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Wingnut says that his UPI brethren stood up and cheered news we lost the Vietnam war. What did they really cheer that day? The word "PEACE."
From TOM FOTY:
Dear Editor (with apologies for length):
In a recent commentary that could otherwise be characterized as a "mea culpa" for no-longer operative Iraq policy boosterism, Tom McClanahan turns the clock back thirty one years in his career and makes an assertion about an early employer that defames a once great news organization. Trying to bolster a case for what he calls a "deep, unquestioning antipathy for all things military" which he maintains "still infects many in today's media," McClanahan says he was working for United Press International in Dallas in the spring of 1975 and adds:
One sunny day in April, bells started ringing from the dozens of printers scattered around the room. We knew it was an item with "flash" priority, which carries 10 bells. I looked down. A printer tapped out: "Saigon falls." What happened next was astonishing. Many of my colleagues, young journalists who had come of age politically during the heyday of the anti-war movement, stood up and cheered. Oh, goodie. The United States has lost a war. Many were my friends, but the scene left me cold.
It is not possible to prove a negative of course, but his account does leave much room for doubt about the accuracy of his recollections.
In the 1977 book "55 Days - The Fall of South Vietnam" (Prentice Hall), Alan Dawson, UPI last Saigon bureau manager, describes and reproduces the UPI flash:
>>>> FLASH''''''''''
SAIGON - SAIGON GOVERNMENT SURRENDERS
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followed by:
>>>
BULLETIN'''''' PEACE 4-30 BY ALAN DAWSON
SAIGON (UPI) - PRESIDENT DUONG VAN (BIG) MINH TODAY ANNOUNCED THE SURRENDER OF SOUTH VIETNAM AND TOLD GOVERNMENT SOLDIERS TO STOP FIGHTING.
(MORE) LD/PDV
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