Book Report.

           The advent of summer and the reality of receiving vaccine for COVID, has meant that I read less than before. You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War, Elizabeth Becker is well worth reading for more reasons than one. The context is the War in Vietnam and Cambodia.

"The Vietnam press corps was a male bastion that women entered only at the risk of being humiliated and patronized; the prevailing view was that the war was being fought by men against men and women had no place there." PETER ARNETT,  This quote from the book's forward is painfully illustrated by the treatment the three women suffered as they covered the war. Catherine Leroy was a photographer, and if you remember anything of the war likely you'd recognize some of her photos. France FitzGerald and Kate Webb were journalists whose reporting and writing changed the world's perception of the war. 

    The book also serves as a history of the conflict. It was appalling to confront again the realities. Nixon's and Kissinger's treasonous undermining of the peace initiative was begun toward the end of the Johnson Administration under the pretense that North Vietnam would get better terms if they didn't settle with Johnson. The result was that Humphrey lost the election, Nixon won, and then prolonged the war for another seven years with no better settlement in the end. 

     The author, Elizabeth Becker, was herself, a journalist toward the end of the conflict. She's perhaps the only western journalist to have a two hour interview with Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge. This occured before the Khmer Rouge defeated the Cambodian Army and launched the Killing Fields after forcing everyone out of Phnom Penh. 

     Yes, I recommend it.

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