combat footage. and there would be great pressure if a cbs crew, or abc crew got particularly good combat footage. we would get a cable from new york saying, where were you guys? how come? and in this unbreakable code, nbc was nancy and cbs was charlie. so in the cables, it would be charlie had terrific combat footage from khanh tien. where were you guys, right? and, so, in terms of the pressure on us, it was always to

get more of that kind of footage. in retrospect, i really do regret that. terry irving: a lot of people , actually, the story in cambodia, people died. 10 people died from nbc and cbs, because they were trying to out -do each other in getting better bang, bang footage. i mean, that's sort of, i mean, it was dangerous. the only other thing i can add to that is i did the berlin wall with berry. i had been to berlin before. and we got a message that how come cbs had so much video of this van burning during these protests? and the answer was it was the cbs van. [laughter] they parked it in the wrong place. [laughter]

i mean, you know. yasutsune: also, competition is one of our games. i think, not winning or losing. but other network has good report. sure, we get nasty cable from new york we call rocket. another one, if we did a good job, they call "herogram?" terry irving: every abc office in the world would see those go weregh the telex, so they very public. another question? audience member: first off, i'd like to commend tony for the excellent work you did. i'm sure we're in the archives now as we get further out in time, footage that you shot will no doubt be part of the archives when people look back at the vietnam war. my father was in vietnam. he was in community development

, part of the hearts and minds offensive, i guess you could say. and he would describe circumstances where he would be talking to people in a village, and it sounds like you also got away from military front. where he knew he was talking to people who were viet cong sympathizers if not actually part of the viet cong. and i'm wondering, tony, did you find yourself in those circumstances where you knew were filming and interacting with people who were probably viet and ted, you might chime in on this too. and just how you handled it and what was the experience? ted koppel: no, no, no. [laughter] terry irving: i like the dinner you had there personally. yasutsune: i don't know. because, saigon is, we never worked so much. but we go countryside, daytime government side. evening, the other side. how do you call it? pink areas?

i don't know. we always had warning. at night, you don't go. like cambodia, once sun came down, you cannot get out. they said, city was closed all , gates. so all press have to come back before sunset. so it looked like, chasing away the sunset, make sure we come back. if we don't come back, it means sometimes at night from not government side. so many journalists missing or killed in cambodia, it's because no protection. but in vietnam, even we go other side by mistake, if some

journalist arrested, but they respect journalist, they're released sooner or later. but people we followed, for example, we followed the operation, but, for example, farmer wear black dress. but also, viet cong wear farmer dress. so how to tell? we call black pajamas. but it was difficult to distinguish between them. so that's one of the difficult -- that is one of the difficulties of war. >> terry irving: i was just going to point out, ted said cambodia was a limousine war.

i think that needs clarification. because it sounds like it was relaxing and easy. yasutsune: yeah, on our side, we always wore military dress. and even helmet. we had to wear it in certain places. but cambodia, everybody wear civilian clothes. just who knows? at checkpoint, khmer rouge set up? so very few journalists escaped these checkpoints. terry irving: just to finish, i mean, the limousines were the drivers, the best drivers. they're the ones who worked before the war. and they were from at least, tony's book, they were the ones who knew where to go or where not to go and they also drove the fastest. ted koppel: they would drive you to the roof! [laughter] but in order to cover it, you had to hike and walk.

audience member: there's obviously been a lot said about post-traumatic stress for veterans of vietnam war and today's wars. experience did any of you have with your own psychological stress and how did your employers help you or not help you? terry irving: have you ever heard of a network television ever doing anything for anybody? barrie dunsmore: you know some of our former colleagues who, i'm not quite sure that post-traumatic stress was the diagnosis of the period. but we do know people who didn't do well after being exposed to combat situations in vietnam or in the middle east or other parts of the world. it's not an easy career to be,

especially, a full-time war correspondent. and, you know, things aren't necessarily any better today either. because i was just reading recently that this year alone, more than 80 journalists have been killed and some 200 are in jail somewhere. and over the last 10 years, 800 journalists have been killed. and it's not just in the really weird places. but you've got a situation whereby the head of the czech republic, well, a few months ago, was brandishing a machine gun for journalists. and when putin was there, they were joking about disposing of journalists. so it has always been a dangerous business. and i fear to say, that it very

well may be more dangerous today than it was in my day. ted koppel: some of the correspondents who endured some of the heaviest combat over the longest periods of time ended up resorting to alcohol and drugs, which created many problems for them years later. terry irving: suicide. ted koppel: i think any one who is exposed to really severe combat over an extended period of time, and i don't include myself in that, i mean, was i in combat? yes. i did not, i was back in the united states in 1968. so i missed the battle of hue, for example, which destroyed a

lot of troops and a lot of correspondents, and a lot of photographers. so, you know, was it ptsd? absolutely. yasutsune: my book, many correspondents appear, but two correspondents killed themselves. i'm not saying this is a syndrome. but something affects them. this book, we edited out. but the japanese book, i had many correspondents interviewed, do you have -- why you went to vietnam or how were you covered? last question was, do you have any vietnam syndrome?

and a lot of correspondents respond, yes, i have. but how serious? we don't know. but they mentioned that. each time we hear helicopter passing, they jump out. very similar to civilian people. but at least, one time, ted sent me back and said, he don't believe he has. because he has always have a mind, any time he wants, he can come back. but soldiers cannot come back. this is the difference. but good or bad, they will influence us either correspondent or camera crew. that is why i wanted to write

this how we covered that. terry irving: and this is it. we are going to wrap it up. but i do want to mention, and i don't know what the saying is for. but there's a dark foundation, which is run out of columbia university journalism school that does -- most correspondents, and people i talked to, and i guess i've been to war zones. so like beirut. terry irving: oh, really? they don't feel they have the right to feel ptsd. and that's something that soldiers have and deserve, and they should be treated that way. the mysterious gentleman here at the mic. audience member: yeah, i worked with tony. terry irving: by is the way, this is jim whorton, one of the best correspondents. audience member: i worked with tony. i thought i would try to put a

lighter ending to this and to explain to you how smart tony hirashiki is. and how he always pretended not to understand english. [laughter] we were assigned, tony and his soundman and my producer and die, to go to ambridge, pennsylvania, which is a steel making town. ambridge made most of the steel for bridges in america. and in that period, asian steel was taking over the market as well as japanese cars and korean cars, etc.. and, so, we went to interview the -- we went to the united

steelworkers office in ambridge pennsylvania, to meet with the president of the steelworkers union there. and tony was setting up the camera and lights, and the president of the steelworkers union said to me, we don't want no japs in here. and there was a silence in the room. and tony said, it's ok. i'm cambodian. [laughter] terry irving: i'm going to have to -- i've been getting wig wags and i have to cut it off. is that ok? one more. audience member: just the last one since i've been standing here. i want to make good on my investment standing here. my name is don kirk. i spent a lot of time in vietnam as well.

and, of course, one of the really most valuable aspects of this book is that it tells me what it was like to cover the war as a cameraman. as a print journalist, i didn't know. i knew tv correspondents and i didn't have that much to do with them. and i had very little to do with camera people. and i don't know how many books capture the life of a cameraman. and there may be one but i certainly have not seen it or read it. i do want to make one other i point. don't really agree with some of the remarks made here. as a journalist over several years in vietnam, i had a lot of trouble with the american military people. and my first encounter was on the first battle that i covered , marine engagement south of da nang and they went into this village. and i talked to the major after the engagement was more or less over. he said he was calling in the

airstrikes and he said he was also doing civil affairs afterwards. one of the best quotes i ever got. first, i annihilate them and then i rehabilitate them. and i'm sure pentagon took great interest in that. there was an investigation. and of course, they denied he ever said it. i still remember the guy which i won't repeat here. but i had a lot of encounters throughout the war. so we did have this unparallel of freedom of transportation and movement, but we also had a lot of jousting with officialdom. which i just wanted to point out. ted koppel: i think you'll agree, don, it mostly came from the officials in washington or the higher ranking officials in vietnam. i never had any trouble. audience member: you're right. the enlisted people and young officers and they tended to be easier to get along. sure. but there were middle level people and high-level people in saigon and da nang and so forth.

and i'm thinking of marine officers who really did not like the media. but i agree entirely that young enlisted people, the young officers, were almost always rather easy to get along with, quite easy to get along with. ted koppel: and i didn't want to leave the impression that everybody liked us. [laughter] audience member: anyway. thanks for letting me get in my two cents. terry irving: well, that's it. i'm going to wrap it up. i'd like to say something personal. i've been working on this book for two and a half years. and to say i am not making any money is an understatement. i have done it because i think it is a brilliant book. as i have told tony before, it's the best book i don't get to write. and because i think it's important. it's important in many ways. it's important because it reflects an asian point of view. it's important because it reflects all of the people who

worked endlessly to get the news out of vietnam. and it's important, because there's not going to be another war and another journalistic exercise like it. and, so, that's my piece on it. and thank you, all, very much for coming. that's it. [applause] announcer: this weekend, tonight at 8:00 eastern, we visit iowa state university as professor

kerber teaches a class on food during the great depression. >> and a lot of families, there was selective starvation of adults, meaning adults would choose not to eat in favor of letting their children eat. there were families that stayed in bed all day and produced their meals to two meals a day so that everybody would conserve as much energy as possible and not get as hungry. they also relied on the kindness of friends and strangers. announcer: at 10:00, the film from 1967, a look ahead at family life in the 21st century. >> 3, 2, 1. >> luncheon is served. >> split-second luncheons. disposable dishes. all part of the society of tomorrow.

announcer: sunday at 4:00 eastern, the historian talks about runaway slaves and the consequences of fugitive slave laws. most ways was among the most peaceful and least violent, the deliberate refusal to enforce the law in many northern communities, particularly black communities. announcer: monday, we will tour the national world war i museum and memorial in kansas city. >> i think it is an extraordinary story of grassroots support and crowd source funding to pay for what turned out to be an extraordinarily dramatic memorial. announcer: american history weekend, only on cspan3. c-span's studentcam, the

tweets say it all. video editing and slicing for documentaries. this group showed us how it is done. these students asked hard-hitting questions about immigration reform and the dream act. we are asking students to choose a provision of the constitution and create a video illustrating my it is important. our competition is open to all middle school and high school students grades 6-12. $100,000 in cash prizes will be awarded. the grand prize of $5,000 will go to the student or team with the best overall entry. the deadline is january 18. get details on our website. announcer: next, craig nelson talks about his book on the epic rise and fall of the atomic era in which he chronicles the

development of nuclear science beginning with the discovery of x-rays in the 1890's. this was recorded at the new york public >> the genius of the atomic energy. he told the present of freedom that you must have a four you could either be as heartless, uncomplaining servant for the most fearful and terrible master men had ever known. demand with his responsibility