War News: A Young Reporter in Indochina

by Robert Sam Anson

Recounts the experiences of the press corps in Vietnam and the author's difficulty in reporting the true story, detailing his experiences in My Lai and Cambodia and his stint as a prisoner of war

Genres: History, Memoir, Nonfiction, Journalism

317 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1989

Reviews

[Glenn Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freshman year in college I lived in a dorm across the hall from Robert Sam Anson. I found him to be a bit more than brash and though we got along, we did not become great friends. Another person from that wing of the dorm did become a life-long friend of mine and he recently let me know that Sam had died from Alzheimer's. The obit mentioned several books Anson had written and one of them was about his experiences in Vietnam. I also had spent a year in Vietnam, so I decided to search up the book and see what his time there was like.

A part of me kept coming to the surface. I was looking to be critical, to find flaws in the narrative, discover inaccurately described details in the war and war equipment as I had know it. I found some. And, at the same time I continued to see the overbearing, self-asserting Sam I knew that freshman year in college.

But his story won me over. Once he was captured by the Viet Cong I began to like him. He learned in captivity how to modulate that brashness and without too much compromise his behavior and his antiwar beliefs negotiated his release.

I liked the book. If you are in to reading about the Vietnam War this is probably one that you have missed and an angle that you haven't seen before. Give it a try.

[Brian Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

War News: A Young Reporter in Indochina begins as an axe-grinding account of author Robert Sam Anson being the only correspondent in Time, Inc., to grasp the real nature of the American War in Vietnam. Published in 1989, such a perspective may then have been relevant and necessary. Fortunately, once Anson gets that out of his system and goes on to describe his actual experiences, mainly in Cambodia, War News turns into a gripping tale of the dangerous job of being a foreign correspondent in the years around 1970 when Cambodia was in the midst of a coup along with invaders from South Vietnam, the Viet Cong, North Vietnam, plus U. S. bombing to spice things up. Anson has the best account I’ve read of the disappearance of Sean Flynn and Dana Stone as well as the fates of the CBS and NBC crews. For reporters, Cambodia was more dangerous than Vietnam. Anson himself survived capture by the NVA only by a quirk of fate.

[Bert · Rating 3 out of 5]

True story about Robert Sam Anson a reporter for Time, Inc. A young journalist only two years out of Notre Dame who covers Southeast Asia during the war. His extraordinary experiences in Cambodia and Vietnam conclude with his capture and unbelievable release. The story is well written, but I did not enjoy the arrogance, naivety, bias, and stupidity Anson constantly displayed. His aloofness and predetermined mine set did allow him to see deeper human facets.

[Deann Alford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an outstanding book that begs to be adapted into a movie.