Press Release: RosettaBooks and The Associated Press Collaborate on a Line of Books, Re-purposing Archived AP Content
New York, NY April 23, 2015: RosettaBooks kicks off its publishing collaboration with The Associated Press and commemorates the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, with the release of Saigon Has Fallen, an intimate and exclusive remembrance by Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam era correspondent Peter Arnett.
As Saigon fell on April 30, 1975, Arnett was one of the three AP reporters remaining in the bureau.
Arnett, who has recounted this period of his career before, uses his own recollections, as well as his original reporting dispatches, to shed new light on events before, during and after the fall. Never before told accounts of high-level delegations returning to Vietnam over the ensuing years, reveal America's attempts to remove the lingering doubts that continue today.
"Vietnam was America's last uncensored war, and we journalists were pushed between a rock and a hard place, browbeaten by government officials to present their optimistic version of the war while our news industry executives back home demanded we report the unvarnished truth," Arnett said. "We chose the truth, sharing with our audiences the bitter realities of an unwinnable war that, for the Americans and South Vietnamese who fought it, came to an unbearable, heart-rending end forty years ago."
Arnett won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1966 for his Vietnam coverage. He later joined CNN and became well-known to TV audiences during the first Gulf War when he broadcast live from Baghdad during the U.S. bombing raids.
The gripping opening words of Saigon Has Fallen details the chaotic final hours in and around the U.S. Embassy and provides a vivid picture of desperation for both the fleeing Americans and their Vietnamese partners, many of whom were left behind. The memoir also provides an interesting look back at the role of The Associated Press as the guidepost of American journalism in the sixties and seventies, and shows how its role in traditional, fact-based reporting remains strong, even today.
- People:
- Peter Arnett