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Interview with Edith Lederer
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Transcription
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Edith Lederer
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 26 October 2022
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(Start of Interview)
SM: 00:04
Edith, I want to thank you for agreeing to do the interview.
EL: 00:06
My pleasure, thank you.
SM: 00:10
And I love reading your section in the book, War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam. The first question I would like to ask is could you describe where what your growing up years were like your parents, where you grew up in elementary and high school and certainly your college years.
EL: 00:34
I was born in Manhattan, at Beth Israel Hospital. My grandparents emigrated to the United States to escape pogroms in the late 1800s. My parents were both first generation Americans. My mother became a kindergarten teacher. My father was a pediatrician. Unfortunately, he got Hodgkin's disease then this was in the (19)40s in the early 1940s, which was incurable at the time. And he passed away when I was a year and a half old. My mother remarried when I was about six, and I grew up on Long Island. I graduated from Valley Stream, North High School, which was a new school at the time, we were the third graduating class. My parents did not have a lot of money. So, I definitely could not go to a private college or university. When my father died, my great aunt and uncle moved in to take care of my older sister and me. And I was lucky enough to apply to one of these state colleges that Cornell University, which was then called the College of home economics, and is now called the College of Human Ecology. And I got in and I graduated from Cornell in three years. It was partially me being a young woman in a hurry, but also finances. And I, I had not been on my high school newspaper, I was news editor. And when I went to Cornell, I thought I might go into the women's and journalism. I graduated from high school in 1960. And, you know, that was really just the dawn of the Women's Liberation Movement.
SM: 04:01
Mm-Hmm.
EL: 04:04
When I was at Cornell, I decided so I would rather go into Harvard news journalism. And I knew that as a woman, I would never get a job unless I got, I went to graduate school. So, I applied to all the major graduate schools in journalism. I got into all of them except Columbia, because they did not consider that I had an academic degree. Even though I had a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell. They did not like the College of home economics. And it ended up being a pissing match between the presidents of Cornell and Columbia, because James Perkins, who was then president, and the dean of the home at school were both outraged. Anyway, I did not care because I got into Stanford, and I got a resident assistantship, which pay my room board and two thirds of my tuition. So that was a huge, huge bonus for me. And in addition, it was a one-year master's program. So, it was terrific, in in many more ways than just financially because California opened my eyes to a whole different world. And I did my master's project on press coverage, the Democratic and Republican conventions. In 1964, I got to work as a messenger, a photo messenger for United Press International, which was amazing, because as a photo messenger at that time, you actually have access all over the floor of the convention. And I got I had a contact at editor and publisher, which was then a very influential magazine for jobs at cetera, and coverage of the news industry. And the editor writes My master's project, which was a series of articles. So much that editor and publisher published it.
SM: 07:35
Wow. Very good.
EL: 07:38
And this editor, saboteur who was what was Rick's last name, anyway, he, he told me to put an ad in and say you apply for jobs because I did not have any real contacts. And they made a mistake in the head. And instead of saying that I had a background in psychology, they said, physics. As a result of that, physics. I actually got an answer from a Scripps Howard news and called Science Service.
SM: 08:29
Hmm.
EL: 08:31
Which published a weekly newsletter printed, like sort of a skinny Time Magazine for sci fi on science based in Washington, and even though they were told immediately that I had no background in physics, but I did not know the social sciences, they hired me. And I had a fascinating year and they were writing back up on medical stories and also covering like the American Psychological Association, the American Sociological Association, a lot of very interesting stuff. I had never traveled out of the country and my uncle, as a graduation gift had given me a plane ticket to Europe. And I asked for a leave. So, I could go to Europe, because at that time, he only got like two or two weeks of vacation or less, and they would not give it to me. So, I quit. And I went to Europe and hitchhiked around Europe with one of my Cornell girlfriends for three months. And when I tell people that today they are shocked, but in those days, everybody hitchhiked in your I came back. And I then took out all of the early rejection letters that I had, because I did not have any experience because then I had all my clips from site service. And I was a finalist for a job at the Washington Post and lost out to a guy. But I was hired by the AP's New York Bureau Chief, Doug Lovelace to fill in on what was called AP local, which was a city news service that the AP ran. Wow, certainly in the (19)60s and early are for the many, and I am talking about a dozen, at least New York City newspapers, plus dozens of radio stations. And then, you know, television, I guess, been in New York City plus the surrounding area, which is of course, New Jersey, and Connecticut. And I, I worked on AP local. It was quite an incredible time. And I got to cover some amazing things. I mean, I-I covered Martin Luther King. I think in the first three days I was there, I covered Britain's Prince Philip, going to a toy fair, I covered student riots at Columbia University. And at that time, you know, I would not go I often worked nights, I would work from 3 to 11. And I do not the rubber, the rubber chicken circuit, I covered Bobby Kennedy Senate campaign and travel with him. And in 1968, I got asked if I wanted to go transferred to San Francisco, I got offered that and I said yes. And I arrived in San Francisco in June of 1968 on the day that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. In Los Angeles. It was a time of incredible ferment between student unrest, the Black Power movement, the end of the hippie movement. There was a tremendous amount going on in California at that time. And, you know, I got to cover lots of it. And that was quite amazing. Every, every year, AP would send you sort of, like a form that we all nicknamed, you know, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I always said that I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. Because after-after going to Europe I was I was not, you know, seeing the rest of the world. But it was sort of a joke because the AP had a foreign editor at the time named Ben Bassett, who refused to have a woman on-on the foreign desk and you had to work on the foreign desk in order to become a foreign correspondent, he did not think that women had what it took to cover more disasters crews, big international stories. So, I was quite shocked. One day in the summer of 1972, to get a phone call from the president of the AP West Gallagher asking if I wanted to go to Vietnam. I have to add that while I was in California in San Francisco, I also would go to Sacramento to cover the California Assembly whenever it met. This was the era when Ronald Reagan was governor. And yes, there was a big jar of jelly beans on his desk. And it is quite amazing that the young, the young assembly men that I am and women that I met Ben, quite a number of them went on to great, you know, future jobs. I mean, of course, Reagan went on to be the governor went on to the president, but Pete Wilson, whom I sat next to in the assembly chamber became governor, Willie Brown became speaker of the assembly and Mayor of San Francisco. So anyway, it was it was, it was a fascinating time. In retrospect,
SM: 17:08
When you look at the yet when you look at it-
EL: 17:10
Go ahead.
SM: 17:11
Go ahead.
EL: 17:12
No, go ahead.
SM: 17:13
Yeah. When you look at that period of time, when you were in San Francisco, there were so many things happening. Of course, the Black Panthers became a reality. There- I think there was the-the Angela Davis trial, the-
EL: 17:26
I cov- I covered the Angela Davis tri- trial with my colleague from Los Angeles, Linda Deutsch, who became one of my best friends. And we are still great friends today. And she went on to an illustrious career as a trial correspondent. I mean, she covered everybody from Manson, Ellsberg. Michael Jackson, is OJ Simpson. He covered all those trials.
SM: 17:59
Did you cover the counterculture too and Haight Ashbury and Golden Gate Park and all those things are happening there?
EL: 18:05
A little a little bit of it. Yes. And, you know, that was I do not know whether you remember there was a professor who became president of San Francisco State S. I. Hayakawa [Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa]
SM: 18:22
Yes. I know him real well. Yep.
EL: 18:24
I covered I helped cover. You know him for sure.
SM: 18:29
Yeah, remember, there is a lot of protests in San Juan in San Francisco.
EL: 18:33
That is cor- That is correct. Lots of protests.
SM: 18:36
He went on to become senator. I think Patricia Hearst was also the happened to be-
EL: 18:43
Yeah, that is, that is funny, because I came back from Vietnam. In like September, October of 1973. Or maybe August, September. I am trying to remember when Patty Hearst got kidnapped.
SM: 19:13
That was around (19)74, I think.
EL: 19:18
Was it (19)74? While I was back in San Francisco, and the day she got kidnapped, was also the day that Angela, Angela, Angela, Mia Alioto [Angela Mia Alioto Veronese], the mayor of San Francisco's wife reappeared. Camping disappeared for, I do not know, two weeks. Nobody knew where she was. So, I ended up other-other colleagues covered the day of the kidnapping. I covered Angela Mia Alioto's return. And I mean, her story was quite crazy also. I guess she and Joe were not getting along too well. And she decided to go on a tour of all the California missions-
SM: 20:17
Was in the capital of California at that time, I know the Black Panthers had a went to the capitol and surrounded it. And they were had their guns. And were you covering all that as well?
EL: 20:29
No-no-no, I was not there when they did that at the Capitol? Definitely not. I mean, I, you know, there was Huey Newton, the Huey Newton trial. So-so, that is what I know. From that, from that Black Panther part, I certainly did cover the Angela Davis trial and all the fallout from that. And that was an amazing trial also.
SM: 21:15
When you when you compare the journalism that you became a part of back in the San Francisco, and we were going to go to Vietnam in a couple minutes. How do you compare that today? But what I am trying to get at, I know you are a great journalist. And the thing is, what does it take for young people to take your life and to become a great journalist too what are the qualities necessary to be a good, a really good journalist that covers a story, and as you say, in your book, or in the thing, to be very responsible and doing it?
EL: 21:54
Well, one of the things that I think has changed dramatically, is the arrival of the Internet for good and for bad. When I was growing up, newspapers had news on the front and nose sections of newspapers and opinions in the opinion section. And what I think has changed dramatically is the idea of balanced, well edited news. And I think that what the internet has done is that it has reinforced views that any individual may have, without exposing them to the idea of three, hard news that has reporting on both-both sides of an issue. And so, my message, my-my message to young people would be, quit your own political and social views in a box while you are working. And try and see both sides of whatever story you are covering, and try and report on the fact. And I know how hard that is to do.
SM: 24:28
You got to Vietnam. Can you explain that? That time when you found out that you were going to be assigned there? And I know that you talked about that you are going you always dreamed of being a foreign correspondent, but then you ended up becoming a war correspondent. Could you talk about that? Just that very beginning phase, and those very first days in Vietnam, your first impressions of the country?
EL: 24:55
Well, I was shocked, as I said, too when I got this call from West Gallagher and Penn, I did ask him whether I was going to New York to work on the foreign desk and he said, no, I was going to, I would go to Vietnam without working on the foreign desk, because do not forget Ben Bassett, the foreign editor anyway, I said that I had to talk to my parents, but I of course, knew that I was going to go. And I, I had actually been to Vietnam. In 1971, I had gone around the world with one of my [inaudible] Francisco roommate, who was a teacher. And we got on one of those panim around, we got pan ham around the world tickets. I had saved up a lot of AP vacation. And we had most been to Europe, but we never been to Asia. So we went to Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, and-and you can stop anywhere that Pan-am 101 stopped as long as you are going in the same direction. And it has stopped in Saigon. And so, we decided to go to see the war that while certainly was on the front pages every day and that I had been writing about certainly on the protest side. And so, I going back to Saigon was not a shock to me. And on that first trip in 1971, we were you know, we, we were sort of taken under the wing of the AP office because I was working for the AP in San Francisco. And I actually found out in at the end of the first Gulf War that the AP bureau chief in Saigon at the time, Richard Pyle had wanted to have a woman in the AP bureau. And after he met me on that trip, he asked was Gallagher to send me to Vietnam, but I did not find that out until over 20 years later. So, I-I-I showed up but of course, very different going as a tourist and you know, than getting on a plane and going to Bangkok and then and then going as a war correspondent, and I-I was very young and ambitious. And I wanted to prove that a woman could do that job. And Gallagher had told everybody want me to go out in the field. Well, actually, the big stories that the time that I was there were-were not really it was sort of the end of the combat phase although I, [inaudible] were that was the major story. Because I was there before, during and after the pullout of the last American combat troops-
SM: 29:46
Right.
EL: 29:47
That is not saying that the war did not go on because it was going on and I covered some of it. But the big story was what was, what-what was going to happen and we all know that two years later on April 30, 1975, basically, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong marched into Saigon and that was the end of the war and North Vietnam and South Vietnam became one Vietnam under a communist government.
SM: 30:32
Yeah. Can you describe you do really good in the interview, in the book, War Torn about your perceptions of walking down the street and or going out in an assignment into the countryside? What it was like to be in Vietnam, looking at the faces of the people that lived there the country itself? Could you kind of describe that?
EL: 30:57
Um, I have to say that the, you know, the AP Bureau was in an aging French colonial edifice called the Eden Building. And when you walked outside, you would see immediately the impact of the war on the Vietnamese people. There were Vietnamese of all ages, who had been crippled in various ways, sitting on the pavement trying to sell things. There were lots of military activity in in the streets. And there was a whole war culture of limb, limb for today. Because you do not know whether you are going to be around tomorrow.
SM: 32:43
Did you fear your life?
EL: 32:48
I-I am a fatalist. And I have in in Vietnam, starting in Vietnam, and then then all the other wars and conflict that I covered. Have I have been frightened sometimes. Certainly. Have I been worried that I might be cold? Certainly. But it is not something that was always in the front of my mind. It was certainly in the front of my mind in Afghanistan when whenever pro Soviet supporter was holding a pistol to my temple. Yes.
SM: 33:50
Wow. If you talked, you mentioned the big story in Vietnam was a big story.
EL: 33:56
It was a huge story.
SM: 33:58
It is how you describe it in the inner- in war torn it because I want to bring up that word responsibility as a journalist because you link it-it is important to tell history the way it really is. Could you talk about that? Because that is really important. When you talk about reporting. I want to be honest, and truthful. And I have a responsibility because it is linked to history. Could you talk about that?
EL: 34:26
Well, there was always every-every day in Vietnam, the US military did, Matt V did a briefing called which was nicknamed the five o'clock Follies. And it was called The Five o'clock follies because of the view that the lack of reality on what was being present into two journalists. And what was really happening out in the field. And the great thing about the Vietnam War was that there were almost no restrictions on where members of the media could go. If you went down to one of the air bases, and there was helicopters going off to some combat zone, and there was empty seat, you were a journalist, you could get off or a photographer or a TV camera. You know, and, and so my AP colleagues, and I could actually go and see for ourselves what was really happening. We did not have to take the US military's often skewed view of what was happening. And, you know, the media in some animals was blamed for the US losses of the Vietnam War. But frankly, it was the media that told the truth about what was happening.
SM: 36:53
There was no censorship then.
EL: 36:56
There was no censorship. And as someone who covered the first Gulf War, which was the first major US military involvement, post, Vietnam, the situation changed dramatically, dramatically. So maybe it could never go anywhere on its own and there will always minders. I still remember doing an interview with a general at that, during, in the run up to the war. And think about this, I am facing him asking questions. And behind me, was sitting, his PR guy shaking his head, yes or no on whether the general should answer the question.
SM: 38:16
Man, either it is just a lie in your book against again, describing the scene in Vietnam with some of the people live there. I think it is, I just want to record it for record. The end, this is your words. "During my six years as a reporter, I had covered murders and seen plenty of dead people are dead bodies, but coming face to face with Vietnamese kids and adults in the prime of their life, who would be forever scarred by war, far, far harder on the emotions." So that is a beautiful quote. And it is that it is really about humanity and caring about humanity. So, it is almost the sense that you go to a foreign war area there you see kids, whether it be in Afghanistan, or Vietnam, or anywhere, these kids and children, and they deserve a legacy like all of us do. So that very well said. You also covered that period of time during the Paris Peace Talks, whether you are taking place with Kissinger going to Paris, and-
EL: 39:23
Right.
SM: 39:24
Could you talk about that? You know, I think it was on and off and on and off. You give really a description of that too. And then finally, when it did happen, and then people started leaving Vietnam, talking about that, too.
EL: 39:37
Sure. You know, let me let me go back for a second to the victims of war. I- One of the things that always struck me was that every American soldier’s death was written about and honored. And rightly so. But the same was not the case with the deaths of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. And I had wanted to write a story about the impact of the war on Vietnamese families. And in order to, to get a green light to write it, I-I had to find a family that where the mother has lost, I cannot remember, but it was like four or five sons, she had one son left. She lived in basically what would be a shack with the roof that went over the walls of the two shacks next to hers. And, you know, her, her life had been turned totally upside down. And she was only hoping that her last some that have come she had not heard from, we were still alive. These-these are the real stories about the impact of war. The peace talks that were going on in Paris, were of course, incredibly closely watched in Vietnam. And there was all sorts of betting of what was going to happen. And there, there was, yes, there was an agreement finally reached. What, you know, first, the Paris Peace Talks collapsed in mid-December. And the US. This was 1972, when the US then launched this huge Christmas bombing campaign against Hanoi and North Vietnam. And when that ended, the peace talks resumed. And then the bearing on a ceasefire also resumed. And it was the ceasefire was finally agreed on, I do not know, late January 1973. And the question was, what would happen next? And that was we knew that the Americans were going to leave. And I think one of the most one of the stories I wrote that I know God, the best play was writing about the impact of the war on the bar girls.
SM: 44:33
Yes.
EL: 44:38
You know, they-they were the girlfriends of thousands of American GI. And I went and did this story going to a whole bunch of bars and-and that was so interesting, because I had expected them to be really angry. But you know, they were really quiet [inaudible]. But I, I wondered, even then how these young women, many of whom had children who were half American, would not survive. And I know for a fact that a lot of them had a very, very tough time, because in 2000, which was the 25th anniversary of the end of the war, the AP did a whole package. And I went back and interviewed. I did a story on the impact of the war on women in the north in the south, and I actually did get to talk to-to really interview one former bar girls, and find out what happened to quite a number of them. But the, you know, once, once this, this peace agreement was signed, there were all sorts of political and diplomatic games that were not going on. And there was a four-party commission that was coming into Saigon, I was covering a lot of that. And it was fascinating. And I also got to cover the arrival of the first American prisoners of war who had been held by the Vietcong in South Vietnam. And-
SM: 47:31
You [inaudible].
EL: 47:32
That was incredibly moving.
SM: 47:35
Could you describe that because I think there is two scenes in your in the book, when you talk about you the first time you saw the POWs and then [inaudible] time, and then there was the other time where the very last POW they got I think you also witnessed that.
EL: 47:49
Okay. Right-right-right. Well, there we-we had waited four hours for, for this prisoner release. And then all of a sudden, there were six helicopters circling overhead. And, you know, I kept trying to imagine what those guys were thinking. You know, they, they had been picked up in a jungle clearing and they were about to take their first steps on friendly soil in years. Some of them had been prisoners for eight years. And it was very emotional. When the helicopter landed, the some of them were peering through the windows waving at us while others were not. And the first prisoner off was a young blond man on a stretcher, who was given a big chair. And when he heard that noise, he sat up and actually waved his good hand. And then his both his hands and he broke into a smile. But then, you know, all the rest of the prisoners got off some of them were emaciated. They all looked haggard. And they walked across the tarmac [inaudible] to a US military hospital plane. And the other thing that was sort of horrifying in retrospect was they each had a big-name tag hung around their neck. You know, it was, it sorts of reminded me as if, you know, they were packages going to be delivered. Not people who have suffered so much. And many of them were carrying white plastic bags, which, I guess, contained, the only belongings that they were taking from captivity?
SM: 51:05
Yep. One of the another quote from you is a quote from I think it is General Wyant. And this is your quote, "General Wyant said the United States accomplished purpose. But to me, the North Vietnamese and its Vietcong soldiers were the winners, seeing off their defeated enemies." And then I go to this next thing, and you might not have been in Vietnam, but in this time in 1975, when the helicopters on the Embassy in Saigon, and coming back and forth and taking everybody away, and all the people wanting to go and leave the leave of Vietnam.
EL: 51:54
Right.
SM: 51:54
But what, you know, the peace agreement, peace agreement in 1973. And then you see, we are getting the heck out of there real fast, and people are struggling to survive. You know, what to get out of there? What are your What are your thoughts with the helicopter?
EL: 52:14
Well, I think that after the peace agreement, you may not remember this, but President Johnson, President Johnson was in office and as I recall, Congress refused to fund anything in Vietnam anymore. So, all of the fighting was turned over to the South Vietnamese.
SM: 52:50
Right.
EL: 52:51
There was an American, you know, small military advisory group there. And, and that was the beginning of the end of the wars. So, the fact that the South fell, was not shocking how fast that happened was surprising to me. But then, you know, look at what happened in Afghanistan last year.
SM: 53:30
Mm-Hmm. Yep. [crosstalk] When? When you go to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, in fact, this year is the 40th anniversary of the opening of the wall. And on November 11, of 1982. I will be down there reading 15 names, like probably hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other people are going to be but your thoughts? First, I would like your thoughts the first time you visited it. And then what do you think every time you go there? I do not what do you see on that wall when you go there?
EL: 54:08
Um, I am glad that all of those almost all men thousands and thousands, who died are memorialized. And I think to myself, as I did from the beginning of my tried in Vietnam and they need to die in that war. What was the end United States fighting for? I remember growing up when there was this whole idea of dominoes in Southeast Asia, countries that were going to collapse one by one. And I think that that underlying concern, perhaps is not written about often enough, but I still ask myself, and because there are people, I know on that wall also. And also starting in 1995, my AP colleague, Horst Faas, who has won the Pulitzer in the photography in Vietnam, and I started doing reunions for the journalists who covered the war. And another one of our colleagues did help started doing it also. And we did the 20th, the 25th 30th 35th 40th 45th.
SM: 56:36
Wow.
EL: 56:36
We did not do the 45th, because it was the middle of COVID. That was 2020. But we are planning to do a 50th years for sure.
SM: 56:52
That is very important. I want you-you have read reference to how difficult it was for you as a woman to finally get to a position where you were a foreign correspondent or a war correspondent, as a female. You know, I find it interesting that it took a while for the women's memorial at the in Washington to also be built. And we know the story of Diane Carlson Evans and the battles she had to go through in Congress just even, I have seen some of her interviews and so forth. And so, it took a while for that to happen. And I know there was always some opinions of eve that why is a woman always on the stage at the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day or Veterans Day. No one ever told me it. But I heard some veterans tell me some behind the scenes stories. I do not know if they are true. But I think there is a perception there. It took a while for women to be recognized too at the Vietnam Memorial. And-
EL: 57:46
Oh, yeah.
SM: 57:47
And if you study the whole history of the civil rights movement, and the talk about the anti-war movement, women were in secondary roles. And part of the reason why the feminist movement became so major and important is because many of them left on their own to create it be a part of a leadership role in these movements. Why is it taken so- I think a lot of people have answered this, but I am still questioning why has it taken so long for women like you, I mean, you have already proven you are a great writer, to get into leadership roles that you should have been 50 and 100 years ago.
EL: 58:21
Well, do not forget that after Vietnam. I did not become a piece first female bureau chief overseas. I was bureau chief for Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. And then that is a very long story. But I was kicked out of Peru for a story that I wrote, which was true. But I then was AP's bureau chief in the Caribbean, and I had, you know, more than a dozen countries. But I realized that that job I spent more than half my time collecting bad debts from Puerto Rican radio subscribers. And I really wanted to write so it was my decision to go back to writing and reporting. I probably could have risen to be, you know, a more senior editor at AP but I still I still loved writing and reporting.
SM: 59:55
I know you went off to Cambodia to and we all know what happened there with a killing fields and Pol Pot. And you saw that you saw the beginning of that. And of course, the killings at Kent State in 1970 are directly related to Richard Nixon going into Cambodia on the 30th of April of 1970. That is what erected the campuses all over the country and so forth. But we had been there for a long time.
EL: 1:00:23
Absolutely.
SM: 1:00:25
I just-just some general questions here. What are the lessons learned from the war? And what are the lessons lost from the war?
EL: 1:00:36
Well, that is a very long and difficult question. Certainly. Certainly, one of the things, learned from, I think, from Vietnam was to make, to hopefully to, you know, make sure that Americans know what, what they are fighting for in these countries. And certainly, I think that that was an issue in Vietnam. Maybe, maybe I am wrong, and I do not remember so well, but I think that that was an issue. And in terms, one of the bad things that came out of it was the blaming the media and the repression of the media in covering future actions where the US military was involved. And that is, that is pretty, that is pretty horrifying. And, and that goes on until today. And I can only say, that was one of the things that war correspondents of my generation, they were not war correspondents in foreign correspondents of my generation, say is that we have lived through the golden age of covering, big stories, including mores and conflict. And the reason we say that is that we had more time, more freedom. Because communications were not instantaneous. No cell phones, no satellite phones. And, and we-we were trusted more by our editors. Yes, if we did things that they did not like, we heard about it, but it was not like having somebody pick up a phone every 10 minutes. And say, where is this? When is this coming? And that puts a lot of pressure on, on journalists, photographers. Is anybody in the media today to speed things up and not be as careful as they should or could be.
SM: 1:04:41
Alright, I think two more questions, and then we will be done.
EL: 1:04:47
I hope they are short because it is 2:56 that I have to go cover this [inaudible]
SM: 1:04:52
That is okay. Yep. But would you consider Vietnam the watershed event of the (19)60s even though we know civil rights was also would you consider Vietnam, the watershed event.
EL: 1:05:04
So, I would certainly consider it one of the (19)60s.
SM: 1:05:09
Yes. (19)60s and early (19)70s?
EL: 1:05:11
Probably, yes. Yes. Because of the global impact, although I understand why you saying the civil rights movement, and but that that kept going for- that is kept going for decades. It still, it is still an unfinished piece of business.
SM: 1:05:41
Have we healed? Has the nation healed from this war? Your thoughts? No-
EL: 1:05:52
I do not. I do not think anybody under 50 pays much attention to Vietnam at all now. I mean, the saddest thing to me is finding Vietnam veterans out begging on street corners-
SM: 1:06:15
Right.
EL: 1:06:17
-in New York. And I, you know, if I see one, and they are really suffering, you know, give them some money. But it is, it is not, it is not right. And I think a lot of them feel forgotten. That, you know, the world has gone on to so many other issues, and so many other concerns and conflicts. And that is what I can say.
SM: 1:06:54
And then, any words of advice, they asked us to everybody want to end the interview? What words of advice would you give to people, young people, older people, 50 years from now that are listening to your interviewer? What words of advice would you give them?
EL: 1:07:12
My advice would be, first and foremost, be honest with yourself. And try to be as honest and balanced in whatever work you choose to do. And to young people, I would say, try and live your dream when you are young. And if you do not succeed, hopefully, it will put you on the path that will lead you to something that will end in a happy life for you.
SM: 1:07:55
Edith Lederer thank you very much for this interview, and, and also for being in the book, which I encourage everyone to read War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam. And of course, the introduction just from Gloria Emerson, the late Gloria Emerson who wrote the great book, Winners and Losers. Edith, thank you very much.
EL: 1:08:18
You are welcome.
(End of Interview)
Interview with: Edith Lederer
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 26 October 2022
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM: 00:04
Edith, I want to thank you for agreeing to do the interview.
EL: 00:06
My pleasure, thank you.
SM: 00:10
And I love reading your section in the book, War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam. The first question I would like to ask is could you describe where what your growing up years were like your parents, where you grew up in elementary and high school and certainly your college years.
EL: 00:34
I was born in Manhattan, at Beth Israel Hospital. My grandparents emigrated to the United States to escape pogroms in the late 1800s. My parents were both first generation Americans. My mother became a kindergarten teacher. My father was a pediatrician. Unfortunately, he got Hodgkin's disease then this was in the (19)40s in the early 1940s, which was incurable at the time. And he passed away when I was a year and a half old. My mother remarried when I was about six, and I grew up on Long Island. I graduated from Valley Stream, North High School, which was a new school at the time, we were the third graduating class. My parents did not have a lot of money. So, I definitely could not go to a private college or university. When my father died, my great aunt and uncle moved in to take care of my older sister and me. And I was lucky enough to apply to one of these state colleges that Cornell University, which was then called the College of home economics, and is now called the College of Human Ecology. And I got in and I graduated from Cornell in three years. It was partially me being a young woman in a hurry, but also finances. And I, I had not been on my high school newspaper, I was news editor. And when I went to Cornell, I thought I might go into the women's and journalism. I graduated from high school in 1960. And, you know, that was really just the dawn of the Women's Liberation Movement.
SM: 04:01
Mm-Hmm.
EL: 04:04
When I was at Cornell, I decided so I would rather go into Harvard news journalism. And I knew that as a woman, I would never get a job unless I got, I went to graduate school. So, I applied to all the major graduate schools in journalism. I got into all of them except Columbia, because they did not consider that I had an academic degree. Even though I had a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell. They did not like the College of home economics. And it ended up being a pissing match between the presidents of Cornell and Columbia, because James Perkins, who was then president, and the dean of the home at school were both outraged. Anyway, I did not care because I got into Stanford, and I got a resident assistantship, which pay my room board and two thirds of my tuition. So that was a huge, huge bonus for me. And in addition, it was a one-year master's program. So, it was terrific, in in many more ways than just financially because California opened my eyes to a whole different world. And I did my master's project on press coverage, the Democratic and Republican conventions. In 1964, I got to work as a messenger, a photo messenger for United Press International, which was amazing, because as a photo messenger at that time, you actually have access all over the floor of the convention. And I got I had a contact at editor and publisher, which was then a very influential magazine for jobs at cetera, and coverage of the news industry. And the editor writes My master's project, which was a series of articles. So much that editor and publisher published it.
SM: 07:35
Wow. Very good.
EL: 07:38
And this editor, saboteur who was what was Rick's last name, anyway, he, he told me to put an ad in and say you apply for jobs because I did not have any real contacts. And they made a mistake in the head. And instead of saying that I had a background in psychology, they said, physics. As a result of that, physics. I actually got an answer from a Scripps Howard news and called Science Service.
SM: 08:29
Hmm.
EL: 08:31
Which published a weekly newsletter printed, like sort of a skinny Time Magazine for sci fi on science based in Washington, and even though they were told immediately that I had no background in physics, but I did not know the social sciences, they hired me. And I had a fascinating year and they were writing back up on medical stories and also covering like the American Psychological Association, the American Sociological Association, a lot of very interesting stuff. I had never traveled out of the country and my uncle, as a graduation gift had given me a plane ticket to Europe. And I asked for a leave. So, I could go to Europe, because at that time, he only got like two or two weeks of vacation or less, and they would not give it to me. So, I quit. And I went to Europe and hitchhiked around Europe with one of my Cornell girlfriends for three months. And when I tell people that today they are shocked, but in those days, everybody hitchhiked in your I came back. And I then took out all of the early rejection letters that I had, because I did not have any experience because then I had all my clips from site service. And I was a finalist for a job at the Washington Post and lost out to a guy. But I was hired by the AP's New York Bureau Chief, Doug Lovelace to fill in on what was called AP local, which was a city news service that the AP ran. Wow, certainly in the (19)60s and early are for the many, and I am talking about a dozen, at least New York City newspapers, plus dozens of radio stations. And then, you know, television, I guess, been in New York City plus the surrounding area, which is of course, New Jersey, and Connecticut. And I, I worked on AP local. It was quite an incredible time. And I got to cover some amazing things. I mean, I-I covered Martin Luther King. I think in the first three days I was there, I covered Britain's Prince Philip, going to a toy fair, I covered student riots at Columbia University. And at that time, you know, I would not go I often worked nights, I would work from 3 to 11. And I do not the rubber, the rubber chicken circuit, I covered Bobby Kennedy Senate campaign and travel with him. And in 1968, I got asked if I wanted to go transferred to San Francisco, I got offered that and I said yes. And I arrived in San Francisco in June of 1968 on the day that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. In Los Angeles. It was a time of incredible ferment between student unrest, the Black Power movement, the end of the hippie movement. There was a tremendous amount going on in California at that time. And, you know, I got to cover lots of it. And that was quite amazing. Every, every year, AP would send you sort of, like a form that we all nicknamed, you know, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I always said that I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. Because after-after going to Europe I was I was not, you know, seeing the rest of the world. But it was sort of a joke because the AP had a foreign editor at the time named Ben Bassett, who refused to have a woman on-on the foreign desk and you had to work on the foreign desk in order to become a foreign correspondent, he did not think that women had what it took to cover more disasters crews, big international stories. So, I was quite shocked. One day in the summer of 1972, to get a phone call from the president of the AP West Gallagher asking if I wanted to go to Vietnam. I have to add that while I was in California in San Francisco, I also would go to Sacramento to cover the California Assembly whenever it met. This was the era when Ronald Reagan was governor. And yes, there was a big jar of jelly beans on his desk. And it is quite amazing that the young, the young assembly men that I am and women that I met Ben, quite a number of them went on to great, you know, future jobs. I mean, of course, Reagan went on to be the governor went on to the president, but Pete Wilson, whom I sat next to in the assembly chamber became governor, Willie Brown became speaker of the assembly and Mayor of San Francisco. So anyway, it was it was, it was a fascinating time. In retrospect,
SM: 17:08
When you look at the yet when you look at it-
EL: 17:10
Go ahead.
SM: 17:11
Go ahead.
EL: 17:12
No, go ahead.
SM: 17:13
Yeah. When you look at that period of time, when you were in San Francisco, there were so many things happening. Of course, the Black Panthers became a reality. There- I think there was the-the Angela Davis trial, the-
EL: 17:26
I cov- I covered the Angela Davis tri- trial with my colleague from Los Angeles, Linda Deutsch, who became one of my best friends. And we are still great friends today. And she went on to an illustrious career as a trial correspondent. I mean, she covered everybody from Manson, Ellsberg. Michael Jackson, is OJ Simpson. He covered all those trials.
SM: 17:59
Did you cover the counterculture too and Haight Ashbury and Golden Gate Park and all those things are happening there?
EL: 18:05
A little a little bit of it. Yes. And, you know, that was I do not know whether you remember there was a professor who became president of San Francisco State S. I. Hayakawa [Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa]
SM: 18:22
Yes. I know him real well. Yep.
EL: 18:24
I covered I helped cover. You know him for sure.
SM: 18:29
Yeah, remember, there is a lot of protests in San Juan in San Francisco.
EL: 18:33
That is cor- That is correct. Lots of protests.
SM: 18:36
He went on to become senator. I think Patricia Hearst was also the happened to be-
EL: 18:43
Yeah, that is, that is funny, because I came back from Vietnam. In like September, October of 1973. Or maybe August, September. I am trying to remember when Patty Hearst got kidnapped.
SM: 19:13
That was around (19)74, I think.
EL: 19:18
Was it (19)74? While I was back in San Francisco, and the day she got kidnapped, was also the day that Angela, Angela, Angela, Mia Alioto [Angela Mia Alioto Veronese], the mayor of San Francisco's wife reappeared. Camping disappeared for, I do not know, two weeks. Nobody knew where she was. So, I ended up other-other colleagues covered the day of the kidnapping. I covered Angela Mia Alioto's return. And I mean, her story was quite crazy also. I guess she and Joe were not getting along too well. And she decided to go on a tour of all the California missions-
SM: 20:17
Was in the capital of California at that time, I know the Black Panthers had a went to the capitol and surrounded it. And they were had their guns. And were you covering all that as well?
EL: 20:29
No-no-no, I was not there when they did that at the Capitol? Definitely not. I mean, I, you know, there was Huey Newton, the Huey Newton trial. So-so, that is what I know. From that, from that Black Panther part, I certainly did cover the Angela Davis trial and all the fallout from that. And that was an amazing trial also.
SM: 21:15
When you when you compare the journalism that you became a part of back in the San Francisco, and we were going to go to Vietnam in a couple minutes. How do you compare that today? But what I am trying to get at, I know you are a great journalist. And the thing is, what does it take for young people to take your life and to become a great journalist too what are the qualities necessary to be a good, a really good journalist that covers a story, and as you say, in your book, or in the thing, to be very responsible and doing it?
EL: 21:54
Well, one of the things that I think has changed dramatically, is the arrival of the Internet for good and for bad. When I was growing up, newspapers had news on the front and nose sections of newspapers and opinions in the opinion section. And what I think has changed dramatically is the idea of balanced, well edited news. And I think that what the internet has done is that it has reinforced views that any individual may have, without exposing them to the idea of three, hard news that has reporting on both-both sides of an issue. And so, my message, my-my message to young people would be, quit your own political and social views in a box while you are working. And try and see both sides of whatever story you are covering, and try and report on the fact. And I know how hard that is to do.
SM: 24:28
You got to Vietnam. Can you explain that? That time when you found out that you were going to be assigned there? And I know that you talked about that you are going you always dreamed of being a foreign correspondent, but then you ended up becoming a war correspondent. Could you talk about that? Just that very beginning phase, and those very first days in Vietnam, your first impressions of the country?
EL: 24:55
Well, I was shocked, as I said, too when I got this call from West Gallagher and Penn, I did ask him whether I was going to New York to work on the foreign desk and he said, no, I was going to, I would go to Vietnam without working on the foreign desk, because do not forget Ben Bassett, the foreign editor anyway, I said that I had to talk to my parents, but I of course, knew that I was going to go. And I, I had actually been to Vietnam. In 1971, I had gone around the world with one of my [inaudible] Francisco roommate, who was a teacher. And we got on one of those panim around, we got pan ham around the world tickets. I had saved up a lot of AP vacation. And we had most been to Europe, but we never been to Asia. So we went to Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, and-and you can stop anywhere that Pan-am 101 stopped as long as you are going in the same direction. And it has stopped in Saigon. And so, we decided to go to see the war that while certainly was on the front pages every day and that I had been writing about certainly on the protest side. And so, I going back to Saigon was not a shock to me. And on that first trip in 1971, we were you know, we, we were sort of taken under the wing of the AP office because I was working for the AP in San Francisco. And I actually found out in at the end of the first Gulf War that the AP bureau chief in Saigon at the time, Richard Pyle had wanted to have a woman in the AP bureau. And after he met me on that trip, he asked was Gallagher to send me to Vietnam, but I did not find that out until over 20 years later. So, I-I-I showed up but of course, very different going as a tourist and you know, than getting on a plane and going to Bangkok and then and then going as a war correspondent, and I-I was very young and ambitious. And I wanted to prove that a woman could do that job. And Gallagher had told everybody want me to go out in the field. Well, actually, the big stories that the time that I was there were-were not really it was sort of the end of the combat phase although I, [inaudible] were that was the major story. Because I was there before, during and after the pullout of the last American combat troops-
SM: 29:46
Right.
EL: 29:47
That is not saying that the war did not go on because it was going on and I covered some of it. But the big story was what was, what-what was going to happen and we all know that two years later on April 30, 1975, basically, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong marched into Saigon and that was the end of the war and North Vietnam and South Vietnam became one Vietnam under a communist government.
SM: 30:32
Yeah. Can you describe you do really good in the interview, in the book, War Torn about your perceptions of walking down the street and or going out in an assignment into the countryside? What it was like to be in Vietnam, looking at the faces of the people that lived there the country itself? Could you kind of describe that?
EL: 30:57
Um, I have to say that the, you know, the AP Bureau was in an aging French colonial edifice called the Eden Building. And when you walked outside, you would see immediately the impact of the war on the Vietnamese people. There were Vietnamese of all ages, who had been crippled in various ways, sitting on the pavement trying to sell things. There were lots of military activity in in the streets. And there was a whole war culture of limb, limb for today. Because you do not know whether you are going to be around tomorrow.
SM: 32:43
Did you fear your life?
EL: 32:48
I-I am a fatalist. And I have in in Vietnam, starting in Vietnam, and then then all the other wars and conflict that I covered. Have I have been frightened sometimes. Certainly. Have I been worried that I might be cold? Certainly. But it is not something that was always in the front of my mind. It was certainly in the front of my mind in Afghanistan when whenever pro Soviet supporter was holding a pistol to my temple. Yes.
SM: 33:50
Wow. If you talked, you mentioned the big story in Vietnam was a big story.
EL: 33:56
It was a huge story.
SM: 33:58
It is how you describe it in the inner- in war torn it because I want to bring up that word responsibility as a journalist because you link it-it is important to tell history the way it really is. Could you talk about that? Because that is really important. When you talk about reporting. I want to be honest, and truthful. And I have a responsibility because it is linked to history. Could you talk about that?
EL: 34:26
Well, there was always every-every day in Vietnam, the US military did, Matt V did a briefing called which was nicknamed the five o'clock Follies. And it was called The Five o'clock follies because of the view that the lack of reality on what was being present into two journalists. And what was really happening out in the field. And the great thing about the Vietnam War was that there were almost no restrictions on where members of the media could go. If you went down to one of the air bases, and there was helicopters going off to some combat zone, and there was empty seat, you were a journalist, you could get off or a photographer or a TV camera. You know, and, and so my AP colleagues, and I could actually go and see for ourselves what was really happening. We did not have to take the US military's often skewed view of what was happening. And, you know, the media in some animals was blamed for the US losses of the Vietnam War. But frankly, it was the media that told the truth about what was happening.
SM: 36:53
There was no censorship then.
EL: 36:56
There was no censorship. And as someone who covered the first Gulf War, which was the first major US military involvement, post, Vietnam, the situation changed dramatically, dramatically. So maybe it could never go anywhere on its own and there will always minders. I still remember doing an interview with a general at that, during, in the run up to the war. And think about this, I am facing him asking questions. And behind me, was sitting, his PR guy shaking his head, yes or no on whether the general should answer the question.
SM: 38:16
Man, either it is just a lie in your book against again, describing the scene in Vietnam with some of the people live there. I think it is, I just want to record it for record. The end, this is your words. "During my six years as a reporter, I had covered murders and seen plenty of dead people are dead bodies, but coming face to face with Vietnamese kids and adults in the prime of their life, who would be forever scarred by war, far, far harder on the emotions." So that is a beautiful quote. And it is that it is really about humanity and caring about humanity. So, it is almost the sense that you go to a foreign war area there you see kids, whether it be in Afghanistan, or Vietnam, or anywhere, these kids and children, and they deserve a legacy like all of us do. So that very well said. You also covered that period of time during the Paris Peace Talks, whether you are taking place with Kissinger going to Paris, and-
EL: 39:23
Right.
SM: 39:24
Could you talk about that? You know, I think it was on and off and on and off. You give really a description of that too. And then finally, when it did happen, and then people started leaving Vietnam, talking about that, too.
EL: 39:37
Sure. You know, let me let me go back for a second to the victims of war. I- One of the things that always struck me was that every American soldier’s death was written about and honored. And rightly so. But the same was not the case with the deaths of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. And I had wanted to write a story about the impact of the war on Vietnamese families. And in order to, to get a green light to write it, I-I had to find a family that where the mother has lost, I cannot remember, but it was like four or five sons, she had one son left. She lived in basically what would be a shack with the roof that went over the walls of the two shacks next to hers. And, you know, her, her life had been turned totally upside down. And she was only hoping that her last some that have come she had not heard from, we were still alive. These-these are the real stories about the impact of war. The peace talks that were going on in Paris, were of course, incredibly closely watched in Vietnam. And there was all sorts of betting of what was going to happen. And there, there was, yes, there was an agreement finally reached. What, you know, first, the Paris Peace Talks collapsed in mid-December. And the US. This was 1972, when the US then launched this huge Christmas bombing campaign against Hanoi and North Vietnam. And when that ended, the peace talks resumed. And then the bearing on a ceasefire also resumed. And it was the ceasefire was finally agreed on, I do not know, late January 1973. And the question was, what would happen next? And that was we knew that the Americans were going to leave. And I think one of the most one of the stories I wrote that I know God, the best play was writing about the impact of the war on the bar girls.
SM: 44:33
Yes.
EL: 44:38
You know, they-they were the girlfriends of thousands of American GI. And I went and did this story going to a whole bunch of bars and-and that was so interesting, because I had expected them to be really angry. But you know, they were really quiet [inaudible]. But I, I wondered, even then how these young women, many of whom had children who were half American, would not survive. And I know for a fact that a lot of them had a very, very tough time, because in 2000, which was the 25th anniversary of the end of the war, the AP did a whole package. And I went back and interviewed. I did a story on the impact of the war on women in the north in the south, and I actually did get to talk to-to really interview one former bar girls, and find out what happened to quite a number of them. But the, you know, once, once this, this peace agreement was signed, there were all sorts of political and diplomatic games that were not going on. And there was a four-party commission that was coming into Saigon, I was covering a lot of that. And it was fascinating. And I also got to cover the arrival of the first American prisoners of war who had been held by the Vietcong in South Vietnam. And-
SM: 47:31
You [inaudible].
EL: 47:32
That was incredibly moving.
SM: 47:35
Could you describe that because I think there is two scenes in your in the book, when you talk about you the first time you saw the POWs and then [inaudible] time, and then there was the other time where the very last POW they got I think you also witnessed that.
EL: 47:49
Okay. Right-right-right. Well, there we-we had waited four hours for, for this prisoner release. And then all of a sudden, there were six helicopters circling overhead. And, you know, I kept trying to imagine what those guys were thinking. You know, they, they had been picked up in a jungle clearing and they were about to take their first steps on friendly soil in years. Some of them had been prisoners for eight years. And it was very emotional. When the helicopter landed, the some of them were peering through the windows waving at us while others were not. And the first prisoner off was a young blond man on a stretcher, who was given a big chair. And when he heard that noise, he sat up and actually waved his good hand. And then his both his hands and he broke into a smile. But then, you know, all the rest of the prisoners got off some of them were emaciated. They all looked haggard. And they walked across the tarmac [inaudible] to a US military hospital plane. And the other thing that was sort of horrifying in retrospect was they each had a big-name tag hung around their neck. You know, it was, it sorts of reminded me as if, you know, they were packages going to be delivered. Not people who have suffered so much. And many of them were carrying white plastic bags, which, I guess, contained, the only belongings that they were taking from captivity?
SM: 51:05
Yep. One of the another quote from you is a quote from I think it is General Wyant. And this is your quote, "General Wyant said the United States accomplished purpose. But to me, the North Vietnamese and its Vietcong soldiers were the winners, seeing off their defeated enemies." And then I go to this next thing, and you might not have been in Vietnam, but in this time in 1975, when the helicopters on the Embassy in Saigon, and coming back and forth and taking everybody away, and all the people wanting to go and leave the leave of Vietnam.
EL: 51:54
Right.
SM: 51:54
But what, you know, the peace agreement, peace agreement in 1973. And then you see, we are getting the heck out of there real fast, and people are struggling to survive. You know, what to get out of there? What are your What are your thoughts with the helicopter?
EL: 52:14
Well, I think that after the peace agreement, you may not remember this, but President Johnson, President Johnson was in office and as I recall, Congress refused to fund anything in Vietnam anymore. So, all of the fighting was turned over to the South Vietnamese.
SM: 52:50
Right.
EL: 52:51
There was an American, you know, small military advisory group there. And, and that was the beginning of the end of the wars. So, the fact that the South fell, was not shocking how fast that happened was surprising to me. But then, you know, look at what happened in Afghanistan last year.
SM: 53:30
Mm-Hmm. Yep. [crosstalk] When? When you go to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, in fact, this year is the 40th anniversary of the opening of the wall. And on November 11, of 1982. I will be down there reading 15 names, like probably hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other people are going to be but your thoughts? First, I would like your thoughts the first time you visited it. And then what do you think every time you go there? I do not what do you see on that wall when you go there?
EL: 54:08
Um, I am glad that all of those almost all men thousands and thousands, who died are memorialized. And I think to myself, as I did from the beginning of my tried in Vietnam and they need to die in that war. What was the end United States fighting for? I remember growing up when there was this whole idea of dominoes in Southeast Asia, countries that were going to collapse one by one. And I think that that underlying concern, perhaps is not written about often enough, but I still ask myself, and because there are people, I know on that wall also. And also starting in 1995, my AP colleague, Horst Faas, who has won the Pulitzer in the photography in Vietnam, and I started doing reunions for the journalists who covered the war. And another one of our colleagues did help started doing it also. And we did the 20th, the 25th 30th 35th 40th 45th.
SM: 56:36
Wow.
EL: 56:36
We did not do the 45th, because it was the middle of COVID. That was 2020. But we are planning to do a 50th years for sure.
SM: 56:52
That is very important. I want you-you have read reference to how difficult it was for you as a woman to finally get to a position where you were a foreign correspondent or a war correspondent, as a female. You know, I find it interesting that it took a while for the women's memorial at the in Washington to also be built. And we know the story of Diane Carlson Evans and the battles she had to go through in Congress just even, I have seen some of her interviews and so forth. And so, it took a while for that to happen. And I know there was always some opinions of eve that why is a woman always on the stage at the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day or Veterans Day. No one ever told me it. But I heard some veterans tell me some behind the scenes stories. I do not know if they are true. But I think there is a perception there. It took a while for women to be recognized too at the Vietnam Memorial. And-
EL: 57:46
Oh, yeah.
SM: 57:47
And if you study the whole history of the civil rights movement, and the talk about the anti-war movement, women were in secondary roles. And part of the reason why the feminist movement became so major and important is because many of them left on their own to create it be a part of a leadership role in these movements. Why is it taken so- I think a lot of people have answered this, but I am still questioning why has it taken so long for women like you, I mean, you have already proven you are a great writer, to get into leadership roles that you should have been 50 and 100 years ago.
EL: 58:21
Well, do not forget that after Vietnam. I did not become a piece first female bureau chief overseas. I was bureau chief for Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. And then that is a very long story. But I was kicked out of Peru for a story that I wrote, which was true. But I then was AP's bureau chief in the Caribbean, and I had, you know, more than a dozen countries. But I realized that that job I spent more than half my time collecting bad debts from Puerto Rican radio subscribers. And I really wanted to write so it was my decision to go back to writing and reporting. I probably could have risen to be, you know, a more senior editor at AP but I still I still loved writing and reporting.
SM: 59:55
I know you went off to Cambodia to and we all know what happened there with a killing fields and Pol Pot. And you saw that you saw the beginning of that. And of course, the killings at Kent State in 1970 are directly related to Richard Nixon going into Cambodia on the 30th of April of 1970. That is what erected the campuses all over the country and so forth. But we had been there for a long time.
EL: 1:00:23
Absolutely.
SM: 1:00:25
I just-just some general questions here. What are the lessons learned from the war? And what are the lessons lost from the war?
EL: 1:00:36
Well, that is a very long and difficult question. Certainly. Certainly, one of the things, learned from, I think, from Vietnam was to make, to hopefully to, you know, make sure that Americans know what, what they are fighting for in these countries. And certainly, I think that that was an issue in Vietnam. Maybe, maybe I am wrong, and I do not remember so well, but I think that that was an issue. And in terms, one of the bad things that came out of it was the blaming the media and the repression of the media in covering future actions where the US military was involved. And that is, that is pretty, that is pretty horrifying. And, and that goes on until today. And I can only say, that was one of the things that war correspondents of my generation, they were not war correspondents in foreign correspondents of my generation, say is that we have lived through the golden age of covering, big stories, including mores and conflict. And the reason we say that is that we had more time, more freedom. Because communications were not instantaneous. No cell phones, no satellite phones. And, and we-we were trusted more by our editors. Yes, if we did things that they did not like, we heard about it, but it was not like having somebody pick up a phone every 10 minutes. And say, where is this? When is this coming? And that puts a lot of pressure on, on journalists, photographers. Is anybody in the media today to speed things up and not be as careful as they should or could be.
SM: 1:04:41
Alright, I think two more questions, and then we will be done.
EL: 1:04:47
I hope they are short because it is 2:56 that I have to go cover this [inaudible]
SM: 1:04:52
That is okay. Yep. But would you consider Vietnam the watershed event of the (19)60s even though we know civil rights was also would you consider Vietnam, the watershed event.
EL: 1:05:04
So, I would certainly consider it one of the (19)60s.
SM: 1:05:09
Yes. (19)60s and early (19)70s?
EL: 1:05:11
Probably, yes. Yes. Because of the global impact, although I understand why you saying the civil rights movement, and but that that kept going for- that is kept going for decades. It still, it is still an unfinished piece of business.
SM: 1:05:41
Have we healed? Has the nation healed from this war? Your thoughts? No-
EL: 1:05:52
I do not. I do not think anybody under 50 pays much attention to Vietnam at all now. I mean, the saddest thing to me is finding Vietnam veterans out begging on street corners-
SM: 1:06:15
Right.
EL: 1:06:17
-in New York. And I, you know, if I see one, and they are really suffering, you know, give them some money. But it is, it is not, it is not right. And I think a lot of them feel forgotten. That, you know, the world has gone on to so many other issues, and so many other concerns and conflicts. And that is what I can say.
SM: 1:06:54
And then, any words of advice, they asked us to everybody want to end the interview? What words of advice would you give to people, young people, older people, 50 years from now that are listening to your interviewer? What words of advice would you give them?
EL: 1:07:12
My advice would be, first and foremost, be honest with yourself. And try to be as honest and balanced in whatever work you choose to do. And to young people, I would say, try and live your dream when you are young. And if you do not succeed, hopefully, it will put you on the path that will lead you to something that will end in a happy life for you.
SM: 1:07:55
Edith Lederer thank you very much for this interview, and, and also for being in the book, which I encourage everyone to read War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam. And of course, the introduction just from Gloria Emerson, the late Gloria Emerson who wrote the great book, Winners and Losers. Edith, thank you very much.
EL: 1:08:18
You are welcome.
(End of Interview)
Date of Interview
2022-10-26
Interviewer
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
Edith Lederer
Biographical Text
Edith Lederer is a war journalist and author. She was the first female resident correspondent in Vietnam and the first woman to head a foreign bureau for the Associated Press. She covered wars, famines, nuclear issues, and political upheavals during her four-decade career with the AP. She co-authored War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Who Covered Vietnam. Lederer has a Bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a Master's degree in communications from Stanford University.
Duration
1:08:23
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Audio
Rights Statement
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Keywords
Vietnam war; Story; Women; Saigon; Associated Press; San Francisco; People; Bureau chief; Helicopters; Writing, Cornell University; Editor; Vietnam memorial; Journalist; Interview; News.
Files
Citation
“Interview with Edith Lederer,” Digital Collections, accessed April 26, 2025, https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2703.
