Morley Safer (1931-2016)
By Steven Townsend
Morley Safer was an American journalist who covered the Vietnam War. He worked alongside Walter Cronkite to report on the war. One of his most famous works was The Burning of Cam Ne, in which he covered a search and destroy mission in a cluster of villages in Vietnam. Safer was on the front lines with US Marines as they were burning down villages, and he reported on all of it. Because the footage shown was so bleak, and the villagers so helpless, the US Military tried to censor the report because it was affecting morale. Eventually, though, US public opinion would shift in favor of Safer. Safer has since gone on to be featured on CBS's 60 Minutes, and has written a book about his experiences in Vietnam.
This was one of the first reports of the search and destroy operation in Cam Ne.
This is a blog entry that includes part of an old 60 minutes segment.
50 years after Morley Safer and Walter Cronkite reported on the burning of Cam Ne, a pair of CBS anchors, Kristine Johnson and Vladimir Duthiers, play the footage for their footage out of respect.
This is a book by Morley Safer about his memories in Vietnam.