Foreign Correspondent

April 21, 2014
In this memoir, Boston Globe columnist Greenway narrates a professional life spent working in the most dangerous regions of the world. From the mid-1960s on, Greenway covered post-colonial states struggling with the consequences of the Cold War: Cambodia, Thailand, Lebanon, Laos, among many others. The Vietnam War in particular colored how he viewed future conflicts and American overreach as he watched history repeat itself in Afghanistan and Iraq. A Boston Brahmin who attended Yale as a legacy, Greenway roots lay in a genteel WASP America that was already vanishing by the time he was shot during the Tet Offensive (his attempt to save a wounded Marine there earned him a Bronze Star). Greenway’s professional and social connections provide him with a wide range of anecdotes that feature such figures as John le Carré and Sean Flynn (Errol’s son), a journalist who mysteriously disappeared in the Cambodian jungle. 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. Agent: Ike Williams, Williams & Bloom.

June 15, 2014
The life of a foreign correspondent who has reported from nearly 100 different countries.A golden age of overseas journalism coincided with a time of "wishful thinking" by the U.S. military, from Indochina to Afghanistan. Born in 1935 and raised in the Boston suburbs to a Harvard ornithologist father who "worked in the vanished age of the gentleman amateurs who went around the world collecting animals and birds for museums," Greenway did indeed enjoy a privileged childhood and lucky start to a career in journalism as a stringer for Time at Oxford. Becoming a war correspondent by chance, he arrived in Vietnam in 1967 at the first of many eye-opening posts through the decades, trips that revealed to him the horrendous toll of an increasingly horrifying conflict. Sagging morale among the American troops, suspicion by the South Vietnamese and truculence by the Vietcong intensified the overall paralysis. Greenway, who met many of the old journalist Asia hands-e.g., Michael Herr, Joseph Alsop, Frances FitzGerald-takes pains to delineate the array of opinions his colleagues held about the war. Joining the Washington Post in its Watergate heyday, Greenway continued to cover the war through the fall of Saigon. He also reported on the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge, the bombing of Laos (where, thanks to reporters like Tim Allman and Fred Branfman, the West became aware of the brutal effects of American bombs on civilians)-and other momentous events in Southeast Asia, while his wife and daughters lived mostly in Hong Kong. Greenway provides fascinating detail on the day-to-day travails of the foreign correspondent, and he fleshes out the back story of many of these shadowy conflicts-e.g., the long and charismatic reign of "mercurial" leader Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. The author was also the first Post bureau chief in Israel, and he later moved to the Boston Globe, where he provided formidable coverage of the fall of the Soviet Union.Frank, seasoned, expert observations on the folly of U.S. military intervention.

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June 15, 2014

Greenway tells here selected stories from his life and career as a globe-trotting journalist, from his early days in Hong Kong and Vietnam to his later experiences covering conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shuffling readers, in true memoir format, from both country to country and era to era, the author paints an impressive if strangely superficial picture of his decades-long career as a foreign correspondent for publications such as Time and the Washington Post. His fascinating personal reminiscences and professional anecdotes--conversations with fellow journalists and on-site perspectives on international incidents--are frequently dwarfed or scattered by heavy helpings of historical background, which while necessary for context are notably dry in comparison to the richness of Greenway's journalistic excepts. Readers looking for insight into the life of a 20th-century foreign correspondent may therefore come away disappointed, although veterans of similar background will find in the author a kindred spirit and visions of times and places worth remembering. VERDICT While wanting for depth and dazzle, Greenway's work snapshots a career of astounding scope and proportion. Recommended for readers with advanced interests in 20th-century journalism or the history of U.S. international relations.--Robin Chin Roemer, Univ. of Washington Lib., Seattle

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