Re: Digest for vietnam-old-hacks@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic
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Dawson
Nov 27, 2025, 2:38:35 AM11/27/25
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Wow yes, Fernandez, In Tam and Long Boret -- surely the world's most approachable cabinet members and generals. There was a lady of the Agriculture Ministry but maybe that was later? She even changed her name to Kaset.
I'm pretty sure the "mayor" nickname was Rockoff. Anyways, so far as I remember, he was in the first wave of that "American invasion" in 1970 and had fairly quickly decided to stick around.
I think the "mayor" title came after Lon Nol's speech to the nation that he was placing rabbits around the entire capital in order to make it safe from any of those invading North Vietnamese bastids.
I spent most of 1971 and first part of '72 in PP because of Kate Webb's addventure, and Rockoff most definitely had been killed once and saved by a good-lookin' Scandihoovian nurse with some NGO or other by then. He woke up in the hospital at Clark, found out it was charging $65 a day, ripped out all his needles and such and hitched a ride back to PP, claiming to be not much worse off than before he was killed.
My twins were one and a half in '71 and learnt to swim in the Royal swimming pool. 55 years ago and life didn't get much better than L'Hotel Royal with huge rooms with a clanking air-con each, really good kitchen and lovely grounds including a nice parking lot for your driver's Mercedes. Jim Gerrand of Oztrailya, Am Rong and Chhang Son -- pretty good life for a war correspondent, eh? My now late and sainted ex-wife was with us most of the time; she loved Phnom Penh.
We spent last week of March, first week of April 1975 vacationing in Cambodia. By then, choppers were hovering above the hotel firing across the river -- my kids loved that and still remember it from when they were just 5 years old. We didn't run into any other vacationers, heh.
The Stringer finally got on Netflix. I've seen one review that was kind of not all kind.
Summary here.
Full original here.
73
On Thu, Nov 27, 2025 at 3:13 AM <vietnam-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Donald Kirk <kirkd...@gmail.com>: Nov 26 05:14AM -0500
The NYT Magazine put the head, “Why They Call Lon Nol ‘The Mayor of Phnom
Penh'" over a lengthy piece by me in mid-1971 about the fighting around the
country. Included interviews with Sosthene Fernandez and In Tam, whose
names may be remembered by those of us who were there. I don't recall
seeing Rockoff then, had no idea he was the source of that title.
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Donald Kirk
Nov 27, 2025, 9:06:11 AM11/27/25
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Rockoff could well have originated the phrase, "Lon Nol, Mayor of PP" -- It wasn't in my story, just in the hed over my NYT Mag piece. No idea where they got it.
By the way, that's an interesting review of "Stringer." I was there that day, did a piece that ran on p. 1 of ChiTrib. Someone working on "Stringer" called me as did someone from AP. I told them both I didn;t know who had taken the photo, didn't know Nick Ut at the time except as another face in the crowd. The good news about this debate is that it focuses attention again on the photo -- and the tragedy of war, that war and any other war. Doesn't matter who took the shot.
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Dawson
Dec 2, 2025, 6:34:21 PM12/2/25
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That's pretty good recollection, Mr. Kirk, thanks for that.
After 53 years I'm convinced there are two great myths about that day -- that the photo was a key contributor to the American public's opposition to the war.
I agree that if this were a criminal case, no jury would be able to decide it -- but since it's not, I don't buy the doco's claim that we must judge the source of the photo based entirely on forencisists who at no time were anywhere near.
I was impressed by the film's credits -- jeez, the number of people involved made a Hollywood blockbuster look cheap. Canadian Michael Maclear did a 26-part documentary on the entire Ten Thousand Day War with a far smaller crew -- and it is still the best documentary, IMAHO.
73
On Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 3:13 AM <vietnam-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
- My two dong worth - 1 Update
Donald Kirk <kirkd...@gmail.com>: Dec 02 05:58AM -0500
On nysun.com
Famed Photo of Vietnamese Girl Fleeing Battle Comes Into New Focus
A documentary, 50 years after the war, looks into the question of who
clicked the shutter.
[image: AP]A young Phan Thi Kim Phuc was photographed running in
excruciating pain with napalm burning her flesh. The photo was distributed
by the Associated Press bureau in Saigon. AP
[image: DONALD KIRK]
DONALD KIRKDec. 2, 2025 04:03 AM ET
<https://www.nysun.com/author/donald-kirk>
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American and South Vietnamese forces were repelling the North Vietnamese
Easter offensive in mid-1972 when I hired a car and driver outside the
Continental Hotel in central Saigon. Willy Shawcross, later famous for his
books on wars in Cambodia, Vietnam, eastern Europe and the Middle East, and
his girlfriend, asked if they could jump in.
I said I’d heard there was fighting up Route One, toward the Cambodian
border. About 40 miles northwest of the Vietnam capital, we saw thick
black smoke billowing from a village across the rice paddies. A
propeller-driven A1 Skyraider was flying up and away while the silvery
forms of jet fighters glistened far off in the haze.
On a side road, a naked girl and small boy, seared by napalm, were running
toward us. South Vietnamese soldiers were down the road, not far from the
Cao Dai temple that dominates the village, named Trang Bang. The girl and
her brother were hustled into a van to go to a hospital in Cu Chi, a few
miles to the east.
While I remember that moment like it was yesterday, I would not have
guessed that a photo of the girl fleeing the fighting would become one of
the most famous photographs in history. The girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc,
survived, eventually settled in Canada, and is now a goodwill ambassador
for Unesco.
On the outskirts of the battle, an American, working for an NGO, talked to
me hysterically about the horrors of what the Americans were doing. I
reminded him the Skyraider was VNAF— Vietnam air force — and the American
25th Infantry Division that once roamed the area had pulled out a year and
half earlier. “Vietnamization” was the name of the game.
My story, written in my room in the Continental Hotel, ran with the
picture of the girl and her brother near the top of page one of the
Tribune, but I didn’t see it until much later when I got back to my base in
Tokyo. I had assumed that Nick Ut, the AP photographer credited with the
shot, had taken it, since he got the credit and, next year, a Pulitzer for
one of the most iconic images of the war.
Now we are learning, from a documentary named “The Stringer,” that the
picture may have been taken not by Nick but by a free-lancer named Nguyen
Thanh Nghe, who also sent his film to the AP bureau in Saigon.
The source for this disclosure is Carl Robinson, who was working in the AP
bureau in Saigon for the photo chief, Horst Faas. A stern task master,
Horst told Carl to credit Nick Ut. Carl lived with what he saw as the
falsehood of authorship for decades until he decided to disclose the truth.
That’s the crux of the documentary that not only explains the scene up
close but also relies on experts who dug up just about every conceivable
source of imagery and commentary. .
One of those old shots even shows the backs of correspondents from several
papers, including a guy with the Chicago Tribune — that would be me. The
producer of the film, Fiona Turner, emailed that my “recollections” had
been “very useful in helping us put together the timeline and understanding
of the story as it unfolded,” but I had to tell her I had no idea who took
the shot. Then I got a call from a woman with the AP who was out to show
that AP had been right all along.
Not knowing the background to the controversy, I told the AP woman, whose
name I can’t recall, that she should get in touch with Carl, who had told
me several times that Nick hadn’t taken the shot. I also referred her to
Fox Butterfield of the New York Times, whom I encountered there. Carl had
asked me not to repeat what he said, that it was confidential, but then,
urged by an anti-war freelancer, Tom Fox, who had been in Saigon, he
disclosed the truth as he believed it.
Oddly, at a reunion of old-time Vietnam War correspondents in April at
Saigon on the 50th anniversary of the defeat of the American-backed Saigon
regime, I saw Nick and Carl passing each other in our hotel. Neither seemed
to notice the other.
Some of us boarded a bus, laid on by the Vietnamese press people, for a
visit to Cu Chi, not to see the hospital that had saved the lives of the
girl and her brother but to look at the tunnel complex where North
Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces hung out during the war.
The film makes a pretty convincing case for crediting Nghe, but I doubt if
the evidence would stand up in any court. There are too many ways to shoot
down the claims, and one has to respect the words of two old-time stars,
Peter Arnett, AP correspondent, and Dave Burnett, whose photos still show
up everywhere. They both refused to be interviewed, but both swear by
Nick. Dave, like me, was there.
To me, however, what really counts is the image, not who shot it. The value
of this film lies in large measure in publicizing the tragedy of that day.
That message is far more important than the relatively minor issue of who
clicked the shutter.
[image: DONALD KIRK]
DONALD KIRK
Mr. Kirk, based in Seoul and Washington, has been covering Asia for decades
for newspapers and magazines and is the author of books on Korea, the
Vietnam War and the Philippines.
<https://www.nysun.com/author/donald-kirk>
Dawson
Dec 6, 2025, 4:58:24 PM12/6/25
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Denis Gray <denis...@gmail.com>: Dec 06 11:29AM +0700
Greetings,
I have had many people contacting me to get Rockoff's email or
other contact information probably after that New York Times story about
him appeared. The email I have is alro...@usa.net
Yeah, that used to be a free email account in the '90s, but you can't even sign up for it any longer. Either Rockoff or current, new owner Crunchbase has turned it off. All you get is Error 552, meaning the inbox is full". The registered owner (Rockoff) has turned it off or abandoned it.
My WAG is that Rockoff walked away; the owners aren't really pleasant, and there are plenty of free emails.
The obvious one is Google but there are so many choices.
cheers
Denis Gray
Dec 6, 2025, 8:10:56 PM12/6/25
to vietnam-...@googlegroups.com, mikel flamm, susanne robinson
Many thanks Al Denis
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Dawson
Dec 8, 2025, 7:49:14 PM12/8/25
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Denis Gray <denis...@gmail.com>: Dec 06 11:29AM +0700
Greetings,
I have had many people contacting me to get Rockoff's email or
I have found...
There is a real and confirmed mail account,
I've messaged it twice, nothing has come back so far but it is a real account.
73
Denis Gray
Dec 8, 2025, 7:57:55 PM12/8/25
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Really appreciate your effort. Denis
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