Mark Moyar really opens up on journalists Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam in Chapter 7: Attack July-December 1962.
Moyar is attempting to mislead with broad, inaccurate generalizations as if Sheehan and Halberstam fell off the turnip truck and landed on a Smith corona typewriter south of Saigon.
Both Sheehan and Halberstam won Pulitzer Prizes for their Vietnam war coverage. Moyar’s most outrageous statement is that Halberstam “did more harm to the interests of the United States than any other journalist in American history.”
Really? Even more than Sheehan or Dan Ellsberg publishing the Pentagon Papers in the New York Times?
But Moyar’s attacking statements on all journalists regardless of political view really misses the mark:
Representing the United Press International was a twenty-five-year-old named Neil Sheehan, who arrived in Saigon in April. Having just entered the profession of journalism, he was the youngest and most inexperienced reporter in a country full of young and inexperienced reporters.
Upon graduation from Harvard where he was editor of the campus literary magazine Harvard Advocate Neal Sheehan joined the Army serving from 1959-1962 in Korea, and Japan editing a weekly Army newspaper called The Bayonet. During this timeframe in Japan Sheehan also moonlighted in Tokyo for UPI. Upon his discharge he landed in Vietnam as UPI’s Saigon bureau chief. It fair to say Sheehan understood Asia and the US Military operating in Southeast Asia. But here Moyar over reaches:
David Halberstam, who like Sheehan hailed from the Northeast and was a recent Harvard graduate. Halberstam was twenty-eight when he came to Vietnam. Before he left, fifteen months later, he would do more harm to the interests of the United States than any other journalist in American history.
Moyar’s neocon gloves come right off with his last statement. His position that Halberstam was a recent graduate also misses the mark. Halberstam was the managing editor for the Harvard Crimson. In 1955 he turned down offers from big newspapers to cover Civil Rights and race issues in Mississippi. He left after just ten months when his editor did not want him focusing on those topics in a small town paper. He continued to cover the civil rights movement at The Tennessean in Nashville beginning in 1956.
In 1960 Halberstam was hired by the New York Times. After covering the Kennedy inauguration for six months in Washington D.C. he was assigned to the Congo to cover the war against Belgian colonialism. Then he was assigned to Vietnam when Diem kicked out the standing New York Times reporter. Halberstam well understood struggles with colonialism.
2 replies on “Moyar on Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam”
Professor and military scholar Mark Moyar is MORE then bang on regarding the “harm” overseas reporters like David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan and others in the Saigon press corp fed the American people about the war in Vietnam. Your criticism of Mr. Moyar IMPLIES you READ his book in its entirety, but IF you did not and you are daring to write a blog-criticism, (which I suspect you are guilty of,) that sir makes you a phony at best but more likely just plain stupid. And let me further qualify that charge.
Socretes once said, “Condemnation without investigation IS stupidity.” And it appears that you either did not read Mr. Moyar’s book in its entirety – making you a phony critic of the worst sort – or if you did you are a simpleton who can not comprehend even the most glaring of facts. Let your readers note that you make no mention of one of Mr. Moyar’s key reasons for believing your so-called “Puitzer Prize” Vietnam journalists, David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan were dupes because on page 214 of his book Triumph Forsaken he notes: “Two of the [main] SOURCES upon the [Saigon Press Corp] journalists relied heavily [for their reporting to the American people],Pham Ngoc Thao and Pham Xuan An, were actually Communist agents.” (And An was not some small time spy because after our strategic surrender of South Vietnamin 1976, An was not only elevated to the rank of Major General but he was awarded the highest award the North Vietnamese could award, including making him the Vietnam War state Hero. Moreover he was awarded over a dozen of his countries highest awards and when he died, his body was transported to North Vietnam and was buried in the Hero’s cemetery along with Ho and General Giap!)
The problem with Moyar’s book is he did not go further into the An-Saigon Press Corp story and if ever there was an understatement that guys in the Saigon Press corp like Halberstam and Sheehan did “harm” by their incompetent and propagandistic reporting to the American people, this was the biggie. So damaging was An’s manipulation and exploitation of virtually all the twenty something aged early Saigon Press corp, that he was able to repay them for their propagandistic coverage of the Vietnam war by helping them write books, news stories and even tip off far leftist like AP bureau chief Malcolm Browne – a journalist and not a photographer – who none the less, won a Pulitzer Prize by showing up at just the right time and place to take heart stopping pictures of a Buddist monk setting himself on fire to protest the Saigon government.
Thus, you sir are either a phony who did not read Mr. Moyars book in its entirety or you are simply too stupid to comprehend that if, as professor Larry Berman’s book The Perfect Spy overwhelmingly documents – Pham Xuan An became “the go-to guy” for the Saigon Press corp – you are a glaring incompetent.
The many Saigon journalists that An helped to win a Pulitzer Prize were of course all too embarrassed and egotistical to fess up publicly later that because none of them spoke Vietnamese, none were familiar with Asian history or culture, they therefore became dependent on An to help them comprehend the mind boggling and complex Indochina war, overwhelmingly wrapped in the ongoing deception that is at the heart of Asian affairs and history – forget that this was a whole new form of warfare – Maoist people’s war strategy that had already proven overwhelming victorious first against the American backed Chinese nationalist in China in 1949 and then shortly there after by Maoist imitator Ho chi Min’s defeat of – again – the AMERICAN backed French in Indochina four years later. The say the third time is the charm and An made sure that the duping of virtually the entire Saigon Press Corp and using them to help fuel far leftist anti-war movements used to cut political support of the South Vietnamese became the secret People’s War strategy that would begin the take down of America’s foreign policy. It has now been copied by fascist Islamic movements spreading through out the whole of the middle east. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are becoming inspirational Quagmires made possible by the likes of David Halberstam and Neil Sheehans warped books and reporting.
And no wonder you are duped by the duped like Halberstam. I see you read, not the original 1964-5 publication of Halberstam’s book, The Making of a Quagmire, but the 1988 re-issue. You see, if you go to the library or go online and get your hands on the original 1964 first edition of Quagmire, and you simply lay it side by side with the re-issue Quagmire you say you read, guess what? My goodness, the re-issue if half – HALF THE SIZE – of the original issue of Quagmire. Why’s that?
If you take the time to see what Halberstam has had ripped out of the big original Quagmire, you will discover Halberstam has had the sections where he refers to Pham Xuan An as his “closest Vietnamese friend,” ripped out. Why is that? It’s obviously because if one goes to the front of the book, to the “Author’s note” page, guess who – among others – Halberstam admits that “This book is a reporter’s story, and as such it BELONGS as much to those others [like Pham Xauan An] who where there,” including all the rest of the english-only-speaking reporters who also were as dependent on An for help writing their stories as was Halberstam. So An became a kind of double whammy spy/propagandist in that he helped politically indoctrinate virtually all of Halberstam’s closest Saigon press corp friends who he confided with and who- also indoctrinated by An – they then helped Halberstam with writing his stories helped also with An’s point of view.
Years later, sometime not long after Sheehan first was told by a CIA friend (circa 1977,)that he and the entire Saigon press corp had been duped by An, it was then that Halberstam must have decided that if ever there was a re-issue of the Making of A Quagmire, he would quietly have whole sections of that book ripped out that related or mentioned his “best of Vietnamese friends” relationship with Pham Xuan An. Sheehan’s book didn’t come out until 1988 and so all he had to do was never name his sources who helped educate him – and that’s exactly what he did. The process is called , Lying by omission.
The point can be driven home if one recalls that before giving sworn testimony in any American court of law, after laying ones hands on a Bible, those about to give testimony to a jury are asked, “Do you sware to tell the WHOLE truth and nothing but?”
You sir, I charge with at the very least of having been duped by the duped. You have an obligation to check out my charges and to read carefully the sources I have cited above and to report back to your readers with proof that I am wrong, or if you find I am right, you owe Mr.Mark Moyar a public apology.
Much of that difficult period in time was very hard for me to understand, and it did not make sense, until I read Moyar’s book. A little dense for my taste, but wow, after reading it, much more made sense. Kudos to Moyar for being one of the few historians to actually learn Vietnamese and use Vietnamese language sources. Kudos also to him to challenge the conventional view of the conflict. There is so much pain still in both our countries over this war, that objectivity is so hard to find amid all the emotions. However, my suspicion is that over time, the view of this war will tend to vindicate Moyar, and cousin sam ( whoever that is).