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The Image That Will Live in Infamy

September 3, 2023 By David Hume Kennerly

Former President Donald Trump’s police booking mugshot, to steal a quote from FDR, is an image that “will live in infamy.” It will end up being the most published photo ever taken. Unfortunately for him it will also be how he will be remembered for eternity. His short-term political gain will be a long-term disaster. A picture I took of him in 2016 is eerily similar (above right). He has unequivocally defined for the ages exactly who he is, and it’s not a pretty sight. Historian Mark Updegrove told me that he wished the photo hadn’t been taken, that it only feeds the Trump frenzy. Hard to disagree.

Photographs are powerful. They tell the story for good or bad. In the instance of Joe Rosenthal’s epic and unforgettable moment of U.S. Marines raising the flag over Iwo Jima in 1945, it was about patriotism and a heroic act. Eddie Adams’ shocking 1968 Saigon execution photo at the instant the South Vietnamese general placed his pistol to the head of a Viet Cong suspect and pulled the trigger was the exact opposite. It showed the brutality and reality of war. Rosenthal’s photo was used to help raise much needed money to support the final days of winning WWII. Adams’ picture was a significant factor in Americans turning against the Vietnam War. Both won Pulitzer Prizes. Both will be remembered and taken to heart as long as there are people to see them.

Eddie Adams, Saigon Execution, 1968 (AP)

Joe Rosenthal, Marines raise flag on Iwo Jima, 1945 (AP)

The harshly-lit vision of a former president mugging for the camera in jail will also be remembered forever. The snap is a propaganda poster advertising a bad Trump play. In this version he portrays the tough and intransigent tyrant who glares menacingly into the camera. He knows exactly how he will come off, after all he prepared for the moment. Trump also understands that his MAGA adherents will love and be riled up about the image. This one was for them and will be another fundraising bonanza. The guy, after all, is an actor and can drop an expression at a moment’s notice. Trump’s life could be a Twilight Zone episode where the central character morphs into the outlaw that he’s been playing on tv. Trump’s most famous acting line is, “You’re fired,” something he said on every show during the fourteen seasons he was on The Apprentice. That phrase made a career and a presidency. Trump’s mugshot pairs nicely with that look but reveals nothing about what is inside of his head.

Donald Trump on The Apprentice (NBC)

Logo for The Apprentice (NBC)

On November 21, 2016, thirteen days after he was elected, I had a portrait session with the president-elect in his office at Trump Tower for the cover of CNN’s election book, “Unprecedented.” My photo would be used on the front of a special Inaugural imprint. Trump’s staff had asked for picture approval of my photos, but CNN and I said no. They gave us the greenlight anyway.

When Trump sat in the chair we got right down to it. In the first two frames he was smiling, but it didn’t seem natural. It felt too contrived and not genuine.

Trump smiles for the camera

Figuring that I needed something more serious and honest, I asked him to give me his “You’re fired” look from The Apprentice. He immediately converted his face into an intimidating scowl. That one came naturally. That moment would reemerge when he sat for another portrait session, the one with the Fulton County Sheriff’s camera.

The “You’re fired” look

I thought his signature look was a tad too tough. I asked him to try something in between. Trump relaxed a bit and produced a wry face. That worked. He asked me if he could see what I was doing. I showed him the last frame in the back of the camera. He said, “I look better here than I do in real life!” I thought OMG, a sense of humor. The inbetweener became the cover, and anyone who watches CNN would have seen the portrait a thousand times. It became their branded Trump image. The scowling photo that I took wasn’t used but was a precursor to his big act at the Georgia jail.

CNN’s “Unprecedented” 2016 Inauguration edition

When the Inaugural edition came out Trump tweeted, "@CNN just released a book called 'Unprecedented' which explores the 2016 race & victory. Hope it does well but used worst cover photo of me!"

In 1863, Scottish immigrant Alexander Gardner took a portrait of another president, Abraham Lincoln. He’s looking into the camera, quietly strong, confident, and relaxed. It’s photo that defines him for history. It is how the world will always imagine him. It’s how he was by all accounts.

Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Garner, 1863

A hundred and sixty years later down in Georgia, inside the grimy Fulton County Jail, a man who had once been President of the United States poses for the sheriff. Most people would find this situation embarrassing and humiliating. Not Trump. He produced a premeditated expression that seems at once angry, paranoid, and criminal. It was an acting tour de force and will be the visual legacy of Donald J. Trump. It is how he will be forever known.

The former president glowers for his booking photo. Rather than a painful moment as it would be for most normal people, he turned it into a fundraising opportunity. The grift goes on.

Frederick C. Weyand, Compassionate General

August 13, 2023 By David Hume Kennerly

David Hume Kennerly remarks at the
Gen Frederick C. Weyand U.S. Army Pacific HQ Building dedication
Ft. Shafter, Hawaii, August 11, 2023

I would be remiss if I didn’t note that General Charles Flynn, and General Fred Weyand had a couple of things in common. They both commanded the 25^th Infantry Division 50 years apart and the U.S. Army Pacific that Flynn now heads, also 50 years apart!

(L-R) Gen. Charles Flynn, Nancy Hart Kuboyama, Frederick Hart, Command SGT Major Scott Brzak with portrait of Gen. Weyand

I am grateful that Nancy Hart Kuboyama asked me to give this talk today about her dad, and my friend, the great American General Frederick C. Weyand. Also thanks to Frederick Hart for your terrific remarks about your grandfather.

Nancy Hart Kuboyama, General Weyand’s daughter with portrait of her dad in the building that now bears his name at Ft. Shafter, Hawaii

In the case of my own family, General Weyand and my youngest son James also have something in common. They both graduated from University of California, Berkeley, but Fred beat him to it by over 80 years! In 1976 General Weyand was named Cal’s “Man of the Year,” an honor that no doubt delighted him.

There are so many words to describe Fred Weyand, so I’ll narrow them down to: Brave. Kind. Humble. Compassionate. I recognized that after first meeting him in Saigon in 1972 when he was the last commander of U.S. military operations in Vietnam. He also possessed remarkable diplomatic skills, a vital asset as he guided and led the withdrawal of the last American troops from Vietnam in 1973 that ended direct U.S. combat operations.

General Weyand and South Vietnamese Army officers, Saigon, 1972

We got to know each other better on a journey from Washington DC to Vietnam and back on a C-141 cargo plane in 1975. 24 hours over and 24 back with plenty of excitement in between. The trip was a sensitive mission ordered by President Gerald Ford to see if anything could be done to stem the tide of the advancing North Vietnamese Army into the South. Weyand was the right guy for the job. He had served several tours of duty in Vietnam and knew the place well.

General Weyand gets his orders from President Ford in the oval office as Sec. of State Kissinger listens

General Weyand runs to his waiting C-141 at Andrews AFB

During one of those tours Weyand was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism on two occasions while commanding the 25th Infantry Division. On January 8, 1967 after one of his companies became pinned down by intense Viet Cong fire and surrounded, he directed his helicopter pilot to take him there. The DSC citation says, that Weyand “dauntlessly walked around the treacherous perimeter, comforting the casualties and encouraging the beleaguered defenders. His presence on the battlefield was a source of boundless inspiration and enabled his men to hold out until relief arrived.” Less than a month later he helped locate a two-vehicle patrol that had strayed into enemy territory. Braving enemy fire he landed in front of them, turned them back towards safety, and undoubtedly saved their lives. All in a day’s work for Fred Weyand.

On the flight over to Vietnam we talked about people we had known in the war. One of them, Brigadier General Jim Hollingsworth, had performed similar acts of heroism in 1966 and 67. He knew Holly well, and said admiringly, “That guy was a piece of work!” “Look who’s talking.” I told him. Those guys were true warriors.

General Weyand arrives at Saigon’s Ton Son Nhat Airport

General Weyand’s military instincts also helped save Saigon during the Tet Offensive in 1968. A correspondent wrote that, “Weyand got the feeling that something bad was coming right in our own backyard." He convinced a reluctant General William Westmorland to deploy troops in and around Saigon. His prescient action dealt the North Vietnamese a major military defeat and saved the South Vietnamese capital. Weyand knew, however, that the success on the battlefield was offset by the anti-war sentiment back in the U.S., that it took more than military action to win a war. He strongly believed that you needed the American people backing the effort. Even before Tet he privately told people that he didn’t see a good outcome in Vietnam.

When we landed in Saigon, Weyand went off for briefings on the deteriorating situation. I left his group to make side trips up north to Nha Trang, then over to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was chaotic. The night I got to Nha Trang the city was evacuated in front of a North Vietnamese attack. My helicopter took fire from fleeing South Vietnamese troops crowded aboard ships in Cam Ranh Bay. Phnom Penh was worse. The Cambodian capital was surrounded by Khmer Rouge troops. The airport was taking constant fire. Things looked bad.

A ship crowed with fleeing South Vietnamese troops in Cam Ranh Bay. Some of them fired at my helicopter

Vietnamese civilians flee Nha Trang

A Cambodian refugee girl in a Phnom Penh camp

A picture of me in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 29, 1975

I made it back to Saigon in time for Weyand’s meeting with South Vietnamese President Thieu. Weyand assured Thieu of Ford’s commitment to him. He laid out some options, but it appeared to me that Thieu was skeptical.

General Weyand and U.S. Amb. Graham Martin meet with South Vietnamese President Thieu in Saigon

On the flight back to the states I told Gen. Weyand what I had experienced, and it added to his pessimism. We discussed the report he was going to deliver to President Ford. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be a hit.

On the flight from Saigon to the U.S. Weyand prepares his report for the president

General Weyand gave President Ford his unvarnished opinion. He told him that an infusion of aid to replenish military supplies might help, and at the very least would show public support. He ominously added that the government of South Vietnam was on the brink of military defeat. He also told Ford that the US should plan for a “mass evacuation of some 6,000 American citizens and tens of thousands of South Vietnamese and Third Country Nationals . . .”

President Gerald Ford gets the unpleasant truth about the Vietnam situation from General Frederick Weyand

There it was. General speaks truth to power. Power didn’t like the message, but believed the messenger.

Saigon fell less than a month later, an event that deeply saddened but didn’t surprise General Weyand.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. George Brown and Gen. Weyand during the final withdrawal from Vietnam

In an interview with Col. Harry Summers in 1988, Weyand said, “What particularly haunts me, what I think is one of the saddest legacies of the Vietnam War, is the cruel misperception that the American fighting men there did not measure up to their predecessors in World War II and Korea. Nothing could be further from the truth.” And the general knew that firsthand, he had served with distinction in all three of those wars.

It is such a wonderful tribute to General Frederick Weyand to have this beautifully designed U.S. Army Pacific Headquarters building named after him. Knowing Fred, however, I think he would have been a wee bit uncomfortable with all this attention!

The Weyand family at the dedication of the new Army Pacific HQ at Ft. Shafter that bears his name

Nancy told me that her dad and mom retired in the islands because they loved the Hawaiian spirit. That spirit, and Fred Weyand’s, will always be with you whenever you enter this magnificent place.

Aloha, Fred.

General Frederick C. Weyand’s final resting place at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific above Honolulu

The Blast

August 10, 2023 By David Hume Kennerly

Sixty three years ago, on August 7, 1959, I was 12 years old and something really bad happened in my sleepy little lumber town. Around one a.m. in the wee hours of a sweltering summer night the big siren over the fire station five blocks away from our house went off and woke me up. It was loud enough that you could hear it for miles, and was how volunteer firemen were summoned in an emergency.

Because it was a hot night the French windows in my bedroom were open. I perched up on the sill to see what was going on. From our house on the hill I could see a big fire a few blocks away in downtown Roseburg. This was not a drill. It appeared that the Gerretsen Building Supply store was ablaze, and flames were shooting into the air.

Moments later there was a blinding flash, then a huge explosion. The concussion that followed a couple of seconds later blew me across the room and into the wall. It knocked out all the glass in our house except for my windows that were open. I scrambled back to my vantage point and witnessed what looked like a mushroom-shaped cloud from an atom bomb detonation.

It looked like an atom bomb blast to me (Getty Images)

Pieces of burning wood from the warehouse rained down across the town and some of the fiery debris set the dry field behind our place ablaze. This was by far the most exciting thing I had experienced so far in my young life. It never occurred to me that I could have been killed. My dad ran into the room shouting that we had to get out of there. He said something about being under attack by the Russians. (Worth noting that this was at the height of the Cold War and “duck and cover” under your desk drills in school to save yourself from a nuclear bomb blast—good luck with that). Even at that age I thought why the hell would Russians want to attack Roseburg?

A duck and cover drill from the 50’s. It was important to cover your ears . . . (National Archives)

My father marshalled me, mom, and my three sisters into the living room. I remember our cat batting a broken piece of glass around. “We’re heading to my brother’s place outside of town,” he announced. “But dad,” I said, “can’t we stay?” The answer was, “Get in the car now!” Dang, no more Russian invasion for me. As we drove away from town the yellow-red light from the fire reflected off Mt. Nebo on the other side of the river. I craned around for one last look at the disaster. My parents and sisters were traumatized. I was bitterly disappointed that we had to leave.

A National Guard soldier amid wreckage on Highway 99 that ran through Roseburg (Oregon Historical Society)

That 1959 blast was the greatest disaster in Roseburg’s history. A Pacific Powder Company truck loaded with over six tons of ammonium nitrate and dynamite had been parked next to Gerretsen’s, and the fire caused it to blow up. Fourteen people died in the disaster. The junior high school that I was supposed to attend the following year was right across the street from ground zero and was ruined. When the truck exploded it made a crater over fifty feet in diameter and twenty feet deep. The fireball created by the explosion went 500 feet in the air, hence the mushroom cloud effect. Windows were broken more than eight miles away. People in the surrounding towns thought they were experiencing an earthquake.

The 50-foot crater across from Central Junior High where I was supposed to go to school was destroyed by the blast (Oregon Historical Society)

In an excellent recap of the event, David Tishendorf, former managing editor of The Roseburg News-Review wrote, “The truck itself disappeared. Only two pieces of it were ever found: the front axle was blown through the air, struck once four blocks away, gouged a hole in the pavement, bounced back into the air, struck a tree, bounced back 50 feet and came to rest in front of the Greyhound bus depot; the spindle went crashing through Long and Orr Mortuary.

Downtown Roseburg was torn apart (Oregon Historical Society)

Buildings were flattened, as if a giant hand had swatted them aside; chimneys were wrenched from houses; walls swayed, buckled and fell. Power lines snapped, windows shattered, spraying glass fragments; foundations were shifted. Cars were slammed violently about. The massive rush of air carried bricks, metal fragments, glass and other debris in a deadly shotgun-like blast. A nearby Coca-Cola bottling plant was destroyed. Bottles exploded like machinegun bursts . . .

Trucks from the Coco-Cola bottling plant were incinerated (Oregon Historical Society)

The blast picked up a police patrol car containing two Roseburg patrolmen and blew it 100 feet through the air. The patrolmen walked away with minor injuries. The final toll would be 14 killed, 125 injured, and 350 buildings damaged over a 50-block area . . . But the night was not over. Heat and flying brands from the explosion set off fires in a seven-block area destroying dozens of buildings.”

Wreckage from the blast (Oregon Historical Society)

The giant explosion in Beirut almost exactly 61 years later on August 4, 2020, was caused by 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate blowing up. That blast was over 700 times bigger than the Roseburg event. Hard to imagine. I found this photo from the following day in my town, you can see the crater at the right. I luckily escaped unharmed, and it proved to be good training for my later career, at least to the degree that my dad never again made me leave the scene of a good story!

Before and after photos of Beirut after the massive explosion that killed more than 230 people and wounded 7,000 others

Robert F. Kennedy: The Man Who Changed My Life

June 4, 2023 By David Hume Kennerly

In 1966 I was a 19-year-old newbie staff photographer for the Oregon Journal, the state’s largest afternoon newspaper. One of my first big assignments was to photograph Sen. Robert Kennedy appearing in Portland. Kennedy was going to be the first national politician that I would lay eyes and my lens on. It was a visit that would change my life and the direction of my career.

I will never forget the infamous moment five years earlier, Nov. 22, 1963, when RFK’s brother President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. I was a high school sophomore at Roseburg High sitting in a class when the announcement was made. That feeling of shock and horror resonates to this day.

Getting the chance to photograph Robert Kennedy was particularly meaningful to me, and I didn’t want to blow it.

When I arrived at the Portland Labor Hall where Kennedy was appearing, the place was jammed. I couldn’t get in. Not good. My fledgling career could be over practically before it started.

Crowd trying to get into Kennedy rally, Portland, Oregon, 1966

I spotted a photographer standing outside the hall. The guy looked like a real pro and was apparently traveling with the senator. He was LIFE Magazine’s Bill Eppridge, as big-league a photographer as there ever was.

Kennerly and Bill Eppridge at the Eddie Adams Workshop, 2012

I summoned up my courage, introduced myself, and asked him how to get through the crowd. Rather than brushing me off, he offered a hand to this flustered young photog. He said, “Hold onto my coat, kid.” He then proceeded to thread his way through the throng and even guided me to the best position for a good photo. “This is where you’ll get your shot,” he said.

David Kennerly at Kennedy rally, Portland, 1966

The angle he showed me was perfect. When the senator took the stage I could see his notes on the podium and the crowd behind him. To this day it is among my favorite photos, a sentiment shared by one of Kennedy's daughters Kerry. Eppridge's unselfish act informed the rest of my career as an example of how to treat others.

Sen. Robert Kennedy at Portland Labor Hall, 1966

But the life changer came after the speech. I followed Sen. Kennedy, his staff, and press corps to Portland International Airport in a ragtag motorcade. I wanted one last photo of Kennedy before he left. A DC-3, its engines idling, waited on the tarmac. Senator Kennedy bound up the stairs, turned, waved, then entered the plane. But it was Eppridge who provided the decisive moment. The lanky photographer climbed the aircraft steps, looked at me, gave a thumbs-up, then ducked inside. The door closed, and the old DC-3 taxied out and took off. I felt like Rick watching Ilsa taking off into the fog in the final scene of Casablanca. It was an honest to God epiphany. I wanted to be on that plane, no, I needed to be on that plane. I wanted to document those who were making history, to be in the room with them. It was a profound life moment.

Final scene in Casablanca. Rick watches his love ilsa fly away

Two years later good fortune struck. I was now in Los Angeles working as a staff photographer for United Press International. Carlos Schiebeck, UPI’s photo bureau chief, was about to make my dream come true. “Meet up with Sen. Kennedy and his party in Albuquerque, get on his plane, and cover his trip in the Southwest,” Carlos told me. Yes sir!

I flew over to New Mexico and met up with Kennedy’s entourage. It was my first encounter with a politician's staff, and it was bad. They treated me with indifference simply because I wasn't “one of the boys from Washington." In addition, I looked eighteen, although I was twenty-one, not much better! No one took me seriously when I told them I was there to cover the senator and needed to get on his plane. They laughed. I didn’t. Failure was unthinkable. This was my first big-time political job, and if I didn’t succeed might be my last. So I got panicked-pissed and let his guys have it. “My name is David Kennerly, I am a UPI photographer sent from Los Angeles to cover the senator, and you better let me on the goddamn plane or I’m going to raise hell from here to Washington, DC!” And even more choice words as I recall. It did the trick. One of them said that anyone who talks like that has to be a legit newsman. They grudgingly allowed me to board the campaign plane. Once onboard none of the traveling press, and nobody on the senator's staff, talked to me.

After we took off, Senator Kennedy came walking down the aisle of the plane. He glanced at me, walked by, then turned around. "I don't remember you," he said. I introduced myself, and he sat down and asked, "How's it going?" I told him. I even mentioned that his staff had tried to keep me off the flight. The senator, who seemed to be the only one who cared about who I was or how I was doing, was apologetic: "Don't worry," he said, "it won't happen again." And it didn't. After the next stop there was a remarkable change in attitude toward me, almost as if I had suddenly become one of the boys.

Kennerly (right) photographs Sen. Kennedy arrive Tucson, AZ

I watched the Senator deal with all sorts of people during his campaign and noticed that he related particularly well to kids. At an Indian reservation in Window Rock Arizona a little girl came up to him and he looked down at her, smiled, and she took his hand. She stayed with him during the rest of his visit there. A most natural gesture, not done for the cameras, but it made a good photo.

Sen. Robert Kennedy with Native American girl, Window Rock, AZ

A few weeks later, on the night of the California primary, I ran into Bill Eppridge again. This time it was in Kennedy's private suite at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was going to be a terrific evening. Kennedy was leading the race, and it seemed certain he was going to carry the state. My Oregon photographer friend Ron Bennett, now working in UPl's Los Angeles bureau took a picture of me and the senator (he didn’t look happy). He then gave a television interview and prepared to go downstairs to appear at the victory celebration being held in the ballroom.

RFK gives interview to ABC after winning California primary

Bennett and I flipped a coin to see who would go to the podium with Kennedy, that position being the best point for photographs. Ron won, and I found a spot in the back of the room on a riser where I could get a picture of the whole scene and his speech

Robert and Ethel Kennedy entered the ballroom and the place went wild. It was an important milestone in Kennedy's quest for the presidency. With a huge grin, he gave a quick "V" for victory sign that I captured.

Sen. Robert Kennedy declares victory in California Primary. Minutes later he is shot.

After a short speech, he started toward the kitchen, his escape route to an overflow rally in the hotel. I'd preceded him into the other reception room, where the crowd waited. Minutes passed, and Kennedy didn't show. I sensed that something had gone wrong, and, pushing my way through the crowd of Kennedy supporters, made it upstairs and tried to get into the kitchen area. The passage was blocked. By then reports were flying that there had been a shooting. Figuring that if someone had been hurt they'd take him out front, I hurried outside and saw Kennedy put into an ambulance. I jumped into my car and followed the ambulance to Central Receiving Hospital, a distance of a few blocks. My car was the last to clear the gates before the police sealed off the hotel. When I entered the hospital I found pandemonium. I photographed Bill Barry, a former FBI agent who was Kennedy's personal bodyguard, as he walked, head bowed, through the emergency room door. He was devastated.

Kennedy bodyguard Bill Barry at hospital after shooting

Kennedy wasn't kept at Central Receiving for long. He was soon moved to Good Samaritan Hospital just down the street. As white-uniformed attendants began to lift the comatose Senator into the ambulance again, his grief-stricken wife, Ethel, climbed into the back and I made a couple of pictures of her. If I had to do it all over again, I honestly don't know that I could. I am still haunted by the look on her face.

Ethel Kennedy in the back of ambulance after her husband was shot

The next few hours were a nightmare. The press stood in small groups on the street outside Good Samaritan, waiting for some word on the senator's condition. Early in the morning on June 6, his press secretary Frank Mankiewicz announced that Senator Kennedy had died. I took photos of him and was too exhausted to feel the impact.

Press secretary Frank Mankiewicz announces Sen. Kennedy’s death outside the Good Samaritan Hospital in L.A. June 6, 1968

Later that day Kennedy's body was put on an Air Force jet for the flight to Washington. I pleaded with UPI to let me follow the story eastward, but they refused, which was probably just as well. I was a physical and mental wreck. When I returned home, it hit me. I wept.

On June 6, 2018, the 50^th anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s death, I was at RFK’s gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery at the request of Kerry Kennedy to take pictures for the family. My portrait of Ethel Kennedy that day brought everything full circle. Her face reflected the sadness of her life but also her resilience. And my thoughts were of him also. The inspiration for an unimaginable career photographing in the fields of history. Thank you Robert F. Kennedy.

Ethel Kennedy at RFK gravesite 50 years after her husband was assassinated

Robert Kennedy’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery

The Third Lift

February 20, 2023 By David Hume Kennerly

I recently received a nice note from Bill Garlinghouse, a retired Navy combat cameraman who wanted to share a story with me about how a passage that he read in my book Shooter in the early eighties helped him out on his first foray into combat.

I reprint this with his permission, and follow it up with the pertinent excerpt from my book.

V/r LT W.J. Garlinghouse, USN in Beirut (Photo by PH2 Randy Rezabek, USN)

“In the 80s, I was an enlisted Navy photographer with a specialty in motion picture. In '83 I was assigned to Navy Combat Camera. At that point, none of us were old enough to have seen combat. Our experience was documenting exercises.

During those early days in Combat Camera, someone brought a copy of your book "Shooter" to work. We'd often read paragraphs we liked out loud. I was struck by the paragraph in which you said to be in the third lift in during a helo assault. I read that out loud to my teammates.

That year I got a midnight call from my commanding officer to get into work, and to bring my gear. It turned out we were going to document the helo assault of the island country of Grenada in the Caribbean. (editor’s note: The U.S. attack came over concern that 600 American medical students living there might be taken hostage by the hostile government in power).

The morning of the assault, I took my team down to the helo deck on the USS Guam. I told the Marine LT running the show that we were there to cover the action. He said he'd put us on the last helo in. I looked him in the eye and said "No sir. We need to be in the third helo in." He asked why, and I explained that by the time that helo lands the perimeter is set, and we can point up and catch the rest of the helos coming in.

He said 'Roger that!'

UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters after dropping off troops in Granada (U.S. Dept of Defense photo)

My team landed in the soccer field. We followed the Marines out. I found a spot where I could see the ramps of all the helos on the ground, lined up and disgorging Marines. I aimed my Arriflex up at the next helo coming in, started rolling, and followed it down into that preplanned final composition in which marines ran off the ramps of the helos that had already landed, and still more ran right in front of me!

Troops run off U.S. helicopters during attack on Granada (U.S. Dept. of Defense photo)

All our film of that day was put on a helo to an aircraft carrier where an F14 took it to DC. I never saw any of it until a few years later when 60 Minutes did a piece on lessons learned from that action. I watched the show looking for something my team may have shot, and saw nothing.

Until they ran the show's closing credits over it!

There it was! The shot I considered to be my legacy shot if I ever had one. The one I had never seen except in my viewfinder and many times in my mind's eye.

The one I have you to thank for!

Your book sits in a place of honor on my bookshelf. The page with your guidance to me bookmarked!

Thank you for your service sir!

V/r LT W.J. Garlinghouse, USN (Ret)”

No, thank you Bill.

Here’s the piece from Shooter that he referred to. Just glad the advice that was passed along to me before I went on my first combat mission in Vietnam didn’t get Bill whacked!

Charlie Alpha. To anyone who's ever been to Vietnam those letters mean “combat assault” by helicopter. There are two kinds of CAs. The easy kind goes into a cold landing zone, or LZ; the other kind goes into a hot LZ. Neither has anything to do with temperature. A CA into a hot LZ means that the bad guys are shooting at your Huey as it lands. A company-sized CA usually involved four choppers per platoon, six soldier to a helo. To land a full company, sixteen helicopters transport one hundred men in four separate lifts. The advice given me by veteran newsmen was to always go in on the third lift. By that time fifty soldiers were already down, securing the LZ, and another twenty-five would be coming in right behind you . . . also better for picture taking as they jumped of the helos and scrambled for cover.

My first clue as to the kind of LZ we were approaching came when I noticed that the crackle of small arms fire was louder than the rotor blades of the chopper. It was a hot one. I soon found myself running at or half-crawling away from the LZ towards soldiers who were returning the enemy fire. (That “third lift” advice wasn’t making me feel particularly good). The very idea of being in the middle of a firefight had my heart beating faster than a hummingbird's. My breath was coming in quick, shallow gulps. In other words, I was scared shitless. The area was a twisted mass of mangled tree trunks, upended boulders, and smoking holes left by incoming artillery rounds. I noticed a young private wedged between two rocks. He had been hit in the face and was in a bad way. Everyone else was involved in keeping the enemy at bay, so I took a medical compress from the band of his helmet and tried to stop the bleeding.

My combat attire, which included a green medical cravat, camouflaged jungle fatigues, the small backpack that all GIs carried, and a brown fedora instead of a helmet, made it clear to him that I was not military. My attire, coupled with my beard and cameras, distinctly separated me from the regular GIs. "Just here taking a few snaps," I responded. "Do you have to be here?" he asked incredulously. "Not really," I replied. He looked at me and shook his head. "If I didn't have to, I wouldn't even be here."

A soldier on patrol in Vietnam near Da Nang. Many GIs questioned my sanity because I was there when I didn't have to be.

When I got back to Saigon I told a couple of colleagues about my first firefight, and about the wounded soldier. One of them asked if I'd taken any pictures of the poor guy. "After I fixed him up," I replied. "You asshole," he said. "Take the picture, then put on the compress."

So it goes in covering a war. I think the better advice is to avoid any lift into action if possible!

In a helicopter on the way to a hot LZ near Pleiku wearing my signature fedora (photo by Matt Franjola)

December 24, 2022 By David Hume Kennerly

Afghan Women Banned from Universities

Women students attend a university class in Afghanistan

Ten years ago, in 2012, I traveled around Afghanistan giving lectures on a free press and America’s First Amendment protections. Some of my best students were women at Afghanistan's major universities. I took this of some of them during one of my classes.

Teaching a class the majority who were women (photo by Esperanza Tilghman)

This week the Taliban issued a statement saying, "Female students have been banned from private and public universities in Afghanistan effective immediately and until further notice." This is the latest edict cracking down on women's rights and freedoms. The ban further restricts women's education because girls have been excluded from secondary schools since the return of the Taliban last year.

Higher education minister Nadim (courtesy Afghanistan News)

The Taliban minister of higher education Nida Mohammad Nadim said he issued the decree to avoid the mixing of genders in universities and because he believes some subjects being taught violated the principles of Islam. He pushed back against international condemnation, including from Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, saying “that foreigners should stop interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.”

Women in art class

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the Taliban that the United States will impose “costs” on the group if it does not reverse the ban. He said that the government in Kabul will not be able to improve relations with the rest of the world if it continued to deny Afghan women their fundamental rights.

Taliban security forces in the Afghan capital enforced the sanction by blocking young women’s access to the schools. Associated Press video showed women weeping and consoling one another outside a Kabul campus.

Women attending my lecture

A scene of the past, a female student in university class, 2012

So it’s back to the Stone Age in Afghanistan. If you wondered if the Taliban were going to become enlightened rulers, here's your answer.

Burqa-wearing women on the streets of Kabul

https://kennerly.com/blog/afghan-women-banned-from-universities/

The First Lady

August 27, 2022 By David Hume Kennerly

Showtime recently announced that The First Lady series is cancelled. Mercifully it only had one season. This will spare other former presidential wives from the historical malpractice visited upon the three women portrayed in the show by creator Aaron Cooley. It will, however, be a crushing disappointment for those waiting for the Jacqueline Kennedy and Melania Trump stories.

I didn’t know that much about Eleanor Roosevelt, and even though I photographed Michelle Obama a few times, had no clue about the innerworkings of her world. Based on this show I’m sure I still don’t.

But I ‘m very well acquainted with Gerald R. Ford and his family thanks to a close friendship with the president, Mrs. Ford, and their children. I was the chief White House photographer with upstairs/downstairs access to the East and West Wings and everywhere in between. I probably spent more time with Mrs. Ford than anyone outside of her family. In this contorted version of Betty Ford’s life she was shown navigating their Alexandria home then later the White House in a cliche-infused-alcoholic haze. Nope, that’s not how it happened. If you want to know the real story read Mrs. Ford's book, "The Times of My Life." She didn't shy away from discussing her battle with pain killers and alcohol, quite the opposite, but she wasn't prancing around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue plastered.

Betty Ford played by Michelle Pfeiffer (Photo by Murray Close/Showtime)

In their Hollywood imagination Cooley & Co. also drummed up a scenario where Mrs. Ford lectured her husband in their bedroom after he pardoned Richard Nixon. In a fiery and astonishing scene Mrs. Ford says, “You let him off without consequences for his actions. You know that makes us look complicit, that we are part of the coverup.” That was huge. You go strong woman! Give that presidential mate a piece of your first lady’s mind. Great stuff. Except it was 100% false. She in fact was sympathetic to the Nixons who were old family friends. Mrs. Ford was an empathetic human being who felt a deep sadness for former first wife Patricia Nixon. Betty Ford thought her husband had done the right thing, and wholeheartedly supported his decision. But hell, that’s not good television.

When The First Lady team was conjuring up this fantasy, neither creator Cooley nor any of his nine executive producers reached out to the Ford children or anyone else who knew them for input. They didn’t get in touch with me either and I was portrayed in an episode. One of the kids asked me why they didn’t call them for information. I said that they were going to make the show they had in mind and didn't want facts to get in the way of what turned out to be a subpar story badly and erroneously told.

I understand this wasn’t a documentary purporting to tell the real story and I didn’t expect that standard of accuracy. When Viola Davis, who played Michelle Obama in the series, was being interviewed by Leslie Stahl on CBS Sunday Morning she was questioned about the truth of a scene with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel talking condescendingly to Mrs. Obama. Ms. Davis, who was also an executive producer of the project said, “With Rahm we took some liberties for dramatic purposes.” Indeed they did, and not only with Rahm. No White House chief of staff with half a brain would have done anything like that. Except for Ronald Reagan’s chief Donald Regan, who hung up the phone on First Lady Nancy and was fired shortly after. As Jim Baker who had been Reagan’s previous chief put it, “Hell, that wasn’t a firing offense, it was a hanging offense.”

Michelle Pfeiffer is Betty Ford, Viola Davis is Michelle Obama, Gillian Anderson is Eleanor Roosevelt (Showtime)

“Taking liberties” should not be grabbing history by the short hairs and tossing it kicking and screaming off the cliff. There is a professional responsibility in keeping historical drama within a realistic framework, unless of course you are Monty Python. It should have been designated a “fiction based on real characters” and a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode added that said:

The producers of The First Lady apparently had no idea what really went on with these ladies so they just made up the “facts.”

Another fabrication in this saga was portraying Don Rumsfeld, the president's White House chief of staff, and his deputy Dick Cheney as the requisite bad guys out to suppress the president’s “plucky wife” Betty Ford. Nope. Not the way it went down. In one overblown scene, Rumsfeld storms aboard Mrs. Ford's plane before she was about to take off to Atlanta for the funeral of Martin Luther King's mother. In a vaguely racist statement Rumsfeld told her what a bad idea it was for her to do that. Dammit, "I'm Jerry's chief of staff!" Nope. That scene never happened either. At the time, Mrs. Ford was the wife of Vice President Ford, and Rumsfeld was in Europe serving as Nixon’s U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Oops. Great alibi though. He didn't become chief until six weeks after Ford became president. Plus Rumsfeld didn’t call him Jerry after Ford became the chief executive. It was always "Mr. President." Same with Cheney. Same with me. Same with most people.

In another four-Pinocchio moment, the downer boys, Rumsfeld and Cheney, showed up in the Family Residence of the White House on Christmas Eve, 1975. In this depiction the Fords were in the middle of a nice, quiet, private holiday dinner. The downer duo’s mission was to admonish Mrs. Ford for another outspoken moment that they felt was going to hurt “Jerry’s” presidential campaign. Kind of unimaginable that anyone would do something like that on Christmas. They didn't. The Fords weren't even in the White House that night, they were in Vail. I was with them having dinner. Guess what? Neither Cheney nor Rumsfeld interrupted them there either. Another reason why not? Donald Rumsfeld had become Secretary of Defense, was no longer chief of staff, and was running the Pentagon, not trying to screw with Betty Ford's life. Details, details.

The requisite bad guys. Rhys Wakefield as Dick Cheney and Derek Cecil as Donald Rumsfeld (Showtime)

A fine young actor Cody Pressley played my character. His scene was based on what happened the day before the Fords left office on January 19, 1977. In real life Mrs. Ford was in the West Wing saying her goodbyes to the staff. We passed the empty Cabinet Room. She peeked in, looked at me with her trademark mischievous grin and said, "You know, I've always wanted to dance on the Cabinet Room table." The former Martha Graham dancer kicked off her shoes, jumped up on the table, and struck a pose that captured her irrepressible personality. She was also symbolically planting the feminist flag right in the middle of a predominantly white male domain. Nothing against Cody, but they had him carrying one of his cameras bandolier-style in a way you couldn’t quickly take a picture. It might work for tourists from Omaha, but not pros in the White House. He was also dressed in a light-colored turtleneck and not wearing a coat and tie. A photo of me and Mrs. Ford from that day by Eddie Adams would have helped the wardrobe department get it right.

Cody Pressley plays me in "The First Lady" (Showtime)

Mrs. Ford had given up dancing professionally long ago, but the producers of The First Lady took care of that. Michelle Pfeiffer, who portrayed Mrs. Ford, (Ms. Pfeiffer is the one thing Mrs. Ford would have liked about this series), started dancing around the table. Cody (as me) is taking pictures. President Ford walks into the Room and is “shocked” by the scene but thinks it’s funny. He exits. Two problems. The president didn’t find out about it until 15 years later when I showed him the picture. He exclaimed to his wife, “Betty, you never told me you did that!” She jokingly said, “There a lot of things I never told you, Jerry.”

Aaron Eckhart plays President Ford (Showtime)

The second problem is that their version played out in the Roosevelt Room. Another unforced error. All they had to do was look at my relatively well-known photograph of the moment to at least get that right, but hey, that would have involved paying a researcher.

Michelle Pfeiffer on The Roosevelt Room table (Showtime)

Betty Ford on The Cabinet Room Table (Kennerly)

The danger here is that many people who saw this thing will believe that this was how things happened and that they now know the real Betty Ford. They will not. My advice to those who really care about history is to read about the people who made it in their own words or in the words of trusted historians.

The First Lady wasn’t picked up for another season because it was fatally flawed historically, but for the ultimate sin in the entertainment world. It sucked, and toward the end people quit watching it. If you’re making shit up, at least make it interesting. And don’t pretend it’s based on real life.

Mrs. Ford and I in The Cabinet Room right after the shoot. Unlike the actor in the scene I'm wearing a coat and tie! (Eddie Adams)

The Real Betty Ford on The Cabinet Room Table (Kennerly)

Farewell Dirck Halstead

July 23, 2022 By David Hume Kennerly

Everyone needs a mentor. Mine was Dirck Halstead. His was Robert Capa. Dirck never met Capa, but he was able to bid him farewell.

Dirck Halstead and David Kennerly in Vietnam, 1972

Halstead had just graduated from high school in 1954 when he heard that photographer Robert Capa had been killed covering the Vietnam War. Dirck wrote about it in his book, “Moments in Time.” “Robert Capa dead? Couldn’t be. Robert Capa was my hero. To me he was the epitome of a war photographer: handsome, brave, had an affair with Ingrid Bergman . . . I heard that Capa was being brought to the United States for burial in Amawalk, New York . . . On the day of the ceremony I arrived at the Quaker cemetery early . . . A few minutes before the burial was supposed to take place, John Morris who was then the head of Magnum Photos, came up and asked me to leave. At this point, a rough wooden casket, almost like a shipping box, was ushered into the cemetery . . . I began to cry. John Morris suddenly looked stricken, and he asked me to wait. A moment later he came back and said, ‘You know, you are a photographer, he would have wanted you here.’ So I photographed the burial and wrote a story for the Patent Trader about what Capa meant to me.”

Robert Capa’s casket, from Dirck's book, "Moments In Time"

Capa’s mother Julia grieves and is comforted by her other son Cornell (Moments In time)

A week later Dirck gave John Morris a set of the funeral prints. He told Dirck that there was a story that might interest him about a group of American students going to Guatemala to build a school. Dirck had also heard about a possible war brewing there. “I thought this was my big chance,” he said. Dirck approached LIFE Magazine about the school-building assignment, and they liked it. The editors said they would give him $1,000 and free film. “That was a goldmine to a kid who had been getting ten dollars a picture!” The LIFE editors didn’t know that they were sending a 17-year-old kid into danger.

Before Dirck left the states he visited his hero’s grave. “As I walked to Capa’s tombstone the wind started to kick up. A clap of thunder echoed through the cemetery as rain started to pour down. I stood over his grave as the rain ran down my face.

For a moment I thought I could feel the great photographer’s presence. Whatever it was, I allowed it to mingle with mine. I was convinced that I had taken on Robert Capa’s spirit and that I was going to be covering my first war.”

Dirck’s picture of combat in Guatemala City (Moments In Time)

And he did. It was a short one, but Dirck made some good action photos of the combat. LIFE wrote in their contents page about Dirck and a letter to his parents: “Dear Folks—as I sit here at my typewriter pounding out this letter I can hear gunfire in the distance . . . You guessed it—I’VE COVERED MY FIRST BATTLE!”

LIFE story about Dirck (Moments In Time)

Dirck’s final wish was that his ashes be left at Robert Capa’s grave. I put some in a small Canon battery case and placed it at the tombstone. it was a full-circle moment that honored Dirck’s love of Canons and Capa. The spirit and presence of one great photographer was joined with another.

Capa had to be smiling.

Dirck’s ashes in a Canon battery case that I left at Capa's grave (Photos by Rick Smolan)

50th Anniversary of the Watergate Break-in

June 18, 2022 By David Hume Kennerly

Kennerly's Watergate Photo Gallery

This is the 50^th anniversary of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Building. It led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

WASHINGTON -- 1970: Attorney General John Mitchell and wife Martha Mitchell enter the Department of Justice, Washinton, D.C., 1970. (photo by David Hume Kennerly/GettyImages)

This image of Martha Mitchell was John F. Kennedy, Jr’s favorite political photo. I took it in 1970. Martha was the wife of Attorney General John Mitchell and known as, “The Mouth of the South.” She couldn’t help talking to the press, and gave them some of her husband’s secrets. President Richard Nixon blamed her for his troubles. He told David Frost in an interview, “If it hadn’t been for Martha, there’d have been no Watergate.” Her husband John, (behind her here), left Martha in 1973, and was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury. He spent 19 months in prison. “It could have been a hell of a lot worse," he said, "They could have sentenced me to spend the rest of my life with Martha.”

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Republican Sen. Howard Baker and chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee Democrat Sen. Sam Ervin. Howard Baker had the most memorable line from the hearings when he asked witness John Dean, ‘What did the president know, and when did he know it?”

Former CIA officer E. Howard Hunt testifies before the committee. He was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping. Hunt spent 33 months in prison for his Watergate antics.

Spiro Agnew in the back seat of a car after resigning

Not related to Watergate, but contributing to Nixon’s problems, was the resignation of Vice President Agnew on Oct. 10, 1973. Two days later House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford was nominated to replace Agnew, and less than a year later would replace Nixon.

WASHINGTON -- OCTOBER 21: Former Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox after speaking with reporters at the National Press Club in Washington DC on October 21, 1973, the morning after President Richard Nixon fired him during what is knowns as the Saturday Night Massacre. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)

Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox leaves a press conference after the Nixon Administration refused to give him the White House tapes. He said, “I'm not looking for a confrontation… I'm certainly not out to get the President of the United States.” The next night, on October 20th, 1973, in what became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliott Richardson to fire special prosecutor Cox. He refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus do it, and he also resigned. Robert Bork became acting AG, and carried out the command.

During the Saturday Night Massacre, Watergate

That night I rushed to Special Prosecutor Cox’s office to get photos, but was blocked by an FBI agent from entering the room. It made an even better picture.

WASHINGTON DC - DECEMBER 6: (NO U.S. TABLOID SALES) Gerald R. Ford shakes hands with U.S. President Richard M. Nixon (r) during Ford's Vice President Inauguration in the House Chamber, U.S. Capitol on December 6, 1973 in Washington, DC. The oath was administered by Chief Justice Warren Burger of the Supreme Court. James Eastland, President pro Tempore of the Senate (back) attends ceremony. Ford was appointed by President Richard M. Nixon after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned his office while under criminal investigation from his time as an office holder in Maryland. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)

On December 6, 1973, Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as Vice President of the United States. President Nixon was there to congratulate him on the floor of the House in the U.S. Capitol.

WASHINGTON, DC - 1973: (NO U.S. TABLOID SALES ) Protestors with conflicting U.S. President Richard Nixon viewpoints in front of the White House 1973 in Washington, DC. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)

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A man holds an “Impeach Nixon” sign in front of the White House as supporters of the president pass behind him. The nation was in turmoil over the Watergate affair.

Former Attorney General John Mitchell walks past a protester after appearing before Judge John Sirica at the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON - 1973: (NO US TABLOID SALES) Washington Post Reporters (L) Bob Woodward and (R) Carl Bernstein walk from Federal court after covering the President Richard Nixon Watergate hearings 1973 Washington DC. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)

Famed Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein leave the U.S. District Court while covering the Watergate trial. They were the ones who broke the Watergate story.

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Republican first-term Congressman from Maine William S. Cohen broke with his party over Watergate and joined Democrats in demanding the Nixon White House tapes in 1973. He also voted to impeach Nixon. Cohen thought his fledgling political career was dead. “I had come to the conclusion based on all of the hate mail I had gotten, all of the flak I had gotten, that I wasn’t coming back,” recalled Mr. Cohen, who had been elected less than a year earlier. “I was O.K. with that.” Rather than cratering his career he went on to three terms in the Senate and became President Clinton’s secretary of defense. Liz Cheney is the William Cohen of today, her political future unclear. Her heroism is not in question, however.

WASHINGTON -- 1974: Hillary Rodham, a young lawyer advising the Rodino Committee stands next to chief lawyer John Doar during impeachment proceedings against President Nixon in the House Judiciary Committee Room, 1974 (photo by David Hume Kennerly/GettyImages)

Young attorney Hillary Rodham with Judiciary Committee chief counsel John Doar during the House impeachment hearings at the U.S. Capitol. On July 27–30, 1974, members of the Democratic-led Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against Nixon. He resigned before they reached the House floor for a vote.

WASHINGTON - AUGUST 9: President Richard Nixon waves goodbye as he boards a helicopter to leave from the South Lawn of the White House after resigning the presidency, August 9, 1974, in Washington, DC. In the first and last frames of this contact sheet Vice President Gerald R. Ford and Mrs. Ford say good bye. Ford was sworn in as president minutes later. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly)

President Richard Nixon waves goodbye as he boards his helicopter after announcing his resignation, August 9, 1974. He remains the only president to resign.

My cover picture on TIME Magazine of Gerald R. Ford after he became the 38th President of the United States. In his remarks after being sworn into office he declared, “Our long national nightmare is over.”

On Winning a Pulitzer Prize 50 Years Ago

April 30, 2022 By David Hume Kennerly

Fifty years ago today, May 1, 1972, a message reached me in Saigon that changed my life. It said I had just won the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for Feature Photography. Here’s an edited version of the story as recounted in my book Shooter published in 1980.

I got the call at 4 a.m. from Saigon United Press International news bureau chief Bert Okuley. He said, "You'd better come down here and have a look at this message.” His voice was grave. All I could think was there had been a problem with the photos I sent out earlier taken by a freelancer of the North Vietnamese offensive in Quang Tri near the DMZ. I ran down the stairs from my apartment to Okuley's office. "Look at this," he said, handing me a sheet of paper torn from the wire machine:

“KENNERLY HAS WON PULITZER FOR FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY”

The cable read (in all caps): "01170 SAIGON-KENNERLY HAS WON PULITZER FOR FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY, WHICH BRINGS CONGRATS FROM ALL HERE. NOW NEED EFFORT SOME QUOTES FROM HIM AND PINPOINT HIS LOCATION WHEN ADVISED FOR SIDEBAR STORY, BRANNAN/NX CABLES."

I was dumbfounded. I didn’t believe it. How could I have won my profession’s highest award when I didn’t even know I was nominated? I thought it was a mistake or a prank. Bert sent a message back to New York, asking for clarification: "02054 EXHSG BRANNAN'S 01170 ARE YOU KIDDING? IF SO IT ISN'T MUCH OF A JOKE. IS THERE A PULITZER AWARDED TO A UNIPRESS PHOTOG AND IS IT KENNERLY? OKULEY." At that moment the wire machine decided to break down and we were cut off from the world. I hadn't had a cigarette for months, but right then and there I started smoking again.

Three hours and many cigarettes later, the wire machine finally came back to life and a flood of messages spewed out. The first one said, "01181 OKULEYS 02054 NO KIDDING AND CAN YOU REACH KENNERLY FOR SUDDEN COMMENT NEED TO KNOW WHERE HE WAS WHEN HE GOT THE NEWS. WOOD/NX CABLES."

The Pulitzer Prize is the premier award in the news business, something almost all photographers and writers dream of winning. Without my knowledge, UPI’s top photo editor Larry DeSantis had submitted a portfolio of pictures I'd taken the year before in Vietnam, India, Cambodia, and at the Ali-Frazier championship fight right before I left for Saigon. There were eleven photos, all taken in 1971.

The citation from the Pulitzer committee read: "For an outstanding example of feature photography, awarded to David Hume Kennerly of United Press International for his dramatic pictures of the Vietnam War in 'They also noted that "he specializes in pictures that capture the loneliness and desolation of war." The representative picture the committee selected from my portfolio was the one I had taken of a G.I., his weapon at the ready, walking over the scarred landscape of a god-forsaken place the soldiers had given the improbable name of LZ Hot Lips.

One of my Pulitzer Prize photos showing the “Loneliness and desolation of war.”

That night I lay in bed staring at the slowly rotating blades of the ceiling fan while the question circled in my mind: "What does it mean?" I decided it meant I had to go back out in the field and take pictures. My opportunity came the very next day, when Dirck Halstead, my close friend and mentor, showed up to cover the ongoing North Vietnamese offensive for Time Magazine.

Four years earlier Dirck had convinced the UPI executives in New York that a young photographer named Kennerly who was working for them in Los Angeles should be brought to New York. It was a big step up. Not long after I arrived in the city I began getting important assignments thanks to him. Halstead was UPI’s star shooter, and I was grateful that he chose to share some of the best jobs with me.

"Where's the action?" Dirck asked.

“ An Loc, the NVA have cut the place off," I told him. An hour later we jumped into an old ’58 Ford from the Caravelle Hotel and headed toward the action. Leon Daniel, a UPI newsman and one of the bravest correspondents I had ever met, joined us. (Leon was shot in the leg during the Korean War and still limped because of his old wound.) When we got to the area about 30 miles from Saigon we stopped to photograph South Vietnamese armored vehicles. Leon took a photo of me and Dirck in front of one.

Dirck Halstead and I moments before it hit the fan on Highway 13

All was quiet, but not for long. At that moment a bullet pinged off the pavement near Leon's good leg. We all hit the deck near our cAR. Two other newsies who had arrived minutes behind us in a white Toyota, decided to depart. A B-40 rocket blew up where they had been seconds before. We were crouched down near our car, but it was a target.

Leon Daniel with Dirck Halstead take cover by the old Ford

We told our driver to take off, and he high-tailed it. We ran toward soldiers who were returning fire. Incoming mortar rounds were blowing up all around us. We were surrounded.

South Vietnamese troops under fire

Intense fire from the NVA kept us pinned down. A dozen or more ARVN troops were killed all around us and many were wounded during the firefight. One soldier lay near me bleeding to death, he had been shot in the crotch. A medic bandaged him up.

A gravely wounded South Vietnamese soldier during the battle

Communist troops were so close we could see them running across the road. One South Vietnamese soldier pointed in their direction and started screaming, "Beaucoup V.C! Beaucoup V.C!" Sgt. Ronald MacCauley, a U.S. advisor to the Vietnamese shouted, "Shoot the fuckers, don't just yell at them!" (MacCauley was awarded a Silver Star for his participation in the battle for An Loc for his heroic actions three weeks after we were with him).

U.S. advisor Sgt. Ronald MacCauley during the North Vietnamese firefight

We'd been pinned down for more than two hours when the first air strikes called in by Sgt. MacCauley and a Vietnamese major came in on top of the North Vietnamese combatants. A giant piece of shrapnel from one of the exploding bombs whizzed over our heads. It had been raining and we were covered with mud. Dirck got a shot of me that I later used on the cover of my book. It definitely caught the moment! I crawled over to Dirck and asked if this was what he'd had in mind for action. Always cool under fire he calmly said, “Can’t wait to have a drink at the Melody Bar tonight.”

Photo taken of me by Dirck Halstead during the battle

After being heavily blasted from the air the North Vietnamese finally withdrew, and things quieted down. Wet and shaken, we were wondering how we were going to get our asses out of there. In the distance we heard the sound of a car heading our way fast. He’s back! Our driver screeched to a stop, and yelled, “Need a ride?” He was laughing as we scrambled aboard. He got a big tip for that mission.

Back at the Melody Bar that night Dirck, Leon, and I tossed back a few and marveled at how close we’d come to getting whacked. Dirck apologized for being the catalyst that almost got me (and him) killed. He hoisted his cognac and said, “Oh, by the way, congrats on winning the Pulitzer.” We laughed and clinked glasses.

Dirck and I after the firefight along Highway 13

To celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of me receiving the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for Feature Photography on May 1, 1972, I’m making the winning portfolio of those pictures available for purchase in a boxed set. It will include the photo Dirck took of me in combat the day after I won.

https://kennerly.com/archive-deck/new-pulitzer-prize-portfolio

Contact me at pix@kennerly.com for details!