Mission to Hanoi

It was a CBS News Special Report, and through a satellite linkup, Walter Cronkite was speaking from his desk in Manhattan to Chief European Correspondent Charles Collingwood in Tokyo. "Well, Charles," said Walter, at the end of the half-hour, "get yourself some rest and hurry on home with the rest of the film you're carrying." "Thank you, Walter," replied Collingwood. "I've got a lot more to tell you."

Last week Collingwood and his film arrived in New York City. What he had to tell about was eight days in North Viet Nam--the first visit by a U.S. network correspondent during the war--and the story of his scoop concerning Hanoi's willingness to start talks in Pnompenh (TIME, April 12). Part of his report was rushed onto the Cronkite supper-hour news last week; his footage was edited into a 60-minute special scheduled for this week.

The Response. Collingwood first applied for admission to North Viet Nam last spring but got no reply at all. Then last month, CBS got word that Hanoi might indeed welcome him. Why was he chosen over other American TV newsmen who had also sought a visa? "It's my strong impression," Collingwood told his network audience, "that my entry application was accepted because Hanoi wanted to make a move and decided to make it through CBS News and me. Indeed, I think what appeared to be their response to President Johnson's speech was really what they were going to say all along."

He arrived in Hanoi two days before that speech. There were six air-raid alerts during the first 24 hours. When Collingwood refused to go to the bomb shelters, he reports, "their little faces fell." He explained: "Look, you may not have any confidence in U.S. assurances that it will not hit population centers, but I do." Collingwood had no difficulties with the three bureaucrats assigned to escort him, but the North Vietnamese did hand-pick his cameraman, French Freelancer Roger Pic, who had done several sympathetic films. Collingwood also notes that "naturally, they took me to bomb sites" and trotted out survivors to stare at him.

Dog Dinner. Apart from that, and Hanoi's natural decision to ban him from military areas, Collingwood was given free access to the country and to its leaders. He talked for more than an hour with Premier Pham Van Dong "who's really running the country," and with the Foreign Minister and a colonel on General Giap's staff. They were, he says, forthright and "very courteous," except for their ritual charges of genocide and their use of propaganda phraseology. On his last night, North Vietnamese officials laid on a banquet of "a number of dishes, two of which were dog, which is a delicacy in North and South Viet Nam," and which he interpreted as an indication of their special admiration for him.

Understandably for an American in such circumstances, Collingwood at times found himself playing the role of self-appointed plenipotentiary. At one point in his key interview he said: "Mr. Prime Minister, I hope you are aware that President Johnson has his problems too." It was also understandable, though perhaps unkind, for some Administration staffers to grumble that Collingwood was in effect dealing with Hanoi on a quasi-diplomatic level Nevertheless, he got his big story on the air, and so he can be forgiven when he asserts that "it was a great privilege to have a part in what may be a history-making process."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.