US media reported that Peter Arnett, known for his decades-long career as a war correspondent covering conflicts from Vietnam to El Salvador and the Gulf War, died on 17/12 at 91 after battling prostate cancer.
Born in 1934 in Riverton, New Zealand, he later became a US citizen. He began his journalism career as a reporter for the Southland Times before working for an English newspaper in Thailand.
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Peter Arnett during an interview in December 2016. Photo: Stuff |
Peter Arnett during an interview in December 2016. Photo: Stuff
From 1962 to 1975, Arnett worked in Vietnam, traveling across the battlefields of Southern Vietnam for 13 years. In 1966, he received the Pulitzer Prize for over 3,000 articles covering the war throughout the early 1960s.
"Our dispatches from Southern Vietnam were crucial because US involvement was controversial from the start and met with opposition in the United States itself. Our job was to write the truth about the war as we witnessed it. Therefore, our work was often criticized as being too critical of the US government", Arnett once stated.
He was one of the last foreign correspondents to remain in Saigon on 30/4/1975, as the Liberation Army entered the city.
Arnett worked for the Associated Press (AP) until 1981, then moved to CNN. In 1991, he traveled to Baghdad at the outbreak of the First Gulf War and interviewed President Saddam Hussein. His live reports from the front lines, some transmitted by telephone, significantly increased his fame.
When the Iraq War began in 2003, he reported for NBC and National Geographic. He moved to Southern California in 2014, living with his family and children until his death.
Nguyen Tien (According to AFP, AP)
