David Greenway, a journalist’s journalist in the tradition of Michael Herr, David Halberstam, and Dexter Filkins. In this vivid memoir, he tells us what it’s like to report a war up close.
Reporter David Greenway was at the White House the day Kennedy was assassinated. He was in the jungles of Vietnam in that war’s most dangerous days, and left Saigon by helicopter from the American embassy as the city was falling. He was with Sean Flynn when Flynn decided to get an entire New Guinea village high on hash, and with him hours before he disappeared in Cambodia. He escorted John le Carre around South East Asia as he researched The Honourable Schoolboy. He was wounded in Vietnam and awarded a Bronze Star for rescuing a Marine. He was with Sidney Schanberg and Dith Pran in Phnom Penh before the city descended into the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. Greenway covered Sadat in Jerusalem, civil war and bombing in Lebanon, ethnic cleansing and genocide the Balkans, the Gulf Wars (both), and reported from Afghanistan and Iraq as they collapsed into civil war.
This is a great adventure story—the life of a war correspondent on the front lines for five decades, eye-witness to come of the most violent and heroic scenes in recent history.
“Passages such as that one—and there are indeed others—are what elevate ‘Foreign Correspondent’ well above the run of the journalistic mill. It’s easy for journalism to turn one into a cynic, but Greenway seems not to have succumbed.”
“Greenway’s firsthand experiences add gravitas to his common-sense take on foreign policy. The real strengths of the book, however, are the vivid descriptions of life during wartime.”
“Greenway tells his story with freshness and color, and becoming touches of humility.”
“With an astute sense of the broader history behind conflicts, Greenway explores the harrowing process of shaking off colonial European powers and fighting for freedom and independence. … [A] fascinating look at one man’s career and 50 years of war, violence, and adventure.”
