Witness

This short book by James Cameron (the British journalist, not the Titanic guy) describes his time in North Vietnam in 1965.

From the many foreign correspondent's with applications for visa's to visit North Vietnam in wartime, Cameron was, out of the blue, granted permission to visit the north while it was under control of the Viet Minh. The speculation is that he was granted the visa because he was outspokenly anti-war, and was likely to present a sympathetic output from his visit. He reproduces some content from Time magazine where they describe him (amongst other things) as 'A tireless didactic liberal of the ban-the-bomb breed...' and 'less a reporter than a conduit for North Vietnamese propaganda' and of course 'anti-US and pro-Hanoi". Other newspapers used a 'the opinions outlined here are not necessarily those of the newspaper' type disclaimer.

He was one of few journalists to interview both the Prime Minister, Pham Van Dong, and the President Ho Chi Minh (who had initially turned down the interview request, only to stroll in during his interview with Pham Van Dong and casually steer the conversation away from politics, turned off the recording device and confirmed no photographs.

I should make a couple of things clear - this book is way outside my usual reading genre. I am not sure why or where (or how) I ended up with a copy, whether it was a bundle of books, or whether it is my partiality to Victor Gollancz publications with the yellow covers and red text (I have several, and they tend to be very good). Also I am far from knowledgeable in this field, so I won't be expanding my basic review much.

Worth noting, this book is not a copy of Cameron's journalistic efforts, this book simply describes how his visit came about, what he did on his visit, who he met and what he discussed. He formulated all his journalistic work quite separately.

Worth a read to get a different perspective from a quite unique source - or witness, as the title of the book would have us understand.

3.5 stars