General Giap in mind of well-known war reporter

PANO - Peter Arnett, a famous AP war reporter from New Zealand, working in Saigion from 1962 to 1975, and two other intenational war reporters recently came to pay tribute to General Vo Nguyen Giap at 30 Hoang Dieu Street, Hanoi, in early May 2015.

The People’s Army Newspaper Online would like to tell a story about the recent visit to the General’s house in Hanoi.

After offering incense and laying flowers, paying homage to the General, the three war reporters were received by the General’s son, Vo Hong Nam. Starting the conversation, Nam said “My father never attended any military school. All he did was self-study.”

Reporter Peter Arnett offering incense to General Vo Nguyen Giap

Peter Arnett smiled, for he knew for sure this fact, which is also as widely-known as the Dien Bien Phu Campaign. He revealed that he read a lot about the General. “I still remember that in the 1950s there was already a book about General Giap. As I became a war reporter in 1962 and was sent to Saigon as the Chief of the AP bureau, I came across the book. We all read the book and another one titled Street without joy, Indochina at war by Bernard Fall,” shared Peter Arnett.

Continuing with the story, the reporter raised the idea that the US lost the war in Vietnam because they did not understand a thing about the country. “After the war, I had chance to interview General Maxwell Taylor, former US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Kennedy administration and US Ambassador to Saigon later. He said that the US's problem with the war in Vietnam was that the staff officers knew nothing about Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, and other generals of Vietnam. It was obvious that there had already been a lot of books about Vietnam like that by Bernard Fall. Why could Taylor say that the US knew nothing about Vietnam? Unbelievable,” laughed Arnett.

Peter Arnett then proudly recalled the time when he first met General Giap in 1994 in Hanoi. “I gave your father my book titled Live from the battlefield. Half of the book pictures the war in Vietnam under the account of the war reporter. He warmly welcomed the book and told me the stories of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the strategic logistics route to the South,” Arnett shared with Nam. “I must admit that the meeting meant great to me and I had chance having some photos taken with him.”

Peter Arnett further confirmed that not only reporters but also historians like Stanley Karnow paid huge respect to the General. “You know, he is one of the greatest generals in the 20^th century or in the contemporary history.”

At the end of the conversation, when asked to depict the General in just one word, Peter Arnett immediately answered “Genius.”