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 […] Read More

Fifty years ago on March 9, 1972, I celebrated my 25th birthday in Saigon. It was an occasion I never thought I’d see. I arrived in Vietnam a year earlier, and during the ensuing months saw combat in Cambodia, the India-Pakistan War, and of course, Vietnam. There were so many close calls that by rights […] Read More

David Hume Kennerly’s address to the Commencement and SBS Convocation, 2021 graduating class of the School of Social Sciences & Behavioral Sciences, “The People College” at the University of Arizona, Tucson, December 17, 2021 What an amazing group! Congratulations to the graduating Class of 2021. You have survived and triumphed over our ongoing Covid nightmare, […] Read More

“First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Henry Lee’s eulogy honoring General George Washington could well have been written for General Colin Powell. Our paths didn’t cross in Vietnam where he pulled two tours, the first in 1962-63, and then in 1968. During that second deployment Major Colin […] Read More

September 11, 2001. I was in Washington, D.C. on an assignment for Newsweek. Just before 9 a.m. I tuned in to ABC’s Good Morning America. They were holding on a live shot of the North Tower of the World Trade Center where it appeared that an airplane had crashed into the building. It was smoking […] Read More

After word of the ship’s capture reached the president the administration tried to secure the release of the crew through diplomatic channels.  They sent messages through the Chinese who were allies of the Khmer Rouge. There was no reply, however, and some doubt that anyone, including the Chinese, really knew who was running the show […] Read More

In late 1970 I hounded the bosses at United Press International (UPI) to send me to Vietnam to cover the fighting. The opportunity was slipping away as the U.S. withdrew its troops and transferred the responsibility of conducting the war to the government of South Vietnam. As a young news photographer this was the biggest […] Read More

President Gerald R. Ford held his first meeting with President-elect Jimmy Carter on November 22, 1976, thirteen years to the day after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It was the first time Carter had been in the White House. The two sat in the Oval Office under the portrait of George Washington that hangs […] Read More

I’m missing President Gerald R. Ford more than ever. His graceful and dignified concession of the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter was an exemplar of how to deal with this overwhelmingly painful moment. Gerald R. Ford was not the first or last president to suffer this fate, and he wasn’t alone in doing it right. […] Read More