Muddy Boots and Red Socks: A Reporter's Life

A war correspondent recounts his thirty years of experience in the field covering stories all over the globe, from Cuba and Argentina to Vietnam and Saudi Arabia

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Browne was among the first journalists to question the American presence in Southeast Asia. Here he reveals how he came to be regarded as something close to a traitor by U.S. military authorities in Saigon (and at the U.S. embassy), and how he was treated as an enemy by the South Vietnamese government. In his detailed reminiscences of his experiences in Vietnam, Latin America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere, Browne clearly knows about the problems, dangers and tricks of his trade. He covered Operation Desert Storm as a disgruntled member of one of the "licensed tour groups called pools" and charges that the reporting of the 1990-1991 war was perforce misleading. "Honest reporting," he maintains, "is the last thing most people want when the subject is war." Having seen a good deal of the world, met its people and witnessed its governments, Browne is chilling in his warnings about overpopulation and its impact. "I have seen the future and it doesn't work. It's the Third World, and it's coming our way, as inexorably as the Africanized killer bees of Brazil." Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A top foreign correspondent's anecdotal memoir that, despite its ramshackle structure, affords many pleasures and not a few surprises. Browne (The New Face of War, 1965) made a name for himself during the early 1960's as the AP's man in Vietnam, where his ``muddy-boots'' reporting earned him a Pulitzer. (The title's allusion to red socks is a private joke: Browne has worn them since his days as a Korean-era GI who loathed olive drab.) But there's far more to the author's story than Southeast Asia. With time out for an unhappy year at ABC-TV, Browne ran news bureaus in Eastern Europe and South America for The New York Times, which also dispatched him to cover Pakistan's 1971 clash with India and, most recently, the Desert Storm campaign. The author provides vivid accounts of the risks and rewards of front-line journalism: Among other feats, he's survived three plane crashes, countless fire fights, Scud missile raids, detainment by Soviet Bloc constabulary, and the ire of domestic hawks. He also comments on the high-profile luminaries, lesser lights, and media colleagues he's encountered on his travels--from Peter Arnett through Pavel Kohout, Pablo Neruda, and Prince Sihanouk. And, on occasion, Browne editorializes shockingly, most notably in a Malthusian rant on the threat posed to Western civilization by Third World have-nots. While the author says little here about his private life, his episodic recollections of a news-gathering career in the world's combat zones and boondocks make for an absorbing chronicle. (Sixteen pages of photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Candid, cynical, somber, but ultimately triumphant in its concluding tone, Browne's book starts out as yet another memoir from a war and foreign correspondent. It's a crowded field, but this work stands somewhat apart, principally because the author--a Pulitzer Prize winner for his Vietnam war coverage--cares about the ethics of the news business, decrying today's "pack" reporting (exacerbated by television) and contending that "the best journalism often masquerades as fiction... the kind written by Graham Greene, or George Orwell."recheck quote Today a science reporter for the New York Times , Browne is convinced "that the greatest mass extinction in the planet's history is now taking place... because of unchecked human reproduction." A strong book, best directed to libraries with major media collections.
- Chet Hagan, Berks Cty. P.L. System, Pa.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.