“She just wants to know if I’m all right,” he related. “Somehow, mothers and girlfriends don’t believe you when you write that all is well. They’re not prepared to believe you until they see you.” He told us that military censors limited what he was allowed to write, so he kept it simple. “When I write to my family,” he said, “I write that in this day I am still alive.”
The hour was growing late. The front lines were secured after 5 p.m., with no traffic in or out aside from military patrols. We said our shaloms and raced against a red-setting desert sun toward our awaiting plane. Two Israeli Mirage jets swooped over our heads as we drove to the landing strip, returning to the base after the day’s sorties against Egyptian targets. In 90 minutes, we were back in Tel Aviv. The sounds and vibrancy of the modern Israeli city, its lights glittering below us, gave no hint that we were in a country in the midst of war. My muscles were fatigued, tense from the day’s experiences, but I wasn’t so much tired as I was stimulated. It had been my first live taste of warfare.
20
BEWARE THE SILENCE
Interviewing Col. Lon Non, the charismatic brother of then Permier Lon Nol. 1971.
My wife kept insisting I had a death wish as she tried to deter me from venturing off for another brief endeavor as a war correspondent. It was 1971, a year after my visit to Israel, and the war was raging in Vietnam while violent anti-war protests at home were creating havoc in our cities. As a journalist, I wanted to see firsthand what this war was all about, and better understand why it was so unpopular.
Ted Kavanau, the news director of then–WNEW-TV, agreed to broadcast my reports, but he wanted to join me on the trip. Japan Airlines agreed to fly us to Tokyo, in return for coverage of a golf tournament they were sponsoring in Fugu, Japan. Once we arrived in Tokyo we promptly visited the Vietnamese Consulate, only to learn that it would take days, perhaps a week, before we could receive a visa to Vietnam. Kavanau was disappointed; because of our time constraints, we couldn’t wait.
“Let’s try Cambodia,” he exclaimed. The Cambodian diplomats turned out to be eager for us to tell how their military forces were engaged in repelling the insurgency by North Vietnamese forces and local Khmer Rouge Communists, and without hesitation gave us the documents we needed to fly to Phnom Penh.
From what we observed in a few short days, the Cambodian government forces were underequipped and ill-prepared to counter the onslaught they faced. When the government ordered the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to leave the sanctuaries and supply corridors they had established inside Cambodia for launching their attacks on South Vietnam, the rebellious anti-government Khmer Rouge took their side, and together they proved to be a formidable fighting force. When we arrived, the conflict had already claimed the lives of 4,000 Cambodians, 1,000 of them civilians. But the worst was yet to come.
The capitol city of Phnom Penh was a bustling metropolis of one-and-a-half million people, still untouched by the war that was already underway in the rural countryside. The city, with its grand boulevards and striking French architecture intermixed with age-old pagodas, stupas and temples along the banks of the Mekong River, had the distinction of being known as “the Pearl of Asia.”
But being well within mortar range of the insurgents, it was a city holding its breath on the threshold of war. Roads were barricaded with barbed-wire fences. Armed guards stood watch in front of public buildings. Mirrors were used to look under vehicles, to ensure no explosives were planted there. Because of gas rationing, there were very few cars, and the streets were a perennial traffic jam of bicycles and pedicabs. The guard in military fatigues who stood watch in front of the Monoram Hotel, where we stayed, was 12 years old, and the rifle he carried was as long as he was tall. There were lots of kids in the army, he told me, many of them orphans.
My room in the hotel was dark; we kept the shades drawn. An overhead fan circulated the stagnant air from a noisy air conditioner. At night I would be lulled to sleep by the sound of aircraft circling the perimeter of the city. I was told these were “shadows” or “snoopies”—converted transport planes with heat-seeking devices and armaments protruding from the underbelly, that flew in search of enemy troop concentrations. One morning, a sudden burst of gunfire jostled me out of bed. It was two Cambodian soldiers playfully firing their carbines into the air—not an uncommon practice, I would later learn.
At a military briefing, we were informed of the potential hazards we faced as journalists going to where the fighting was. We would have to travel along Highway 3 to get to our destination of Tram Knar, where a military operation dubbed “Burning Eyes of Revolution” had begun just days earlier. The military did not provide helicopters, or any other means of transportation to get journalists to the front lines—we had to get there on our own. The bureau chief from NBC News offered us sage advice: hire an experienced driver we could trust, who had a well-maintained car. He warned us to be particularly cautious as we traveled along Highways 2 and 3, sometimes referred to as Ambush Alley, because that was where enemy troops often lay in wait. He cautioned us to be alert, and especially to “beware the silence,” explaining that if we passed an area that was unusually quiet, with no signs of life—not even the sounds of creatures of the jungle—it could be an indication that enemy troops were lurking nearby. It was sobering to learn that more than 20 reporters had been killed or captured while heading to cover a battle here. Journalists captured by the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese, we were informed, were held prisoner; those taken by the merciless Khmer Rouge were immediately executed.
As risky as it was, Kavanau and I knew we had to make the journey. My stomach was in knots and my mouth dry as I got dressed on the morning of our trip. I recognized that there was a real possibility that I could be killed that day. Before leaving the hotel, I decided to write a letter to my wife of three years, letting her know that I loved her and offering my apologies for not listening to her efforts to deter me from the trip. Trying to avoid being overly dramatic, I nevertheless encouraged her to go on with her life, and to always treasure the memories we had shared together. “While you will grieve over my death,” I wrote, “I want you to understand that I was doing something I loved. Being a reporter was always my dream, and once again, I was in pursuit of a story.” I left the sealed envelope on the nightstand in my room, to be found if I failed to return.
I joined Kavanau for breakfast at the nearby Le Rule Hotel, a popular refuge for foreign journalists. Noting that I had a young wife at home and was attempting to start a family, he tried to discourage me from going. There was no way I was backing down, but my nerves were rattled enough for me to order a Scotch and soda—the first time I ever had a drink in the morning.
Our driver, Ou Seng Hor, showed up in an air-conditioned Mercedes-Benz, his radio blaring with rock-and-roll music from the military radio station in South Vietnam. The drive along the dangerous Highway 3 seemed pleasant enough, as we passed rice fields ready for harvest, small patches of jungle and villages of thatched houses on stilts. There was heavy troop movement along the highway at this point, which was fairly well controlled by the army between 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. These were the safest hours for journalists to cover the war; later in the day, the Viet Cong were likely to seize control.
We stopped to photograph a homeless family sitting on a mat beneath a mango tree. They had been displaced from their home by the Communist invaders. The mother cradled an infant in her arms, her eyes filled with fear, while three other children sat nearby. A military unit pulled up alongside us to offer them some food rations. Such signs of life diminished after we passed a fork in the road. Suddenly there were no trucks, no cars, no bicycles—just oxen and horses. Our driver stopped at a military checkpoint, where he requested an escort to get us around a blown-up bridge. In their efforts to get to the front, reporters often had to make crossings like these on foot, on plank walkways supported by bamboo poles. On the other side waited a band of war profiteers, small boys with bicycles who offered to rid
e the correspondents the remaining two miles to the front for the equivalent of 20 cents.
When we reached the forward position at Tram Knar, we were surprised to find a picnic atmosphere in the war zone. Dozens of soldiers were casually stretched across a field—some sitting and having lunch, others sleeping under armored vehicles—while a few yards away, an artillery unit fired mortar rounds at enemy positions. An all-volunteer force, the Cambodian army’s ranks had swelled in one year from 35,000 to 170,000. The soldiers had to buy their own uniforms, but were otherwise provided for by the army and, by Cambodian standards at the time, paid well—$30 a month.
Still, the troops at this forward base appeared to be underequipped, and often used vintage American, French and Chinese weapons. Given the shortage of military vehicles, they were often transported to the front in old Pepsi-Cola trucks and Chinese-made buses. Recruits included women, and children as young as 10.
One officer quipped, “We have to let the children in the army or they’ll cry.” Many of the kids were members of so-called “Orphan Platoons,” whose families had been killed in the war. The commander of the unit was called “Papa” by his troops, and he called his young soldiers “my sons.”
One boy told me, “We don’t mind living like this. We have no families and no place to go. The general is the only one who cares for us.”
The 15th Brigade ran the show at Tram Knar. A foppish group of artists and actors, they were part of the only brigade in the Cambodian army that had its own dance band. Kavanau and I were ushered into a jeep for a short ride down the road to meet the colorful commander of the military operation. 40-year-old Colonel Lon Non, the younger brother of Cambodian Premier Lon Nol, was a stocky, charismatic man who held a swagger stick at his side and a sub-machine gun in his hand. He greeted me with a smile and, through an interpreter, apologized for not speaking English. I, in kind, apologized for not speaking French. Over the crackle of small-arms fire in the distance, I listened as the military leader painted a positive picture of his country’s war effort. His goal at the moment, he told me, was to pacify the villagers and clear the road of the insurgents. The morale of his men, he said, was high, and their goal in sight.
I keenly felt my vulnerability as I sat in the back of an open truck with a dozen other reporters, driving across Highway 3 back to where our car and driver were waiting. He raced us back to Phnom Penh, where we had a scheduled meeting with members of our diplomatic corps at the U.S. Embassy. We were told that, under the Nixon doctrine, there were no American troops involved in the Cambodian conflict at that time. However, since the U.S. was supportive of the current government in Cambodia, we were still supplying military equipment and providing air support with bombing missions when needed. I left with the distinct impression that the Cambodians were hoping that America would fight their war for them.
* * *
At the time, Cambodia remained one of the few places in the world where people could still legally escape to opium dens. After one of the daily press briefings, I received a unique invitation from colleagues at the United Press International and Reuters bureaus in Phnom Penh to join them as their guests at the local opium emporium. Despite my trepidation about the side effects the opium might have on my body, I felt that this was something I had to experience. My hosts assured me that I would be fine.
The next evening, we entered the establishment on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. The den itself was a bungalow with several rooms. Measuring eight feet by eight feet, our room was tight, with walls of bamboo and straw. An attractive hostess fitted me with a sarong and made me comfortable on a bamboo mat.
A fan swirled above me, but did little to relieve the oppressive heat. Pesky mosquitoes swarmed around me. For 50 riel (the equivalent of about 20 cents) I was offered a relaxing massage that helped to relieve some of my anxieties. As my hosts and I chatted and shared a few jokes, I heard familiar voices in the adjoining room. I was certain I recognized them as some of the diplomats I had met the previous day at the U.S. Embassy.
Our hostess brought in an oil lamp and a pipe about 20 inches long, with a bowl in the center. Over a flame, she boiled a black paste—pure opium—and placed a small amount of it into the bowl. The scent was sweet and mild, like perfume. The pipe was then presented to me, the drug already vaporized in the heat and ready to be inhaled. As my friends watched, I took one long drag on the pipe and instantly choked, the vapors burning my throat. My fellow reporters had a momentary laugh at my inexperience as they each took their turn at the pipe, drawing in the vapors with slow inhalations. If only I had known that was the way to do it!
Lying back on the mat, I took another shot at the pipe. I began to feel a little lightheaded—but nothing more. Night had begun to fall, and I thought I was hallucinating when I heard what sounded like explosions off in the distance. I wasn’t—American B-52s, I was told, were staging a bombing raid on Khmer Rouge targets, about ten miles from where we were… A bit too close, I thought. With the tropical heat, the flies and the mosquitoes, my discomfort level soon rose to excruciating. I asked to return to my air-conditioned hotel room, but was informed that the curfew was now in effect, and the only way I could make the risky return was by riding in a taxi with the interior lights turned on. My hosts had fallen asleep, and stayed the night in the opium den, and I held my breath in the taxi I chose, its interior lights burning brightly, raced across the empty streets to my hotel.
* * *
The Communist Khmer Rouge eventually overpowered Cambodia’s government-backed forces and achieved victory in 1975. This initiated a period of genocide, during which the victors forced people out of Phnom Penh into the rural countryside and carried out political executions, along with torture and forced labor. During their bloody four-year reign, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for the slaughter of approximately two million people, in what came to be known as the Killing Fields of Cambodia.
One man who lived through the horror and survived to tell the story of his unremitting nightmare was Dith Pran, whose struggle to outlast the brutality in his homeland inspired the 1984 Academy Award–winning film The Killing Fields. Pran, who had been an assistant to Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Sidney Shanberg, played a key role in bringing the war crimes of Pol Pot and his regime to the world’s attention.
Pran became an American citizen in 1986, and brought his family to New Jersey. He was working at The New York Times as a photographer when we met and became friends. In 1996 I was proud to nominate him for an Ellis Island Medal of Honor—and pleased to be there to celebrate with him and his family when he received it.
21
CHILDREN OF TERROR
Midnight meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Beirut.
With a huge Ferris wheel dominating the pristine white beach stretching along the blue Mediterranean shoreline, and gleaming white hotels casting shadows across the sand, the setting looked more like Miami Beach than Beirut. The view from the air, as we made our final approach into Lebanon’s battle-scarred airport, belied the realty below. A once-beautiful city, formerly considered the Paris of the Middle East, now lay in ruins, racked by an ongoing civil war. Many of the luxury hotels were vacant, reduced in places to rubble and pockmarked facades from the relentless shelling.
Armed soldiers glanced at me suspiciously as I made my way out of the airport, passing a gaggle of hustlers outside who offered me everything from cheap currency to sex with their “sisters.” I was there to do a story about the “children of terror”—the offspring of the Palestinian refugees living under the banner of the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, who called themselves “freedom fighters” but who, elsewhere in the world, were considered terrorists committed to the elimination of Israel. The PLO and its leader, Yasser Arafat, had gained global recognition through deadly acts of terrorism, including the hijacking of airliners to the Middle Eastern desert.
The heat was oppressive and the anxiety high as we drove into the cauldron of conflict in Beirut. Al
ong the way we observed an incongruous cast of images. On one side of the road there were encampments of Syrian soldiers, armed with Russian-made AK-47 rifles, manning checkpoints, while on the other there were happy children on the beach, building sand castles and dashing in and out of the surf. Sandbags and fortifications lined the landscape, sandwiched between souvenir shops selling seashells and brightly painted spent bomb casings.
The intensity of years of fighting was clearly etched in the rubble of buildings in downtown Beirut. Armored tanks were positioned in front of the year-old Holiday Inn that was already in shambles, its walls riddled with bullet holes and concrete balconies in a state of near-collapse. The building stood at the epicenter of the so-called “Battle of Hotels,” during which opposing factions had staged violent firefights from neighboring hotels. Christian militia fighters had occupied the abandoned Holiday Inn, while their Muslim counterparts had taken up positions in another hotel across the way.
The psychological scars of war were felt deeper in the generations of children who had grown up with conflict as a way of life. In 1981, during a weeklong visit to refugee camps, schools and orphanages in half a dozen towns and villages throughout Lebanon, I observed them playing with dolls, skateboards, bicycles—and guns. They laughed at popular American television shows. They cried in the middle of the night. They were children who appeared to be like children anywhere, except they were different. Theirs was a generation of hatred, born and nurtured in the hardships of the refugee camps. From the start, I was told, they were taught to fight for a land they had never seen. Before they reached adolescence, many of them were willing and able to kill for it. What they didn’t learn from their instructors, they learned from their parents and grandparents, who subscribed to the doctrine of Syria’s Minister of Education, written in 1968: “The hatred which we indoctrinate into the minds of our children from their birth is sacred.”
As I Saw It Page 13
