Covering Conflict: documentary film series at The Norfolk Library (part one)

In commemoration of Veterans Day, the Norfolk Library is hosting a short series of documentary films called “Covering Conflict – Journalists on the Ground”. The first film, "Dateline Saigon," will be shown on Friday, Nov. 8 from 7 to 9 p.m. with an introduction and Q&A by Mark Erder.

Directed by Thomas D. Herman and narrated by Sam Waterston, the film tells the inspiring story of a small group of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists including David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Malcolm Browne, Peter Arnett, and the photojournalist Horst Faas, who fought to report a truth that was vastly different from the rosy White House version during the early years of the Vietnam War.

Dateline-Saigon is Herman’s directorial debut. Previously, Herman was a co-producer of the Emmy-award winning feature film Live From Baghdad starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham-Carter. Before that, Herman was a freelance producer for CNN as well as a correspondent for National Public Radio.

Herman received a BA with honors from the University of Pennsylvania and continued his education at Harvard, Oxford, and Northeastern Universities.

When he’s in between films, Herman practices law in Boston. “Being a lawyer helps me pay the bills while I pursue my passion, filmmaking,” he says.

Co-producer of Dateline Saigon Bestor Cram, served as a Marine Lieutenant in Vietnam from 1968-69. What Cram witnessed stood in contrast to the official White House account.

“The White House lie that the war was going well was part of ever-increasing propaganda. Military officials believed I had become a traitor by joining the anti-war movement, both while I was in the military and after I had been honorably discharged, and for my work with VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against The War). They expressed concerns that I was abetting the enemy. I represented a fundamental challenge to their belief structure,” Cram says.

An established producer, director, and cinematographer of non-fiction films for television and museums, Cram helped Herman develop the story line for Dateline Saigon.

“Tom Herman and I worked together in shaping the narrative structure and editorial approach that shaped what the film is today. We worked on keeping the focus on the early reporting of the war as it became a foundational lens in which the press continued to reveal the ‘ground truth’. The archival material reflects the ideas and stories the journalists offered in their interviews. Although they are recollections, the eloquent capacity of each of the journalists reveals their intimate experience of bearing witness,” Cram says.

Dateline Saigon will be followed by a Q & A with Jim Sterba and Francis Fitzgerald, moderated by Mark Erder. Sterba has been a war and national correspondent for more than four decades, first for The New York Times and then for The Wall Street Journal. As a 26 year old journalist covering the war in Vietnam in 1969, he realized he was witnessing a reality greatly from the official US military narrative.

“As the newest of four New York Times reporters, I attended daily briefings and wrote the daily war story. I attributed to US and South Vietnam briefers what they told us. I also reported what dissidents in the military and elsewhere told me,” he says.

“Gradually, as I got to spend more time in the field, my skepticism grew. Nixon’s ‘Vietnamization’ program was kicking in, turning the war over to South Vietnamese units, but hundreds of US troops were dying weekly, mostly draftees,” he adds.

After two years covering the war on the ground, Sterba grew more skeptical of US foreign policy. He reflects on how press coverage affected public opinion and how that contrasts from the access journalists are granted today.

“Reporters had great freedom in Vietnam. We could go anywhere, unescorted, hitchhike on helicopters and airplanes, and were welcomed, especially by combat troops, to see for ourselves. No censorship whatsoever. The military would try to shape stories by putting out their versions, often sanitized, but that didn’t stop us. After Vietnam the Pentagon clamped down, restricting access, requiring escorts, delaying sending stories out of the war zone,” Sterba says.

Francis Fitzgerald, who is married to Sterba, received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bancroft Prize for her first book "Fire in the Lake: the Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam" (1972).

Provided

Jim Sterba

At the age of 25, Fitzgerald went to Vietnam in 1966 and returned twice in the early 1970s. As a freelance writer, she did not have to adhere to official briefings, known as “the five o’clock follies” for their overly positive tone.

“Having read Bernard Fall, Jean Lacouture and other French writers, I began as a skeptic. Witnessing the destruction of the villages and the horrifying casualties at Vietnamese civilian hospitals, I ended up passionately anti-war,” Fitzgerald says.

"Fire in the Lake" was the first major history of Vietnam and American involvement by an American author. It explores Vietnamese history and culture and argues that the lack of understanding by the U.S. military ultimately doomed American efforts.

“I never understood why Johnson et al put such faith in the domino theory, except they seemed to know nothing about the different cultures and world-views in Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia,” Fitzgerald says.

In her book, Fitzgerald argued that American values were incompatible with Vietnam’s values, culture, agrarian economy, and long history of warfare with France and China.

Regarding the role of journalists and the resurgence of authoritarianism today, Fitzgerald says, “Journalists shape opinion as much now as in Vietnam, but the Middle East is much more difficult for them to cover. Many have died since the U.S.-Iraq war began, and some are dying now in the Gaza strip and in Lebanon. Demagogues and ‘fake news’ have always existed. The task for journalists has always been how to counter them.”

To register, go to: norfolklibrary.org/events