Reporting from Behind Enemy Lines: How the National Guardian and Liberation Brought Vietnam to the American Left

Abstract

Working alongside the more freewheeling Underground Press Syndicate, the National Guardian and Liberation were two of the more notable outlets on the American Left that quickly developed a forum for antiwar journalism during the Vietnam era. In the initial years of the war, these two older left-wing publications served as vital outlets for antiwar reporting that connected generations of activists, leading to important exchanges between the Old and New Left. Figures such as Wilfred Burchett, Dave Dellinger, and several others published stories that brought their readers behind enemy lines, offering up profound challenges to traditional notions of objectivity during the war. Collectively, their on-the-ground reports played an invaluable role in shaping the later, more expansive print culture of the antiwar movement.

Notes

1 Numerous New Left memoirs and collections of oral histories are available, but the following are some prominent ones: Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam, 1987); Jeff Kisseloff, Generation on Fire: Voices of Protest from the 1960s, an Oral History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007); Paul Krassner and Ray Mungo, Famous Long Ago: My Life and Hard Times with Liberation News Service (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970).

2 Abe Peck, Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985).

3 John McMillian, Smoking Typewriters: The Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

4 Peter Richardson, A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America (New York: New Press, 2009), 3.

5 Lauren Kessler, The Dissident Press: Alternative Journalism in American History (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1984), 148.

6 Jack A. Smith, “The Guardian Goes to War,” in Voices from the Underground: Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press, Part 1, ed. Ken Wachsberger (Tempe, AZ: Mica's Press, 2012), 253–66.

7 Ibid., 266.

8 Daniel C. Hallin, The Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

9 Cedric Belfrage, “Founding of the National Guardian—Internal Memo,” 1948, Cedric Belfrage Papers, box 9, folder: Founding of the National Guardian—Internal Memo, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

10 James Aronson and Cedric Belfrage, Something to Guard: The Stormy Life of the National Guardian, 1948–1967 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 157. Estimate is based on articles that appeared in the Guardian, such as “Report to Readers: The Guardian Reaches Out,” National Guardian, February 26, 1966, 2; Jane McManus, “Guardian Now Owned, Run by Staff,” National Guardian, May 6, 1967, 3.

11 Belfrage was deported from the United States for belonging to the American Communist Party under a false name. After the release of Soviet records in the 1990s, most historians who study Cold War espionage believe that Belfrage was an important double-agent who worked for both the British and the Soviet Union. For a summary, see Gordon Corera, “Cedric Belfrage, the WW2 Spy Britain Was Embarrassed to Pursue,” BBC, August 21, 2015.

12 Estimate is based on articles that appeared in the Guardian such as “Report to Readers: The Guardian Reaches Out,” National Guardian, February 26, 1966, 2; Jane McManus, “Guardian Now Owned, Run by Staff.”

13 Aronson and Belfrage, 320.

14 James Aronson, “Report to Readers: This Is Vol. 17, No. 1,” National Guardian, October 10, 1964, 2.

15 Gitlin, 67.

16 “The Tract,” Liberation, March 1956, 3–6.

17 Murray Kempton, “Ten Years of Liberation,” Liberation, March 1965, 44.

18 Jack A. Smith, “A Magazine for Peace: The Seeds of Liberation,” National Guardian, July 17, 1965, 7.

19 James Aronson, “A Blatant Act of War and the Reasons Why,” National Guardian, August 15, 1964, 1.

20 Appeared in National Guardian, July 31, 1965, 1.

21 Wilfred Burchett, “Vietnam NLF Leaders Expecting a Long Fight,” National Guardian, January 16, 1965, 6.

22 Wilfred Burchett, “On the Spot Report of How the NLF Liberation Forces Operate,” National Guardian, February 6, 1965, 1.

23 Wilfred Burchett, “How 21 US Jet Bombers Were Destroyed at Bien Hoa,” National Guardian, February 6, 1965, 6.

24 Wilfred Burchett, “Why Lt. Vinh Cuu Cast His Lot with the Guerrillas,” National Guardian, March 6, 1965, 6.

25 Wilfred Burchett, “There's Time for Fun Too,” National Guardian, February 6, 1965, 7.

26 Wilfred Burchett, “How North Vietnamese Fight off US Bombers,” National Guardian, April 2, 1966, 9.

27 Wilfred Burchett, “Even in Saigon Itself, There Are NLF Zones,” National Guardian, October 8, 1966, 8.

28 Advertisement appears in Los Angeles Free Press, January 27, 1967, 3.

29 Tom Hayden, “Burchett on North Vietnam,” National Guardian, December 31, 1966, 10.

30 Sidney Lens, “Report from Vietnam,” Liberation, November 1964, 20.

31 Ibid., 22.

32 Liberation, September 1965.

33 David Dellinger, “Account from Vietnam,” Liberation, September 1965, 5.

34 David Dellinger, “North Vietnam: Eyewitness Report,” Liberation, December 1966, 3.

35 Ibid., 14.

36 Harrison Salisbury, “A Visitor to Hanoi Inspects Damage Laid to US Raids,” New York Times, December 25, 1966, 1.

37 Harrison Salisbury, “US Raids Batter Two Towns: Supply Route Is Little Hurt,” New York Times, December 27, 1966, 1.

38 Harrison Salisbury, “Hanoi during an Air Alert,” New York Times, December 28, 1966, 1.

39 “The War, the Presidency, Flak from Hanoi,” Time, January 6, 1967.

40 “Hanoi Dispatches to Times Criticized,” New York Times, January 1, 1967, 3.

41 Mark Atwood Lawrence, “Mission Intolerable: Harrison Salisbury's Trip to Hanoi and the Limits of Dissent against the Vietnam War,” Pacific Historical Review 75, no. 3 (August 2006): 459.

42 Wilfred Burchett, Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist: The Autobiography of Wilfred Burchett (Sydney: University of New South Wales, 2005), 572. David Dellinger, From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 235.

43 Wilfred Burchett, At the Barricades (London: Quartet Books, 1981). This book includes an introduction from Salisbury, who writes that Burchett is a “a well informed, useful source and a warm and decent friend” (vii).

44 James Aronson, “Dr. Strangeloves and Salisbury,” National Guardian, January 7, 1967, 1.

45 Wilfred Burchett, “Burchett Reports Damage on Visit to Haiphong,” New York Times, April 26, 1967, 6; National Guardian, April 29, 1967, 2.

46 Smith, “The Guardian Goes to War,” 258.

47 Cedric Belfrage, April 2, 1967, Letter to Guardian Staff, Cedric Belfrage Papers, box 9, folder: C. B. and Jim Aronson's Resignation from the Guardian Correspondence, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

48 Jane McManus, “Guardian Now Owned, Run by Staff.”

49 National Guardian, February 10, 1968, 1.

50 Belfrage, May 13, 1967, Letter to Jim Aronson, Cedric Belfrage Papers, box 2, folder: Belfrage to Aronson 1959–69, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

51 Wilfred Burchett, April 22, 1967, Letter to Cedric Belfrage, box 3, folder: Wilfred Burchett Correspondence 1965–76, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

52 National Guardian, October 21, 1967, 3.

53 Hallin, The Uncensored War.