War in Korea: The Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1951. Presumed first printing. Hardcover. fair to good. Carl Mydans (Photographer). 223 pages. illus., endpaper maps. Name in ink on ffep. Spine and edges of boards discolored, spine edges worn. Marguerite Higgins Hall (September 3, 1920 - January 3, 1966) was an American reporter and war correspondent. Higgins covered World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. She wporked for New York Herald Tribune (1942-1963), and later, as a syndicated columnist for Newsday (1963-1965). She was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Foreign Correspondence awarded in 1951 for her coverage of the Korean War. In 1950, Higgins was named chief of the Tribune's Tokyo bureau. When war broke out in Korea, she was one of the first reporters on the spot. On 28 June, Higgins and three of her colleagues witnessed the Hangang Bridge bombing. She was ordered out of the country by General Walton Walker, who argued that the military had no time to worry about them. Higgins made a personal appeal to General Douglas MacArthur, who sent a telegram to the Herald Tribune stating: Ban on women correspondents in Korea has been lifted. Marguerite Higgins is held in highest professional esteem by everyone. As a result of her reporting from Korea, Higgins shared with five male war correspondents the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting Illustrated with photographs by Carl Mydans. On the outbreak of the Korean War, Higgins moved to South Korea where she reported the the fall of the capital, Seoul, to North Korean forces. In War in Korea: A Woman Combat Correspondent (1951) she wrote: "So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth. It is best to tell graphically the moments of desperation and horror endured by an unprepared army, so that the American public will demand that it does not happen again." Higgins, who was with the Marines when they landed in Inchon, 200 miles behind the North Korean lines, on 15th September, 1950, soon established herself as an outstanding war journalist. Her more personal style of reporting the war was popular with the American public. In October, 1950, Higgins was the subject of an article in Life Magazine.In 1951, her book, War in Korea: A Woman Combat Correspondent, became a best-seller.