The Rooftop Bar was the location of military press briefings during the Vietnam War and was described by the Associated Press Bureau chief as :- “The longest playing tragicomedy in South East Asia’s theatre of the absurd.” His name was Richard Pyle. A rather spooky coincidence with the 1955 Graham Greene book ‘The Quiet American’ (Set in Saigon at the end of French Colonial rule,) where the CIA agent was called ‘Alden Pyle’. The book is wildly believed to have predicted the Vietnam War.
A Public Affairs officer – Barry Zorthian, led those meetings which were raucous, the journalists cracked jokes and heckled officials as to the credibility of their presentations. He lamented that where the US Government’s word was once true until proven false, in Vietnam, it would be questioned until proven true.
The Vietnam war was the first modern unconventional war. Progress could not be measured by area gained and held, as whenever the South Vietnamese / Americans won /occupied an area as soon as they left or at night time the communist forces came back.
The only evidence of progress that could be presented to the journalist were ‘body counts’ These were usually exaggerated or included rural peasants who weren’t actually soldiers. Nevertheless they were published in the American press. American and foreign journalists were allowed to accompany South Vietnamese / American troops on missions. Their experiences didn’t tally with what they were being told. 63 died.
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Love and Peace – John
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