War News; A Young Reporter in Indochina

New York: Simon and Schuster, c1989. First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 25 cm. 317, [3] pages. Red dot on bottom edge. Robert Sam Anson (born 1945) is an American journalist and author. He has been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 1995. He is the author of six nonfiction books, including Gone Crazy and Back Again: The Rise and Fall of the Rolling Stone Generation, about Jann Wenner and his magazine. Anson covered the Vietnam War for Time, beginning in 1969. He spent six months covering the buildup to the war in Cambodia. On August 3, 1970, he was taken prisoner by North Vietnamese troop and held by the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge as a prisoner of war. He avoided execution after convincing his captors that he was a journalist. Anson wrote of his experience in War News: A Young Reporter in Indochina. Anson has also contributed to Esquire, Life, and Mademoiselle. His 1981 Esquire cover story on Doug Kenney, "The Life and Death of a Comic Genius," was the first major print remembrance of the National Lampoon humorist. Derived from a Kirkus Review: A gripping account of the Indochina war, written with immense power and disarming candor by a former correspondent for Time. Anson captures not only the Vietnamese and Cambodian battles, but also the atmosphere that prevailed in Saigon and Phnom Penh during the conflict. The author neatly balances objective reporting with subjective reactions; the result is a work that is multilayered and resonant. The most engrossing pages recount Anson's experiences when he was captured by members of the Viet Cong and held for several weeks. The text is dotted with memorable scenes: inspecting the site of the My Lai massacre; an interview years after the war in which Anson's Vietnamese friend and coworker reveals himself to have been an agent of North Vietnam. Written with great style and suspense, deserving to be read by anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes events of America's most controversial war.