“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

This 2020 presidential election campaign is my thirteenth.  I’ve covered them all since 1968, except for 1972 when I was in Vietnam photographing the war. (I have the best excuses.)  Due to Covid-19, this year I only caught the early action in February, during the New Hampshire Primary. Thankfully it produced some telling images. Campaigning […] Read More

I’d been covering the 2016 presidential campaign for CNN since the year before, but when I showed up to photograph an appearance by Hillary Clinton at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, I hadn’t seen her in a couple of months. The first time I photographed her was when she was a young lawyer working […] Read More

A Remembrance Two years ago today, September 2, 2018, Senator John McCain was buried on the grounds of his beloved U.S. Naval Academy.  John’s family asked me to document his last journey from Arizona, to Washington, D.C., and to his final resting place in Annapolis. It was an honor for me to do so. There […] Read More