Martha Gellhorn - war correspondent

In 1971, sitting in the bar at the Continental Palace in Saigon I met the famous war correspondent, Martha Gellhorn, the woman who changed the face of war reporting by giving accounts of the suffering of real people . A pioneer in journalism, telling the story of war in a unique and personal way, she reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her 60-year career.Gellhorn covered the Spanish Civil War the Finnish-Soviet winter war, World War II, the Vietnam War and the 1977 Arab Israel conflict.

When I met Gellhorn she must have been 62 going 63 and was a compelling person with a magnetic personality and had just come back from having been with US forces somewhere in the central highlands.; I was 23 on my first Red Cross mission sitting at a table with a few other journalist and she joined us. I was unsure of who she was at that moment but I could immediately see the respect accorded to her by journalists that knew her incredible history. I can recall her commenting on the futility of war and the deeper meaning of life...”That spiritual world up or out there,” she described so wistfully with delicate hand movements, and then she dismissed the comment.

Many years later I found out exactly what she thought about the US engagement in the Vietnam war.
"The American army in Vietnam was an army of occupation, victims and victimizers both," she later wrote. "Victims because they were wrongly sent 10,000 miles from home, to take part - even as mildly as storekeeper, clerk, cook - in a political aggression. Victimizers because they looked on Vietnamese as a lesser breed..."

She was a striking lady at her age and someone you wanted to be alne to find out more about her remarkable life. Magnetic yes, and still so beautiful and elegant.  I was so lucky to have met her when I was a young Red Cross delegate. Wikipedia has a section on her marriages and love affairs which may be of interest to some. However, I find her courage and writing ability as two things I will remember forever about this pioneering war correspondent.

Caroline Moorehead, author of Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life, says Gellhorn remained undaunted for most of her 90 years. "I think she was fearless but she knew what it was like to be frightened," a toughness she got from her upbringing, Moorehead says.

Gellhorn covered wars in a different way than other journalists. "She didn't write about battles and she didn't know about military tactics," Moorehead says. "What she was really interested in was describing what war does to civilians, does to ordinary people."

In 1939 Gellhorn witnessed the first weeks of the Winter War between Finland the Soviet Union. She was in Helsinki when the Soviet air forces bombed the city, as a declaration of war. "An Italian journalist had remarked in Helsinki that anyone who could survive the Finnish climate could survive anything and we decided with admiration that the Finns were a tough and unrelenting race, seeing them take this war as if there were nothing very remarkable in three million people fighting against a nation of 180 million." (Gellhorn in The Face of War, 1959) Gellhorn also met President Svinhufvud, whose name she wrote "Szinhuszue". Svinhufvud offered his guests small apples from his orchard. At the Karelian front Gellhorn interviewed Finnish fighter pilots, astonished by their age: "they ought to be going to college dances," she remarked. Gellhorn's reports emphasized that Finland was not the aggressor and deeply influenced the public opinion in the United States about the war.

Gellhorn married Hemingway on November 20, 1940, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. (photo left) Hemingway's friend, Robert Capa, photographed the ceremony for Life. The author dedicated his famous novel about the Spanish Civil war, For Whom the Bells Toll (1940), to Gellhorn. Maria in the book was partly modelled after her. "Her hair was the golden brow of a grain field," Hemingway wrote of his heroine. In the film version of the book, Ingrid Bergman played Maria, but hair was darker than Gellhorn's. However, Gellhorn had suggested her for the role.

The first years of their marriage were happy, although Gellhorn was never really attracted to Hemingway, or believed in romantic love. Hemingway taught her to ride, and shoot, and fish. In the afternoon they played tennis.

Gellhorn was sent to China by Collier's to report on the China-Japan war. They met General Chiang Kai-shek ("he had no teeth"), and continued to Burma, where they spent some time. Hemingway returned to Hong Kong and Gellhorn left for Singapore and Java. "She gets to the place,"

Gellhorn was sent to China by Collier's to report on the China-Japan war. They met General Chiang Kai-shek ("he had no teeth"), and continued to Burma, where they spent some time. Hemingway returned to Hong Kong and Gellhorn left for Singapore and Java. "She gets to the place,"

Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway with unidentified Chinese military officers, Chungking, China, 1941
Since she walked out on Ernest Hemingway in 1943, after five years of marriage, Gellhorn had refused to talk much about him. She was a writer in her own right, a woman who had covered the heaviest of wars, and she wished to be remembered for that. Yet all people recalled was the marriage. That obviously was disappointing to such a talented writer.

After the war she served as a correspondent in Java. Her only play, Love Goes to Press (1947), written in collaboration with Virginia Cowles, did not gain much success. Liana (1944) was a story of a mulatto woman. "True, there is a suspiciously Hemingway-like handling of the dialogue," wrote John Lucas in Contemporary Novelists (1972), "but for the rest there is a sharpness, a truth of observation in the studies of Liana herself and of Marc that would make the novel worth reading if there were nothing else to commend it." The Wine of Astonishment (1948) fallowed a U.S. in Europe in World War II. "Anything at all would do," thinks one of the characters, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers, "except this hour to hour hanging on, with time like a rock in your brain." A young soldier, Jacob Levy, confronts man's inhumanity toward man in Germany. The book was partly based on Gellhorn's experiences - she had been at Dachau a week after American soldiers had discovered the concentration camp.

The Continental Palace in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) where I met Martha Gellhorn in 1971.

In 1958 Gellhorn received an O. Henry Award. The sale of a short story to television enabled her to pay in 1962 her own way to Africa. Gellhorn's love affair of the continent lasted off and on for thirteen years. Much of her time she spent in Kenya, where she had a residence in the Rift Valley. Eventually she fond hopeless to try to write about the "natural world where everything was older than time and I was the briefest object in the landscape." One morning she was attacked on a beach - according to her friend, she was raped. Later she wrote a short story dealing with the traumatic experience.

Between 1934 and 1967, Gellhorn published six novels. She covered wars in Vietnam in the 1960s, and the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967 for the Guardian of London. "The American army in Vietnam was an army of occupation, victims and victimizers both," she later wrote. "Victims because they were wrongly sent 10,000 miles from home, to take part - even as mildly as storekeeper, clerk, cook - in a political aggression. Victimizers because they looked on Vietnamese as a lesser breed..." In 1962 Gellhorn made a tour of German universities.

She could describe vividly decades later, how people were dressed and what they discussed on particular occasions. She had a sharp eye for significant details, and her writing was clear, clever, and precise - all qualities of a good reporter.  Her article Is there a new Germany ? written in February 1964 shows her accute powers of observation, analysis and committment to truth. She could describe vividly decades later, how people looked like on any ocassion when questioned..

There is an excellent doco on youtube with a Spanish commentary. You'll love it as you see the places she visited and so many photos of her exciting life.

How I enjoy her writings, love her as a person and am so grateful to have met her. R.I. P Martha..

A hit off the action, a walk on the dark side.

Frequently I get asked about war and the people I meet in the course of my work in conflict or post conflict.  My heart, my prayers and empathy goes out to those who are caught up in wars, such as the civilian population, and those who have no choice such as conscripted soldiers, child soldiers; but the others ?

"Men and women who venture to someone else’s war through choice do so in a variety of guises. UN general, BBC correspondent, aid worker, mercenary: in the final analysis they all want to do the same thing, a hit off the action, a walk on the dark side. It’s just a question of how slick a cover you give yourself, and how far you want to go.. If you find a cause later then hold on to it, but never blind yourself with your own disguise,” writes Anthony Lloyd.

Author on the war in Afghanistan, Jason Elliot, goes to Afghanistan as an 18 year old English school boy during the Soviet occupation.
Photo: Jason Elliot.







In the winter of 1996 when the Taliban were bombing the little life left in  Kabul, (Jan-Feb) Anthony Lloyd stayed with me in my house. He and an English cameraman lived in the bunker in our house. We travelled  to Khord Kabul where the British were routed in their retreat from Kabul in 1859. This was the front line and we were with Masoud’s troops and could see plainly, Talban soldiers moving about with RPGs. Over 300 British troops had been slaughtered in this valley in 1859.

A few years ago, Lloyd published a book called “ My War Gone By, I Miss It So,  about the wars in former Yugoslavia. It's a remarkable book where a young misfit goes to war as a correspondent. He writes:

‘ Listen, said Peter, the Dutchman, ‘we don’t fight for the money, and we’re not in it for the killing. It’s about camaraderie and, sure it’s about excitement. Some are bullshitters, some are psychotics. We are neither. We are here because we want to be, and if there is a price to pay, then we are ready for that too.’

US Armed PCs during the Vietnam war. Photo: Bob McKerrow

"There was very little difference between them and anyone else who goes to war voluntarily. In their case they had taken a side and were ultimately prepared to kill. Though my reasoning for being there was still in flux, at its simplist I was there to watch, and that gave neither of us the higher moral ground. Men and women who venture to someone else’s war through choice do so in a variety of guises. UN general, BBC correspondent, aid worker, mercenary: in the final analysis they all want to do the same thing, a hit off the action, a walk on the dark side. It’s just a question of how slick a cover you give yourself, and far you want to go.. If you find a cause later then hold on to it, but never blind yourself with your own disguise.”

STOREHOUSES OF SORROW

Sometimes I wonder why I have spent so much time in conflict or post conflict regions and the answer comes to mind when I read Nicolas Bouvier, a Swiss writer and artist, He said, “ My belief is that one must have passed through fire oneself....to be able to sort out...the contents of those storehouses of sorrow, where fortunately we can also find, more often than we might have dared to expect...enough small miracles to motivate and encourage those in the field who are so often compelled, to quote a mediaeval Japanese poem, ‘to bear the unbearable and tolerate the intolerable.’

Al Lavelle, John Vann and Lamar McFadden "Mac" Prosser, - South Vietnam icons/iconoclasts

Al Lavelle leaning on one of the two aircraft he owned and piloted regularly. Al mastered aerial acrobatics and stunts in his specially designed planes, but some of the best stunts he pulled, was working for USAID in South Vietnam.Al taught me a stunt or two, but above all he taught me to put people first, and deal with the bean counters in HQs later.

I was 22 years old, going 23, when I first met Al Lavelle, in Qui Nhon, South Vietnam in 1971.

Two months earlier I had returned to New Zealand after spending 13 months in Antarctica with three other men, and I was looking for work overseas with a humanitarian organisation. Luckily I was interviewed and accepted to join the 4th New Zealand Red Cross Refugee Welfare Team, working with displaced people in South Vietnam.

Al Lavelle and our New Zealand Red Cross team worked with Montagnard (hill tribes) internally displaced people photographed below.

The photo of our team is above L to R. Simon Evans, Bob Mckerrow, Andrianne Lattimore, John Gordon and Peter Barnes.

I had only been in Qui Nhon a few days when I met Al, a sturdy barrel-chested second generation Irish-American. He wore an Hawaiin shirt, partially buttoned up with a mass of greying hair growing over the top button, and a black hat with a coloured hat-band woven by Montagnard women. Al would have been 51 then and in fine physical shape. Over the next year Al became a sort of guru to me, and introduced me to reality of working in war zones, and what humanitarian aid was, and how the line between aid, politics and war was blurred.


Al was an advisor to USAID on refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs). More than anyone else in my life, it was Al who made me realise that the Red Cross with its seven principles which includes neutrality, impartiality and independence, needed to keep a certain distance from gun-slinging USAID workers, and the many US soldiers that surrounded us. He was a generous man with a heart of gold, and found his true calling working with IDPs and refugees.

Saigon i (below)n the 1971, the Paris of the East. Photo: Bob McKerrow


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Many children in South Vietnam lost legs and arms by stepping on landmines. Frequently we would find injured children in villages and bring them back to Qui Nhon to have limbs fitted. Here is a young boy I brought back and after two months, was playing football. Photo: Bob McKerrow

I slowly got to know Al Lavelle during 1971, sitting in his trailer hut, sometimes drinking Budweiser or Jack Daniels, or just sitting on the beach and hearing his stories. We did a number of field trips together, to Van Canh and Bong Song where I was supervising the construction of two schools.

The first trip I did with Al was to An Khe, in the central highlands. We were about 5 km from An Khe pass when the US forces launched an all out aerial attack on Vietcong position near the pass. As an array of helicopters swooped in for the attack, Al would excitedly tell me, "That's a Cobra," or " That's a Huey or Chinook." Al would stop his olive green Jeep by the road side and explain to me the intracacies of laying landmines and show me claymores and other booby trap mines..

Another trip I did with Al was from Qui Nhon to Pleiku, where I met the man he admired most, John Vann (photo right), a fellow pilot and an inconoclast like Al.
Vann was an impressive man, a man in a hurry with a mission to right the wrongs of the US Government in South Vietnam.
Lavelle served on staff of the famous John Paul Vann in Southeast Asia working in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. That is when I met Al. He was staunchly loyal to his country but was disenchanted by the direction his Government was taking in Vietnam, and that is why he had a huge amount of respect for, and hope, for John to fix it. I recall the day John Vann became Al's boss when he was appointed commander of II Corp in about April 1971. He excitedly told me " John Vann has just been appointed to get this war back on track, he'll show them."



Montagnard refugees in Pleiku where I first met John Vann in 1971 and where I worked in 1973-74 for one year. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Vann's wit and iconoclasm did not endear him to many military and civilian careerists, but to Al Lavelle and many young civilian and military officers he became a hero as he understood the limits of conventional warfare in the irregular environment of Vietnam, and dare to chellenge his superiors.Vann was assigned to South Vietnam in 1962 as an advisor to Col. Huynh Van Cao, commander of the ARVN 7th Division. In the thick of the anti-guerrilla war against the Viet Cong Vann became aware of the ineptitude with which the war was being prosecuted, in particular the disastrous Battle of Ap Bac, January 2, 1963. Vann, directing the battle from a spotter plane overhead, earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for his bravery in taking enemy fire. He attempted to draw public attention to the problems, through press contacts such as New York Times reporter David Halberstam, focusing much of his ire on the US commander in the country, MACV chief Gen. Paul D. Harkins.

1971 saw a scaling down of US troops, but the roads of South Vietnam were dotted with US military equipment. Photo: Bob McKerrow





Vann was forced from his advisor position in March 1963 and left the Army within a few months. He returned to Vietnam in March 1965 as an official of the Agency for International Development (AID). When I arrived in Vietnam in 1971 Vann was assigned as the senior American advisor in II Corps Military Region when the war was winding down and troops were being withdrawn. For that reason, his new job put him in charge of all United States personnel in his region, where he advised the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) Commander to the region and became the first American civilian to command U.S. regular troops in combat. His position was the job of a Major General.



The meeting of man and moment: John Paul Vann (white shirt) and his staff at their Pleiku headquarters

Al Lavelle was thrilled to be working for John Vann again and served him loyally he advising him on internally displaced people and refugees that were noving back and forth between Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. Al Lavelle knew so much about IDPs, refugees and used to regail me with stories of his work with refugees and quote UN refugee conventions. His hero John Vann was killed after the Battle of Kontum , when his helicopter crashed in 1972. Al Lavelle lost one of his most respected friends and colleague.

Journalist Neil Sheehan wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam history and biography of Vann, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.in his book, Sheehan describes Vann as an ardent critic of how the war was fought, both on the part of the Saigon regime, which he viewed as corrupt and incompetent, and, as time went by, increasingly, on the part of the U.S. military. In particular, he was critical of the U.S. military command, especially under William Westmoreland, and their inability to adapt to the fact that they were facing a popular guerrilla movement while backing a corrupt regime. He argued that many of the tactics employed (for example the strategic hamlet relocation) further alienated the population and thus were counterproductive to U.S. objectives. In the late 90's a movie was made about John Vann's time in Vietnam. Al Lavelle used to quote Vann and one of his favourites was

"If it were not for the fact that Vietnam is but a pawn in the larger East-West confrontation, and that our presence here is essential to deny the resources of this area to Communist China, then it would be damned hard to justify our support of the existing government." Like Vann, Al Lavelle was unhappy with the way his Government closed a blind eye to the high levels of corruption and gross inefficiencies of the Government of South Vietnam.

This is a typical village that Al Lavelle and I worked in on the road between Pleiku and An Khe. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Returning from Vietnam, Lavelle became an educator teaching languages and world history for 23 years at Roosevelt High School and at the Junior College level.

He was one of only three U.S. teachers selected to teach in the then Soviet Union during the first year of Détente. The exchange was meant to ease tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States.


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Last night when looking at my Vietnam photos to post with this story, I began to realise most of the montagnard women were topless At the time, I never noticed it. I do now !

He taught at the University of Foreign Languages in Kiev Ukraine in 1975. Lavelle was often called upon to lecture at various colleges and universities because his knowledge of the Soviet Union was quite extensive and at that time few Americans had really been inside the so-called Iron Curtain.

Al Lavelle, my good friend Mac Lama Prossers, myself any many others who worked with the Montagnard people in South Vietnam, were grief stricken to learn that after taking over South Vietnam in 1975,  the communist government had many religious and political Montagnard leaders executed or imprisoned in harsh re-education camps while simultaneously instituting a policy of cultural destruction and forced assimilation on our population. Examples include the Montagnard Senator Ksor Rot who was publicly executed in 1975 and Minister Nay Luett (who was subjected to torture) and died in a re-education (forced labor/concentration) camp in the 1980s.

The origins of the Montagnard persecution stems from several historical factors namely, the alliance many Montagnards had with the United States military during the Vietnam War and the intent by the current communist regime to exploit the ancestral homelands of the Montagnards in the manner that indigenous peoples around the globe have all suffered by modern encroachment. History will show that it was people like Vann who were part of the US military effort that supported the Montagnards. also influenced the North Vietnamese distrust and dislike for the Montagnards.

Al Lavelle and I were close to Nay Luett the then Minister of Ethnic Minorities and I was very proud that on my departure from Vietnam in 1974, Nay Luett presented me the Ethnic minorities medal first class for the work the New Zealand Red Cross team had done in the for the Montagnard people of Central Highlands of Vietnam for many years. Somewhere I have the medal with the head of an elephant on the ribbon.

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During his long and active life, Lavelle pursued his hobbies excelling in competitive acrobatic flying, wood working, painting, music, writing his memoires, and contributing his interviews on Vietnam to Texas Tech University – The Vietnam Archives, Special Collections Library, Rm. 108, Lubbock, TX.

Somewhere round 1999 Al had heart surgery, sold his planes, and ended his flying.
It was Al's last wish that there be no flowers, cards, funeral service or memorial service.

He requested that donations be made to a charity of one's choice. His last Hurrah was: God Bless America, Erin Go Braugh (Free Ireland), Help Russia and the Ukraine become Democratic, followed by God Help Us All.


Allen Silberman  a freind of Al's wrote this tribute: Your comments about Al Lavelle accurately portrayed the man and his ability to see through the facade of politics and war. He was a true humanitarian, a dedicated teacher, a true aviation enthusiast, and most of all the best friend I ever had. During our 40 year friendship we flew many hours together, watched night air strikes, walked into Viet Cong villages together, and spent many hours before the war sitting on his front lawn talking politics and sharing flying stories. Thanks for writing the blog. Al had been a special part of our family since the mid 1960's.


He is survived by his wife of 12 years, Margarita T. Belous-Lavelle; daughters: Jean Antoinette Villarreal and husband, Rogelio of San Antonio, TX; Sheila Marie Lavelle and husband, Steven Tysver of Gloucester, MA; Dawn Lee Miyasaki and husband, Mitsuyuki of New York, NY; grandchildren: Laura A. Cross of Knoxville, TN; Ruth Villarreal of Austin, TX and Roger Villarreal of San Antonio, TX.

Allan J. Lavelle
Born in Denver, Colorado on 15 July. 1920
Died Jun. 15, 2008 and resided in San Antonio, Texas.


I met Il Lavelle and John Vann during my first mission to Vietnam in 1971. I was ar an age when I needed mentors and could I have asked for better ?  I came back again in 1973 and stayed fior another year, leaving in September 1974.  By 1973, the American troops had departed. However the CIA and USAID still had large num,bers of staff.

Lamar McFadden "Mac" Prosser

Then I met Lamar McFadden "Mac" Prosser,  another one of these intriguing characters who was on the South Vietnam and Indo China landscape for many years. Born in 1922, Mac as we knew him, was a polished, suave diplomat, whio I first met in Pleiku in 1973.  Mac impressed me with his work for the International Red Cross in the Congo, and a spell pushing papers in Geneva at Red Cross HQ.  He began his military service in 1940 when the South Carolina National Guard was activated. He served in the 760th Tank Battalion in North Africa, Italy and Germany during World War II.

The New Zealand Red Cross IDP team worked in Pleiku for more than two years, and Mac was always there to support, give advice and encourage. He had loved his time working for Red Cross for a few years during a long military and humanitarian career, and was impressed with the community development work we were doing.

I spent many a long evening with Mac, enjoying his never-endingd hospitality and unlimited duty free grog, discussibng thr world's problems. His knowledge on community development was extensive and we learned from him..

Mac served in Italy and we talked about the various battles including Monte Cassino where my Dad fought. Mac was wounded in Italy but returned to duty four months later. After the war, he served in Indochina and then retired from military service in 1961. He immediately joined AID and had assignments in Chad, Geneva, Bangkok and Saigon, and after his stint in Pleiku 1973-74. moved to Saigon as an advisor to the US Ambassador. Mac was happy in Saigon, because his wife was working for the US Embassy. He retired from AID in 1982.

Mac died at the age of 77 of pulmonary disease on July 21, 1998 at Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, D.C. His wife Katherine, died in 1996.

To John Vann, Al Lavelle and Max Prosser. I thank you. From you guys I learned about war, humanity, peace, and above all, putting people first.