Booknotes & Vietnam

Before embarking on a successful media and communications career, Brian Lamb served in the armed forces as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1963 to 1967.  His military service ran concurrently with the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.  Approximately one out of every six Booknotes interviews dealt with works of military history.  Among them there were several which were about the Vietnam War.

Neil Sheehan

Neil Sheehan's book about the Vietnam War, Bright and Shining Lie, was C-SPAN’s first-ever author interview series.  Brian Lamb followed Sheehan’s progress on the book during the sixteen years it was being written.  

Concerned that Bright and Shining Lie might not get the in-depth coverage that he felt it deserved, Lamb invited Sheehan to take part in a series of interviews to be televised on C-SPAN in October and November 1988. In this photograph, taken by Brian Lamb, Sheehan is examining archival boxes at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

John Laurence

CBS News Vietnam correspondent John Laurence spent 22 months reporting from Vietnam during the period from 1965 to 1970.  While embedded with U.S. Army troops, Laurence witnessed some of the most difficult and brutal events of the war, such as the Tet Offensive, the Battle for Hué, the siege at Khe Sanh, and other actions first-hand.

In 1968 he came upon a cat in the city of Hué who became his companion for the remainder of the war and afterward.  The item here depicts Brian Lamb’s heavily annotated version of The Cat from Hué that he used to prepare for his January 2002 interview with Laurence.

Frederick Downs

An oral-history interview with Frederick Downs occurred on May 15, 2014 at George Mason University.  Downs, a former U.S. Army officer who lost his arm in Vietnam, discussed his appearance on Booknotes in January 1992, covering his book. No Longer Enemies, Not Yet Friends: An American Soldier Returns to Vietnam.

Down's deals with his service in the war and his return to Vietnam in the late 1980s to help with the repatriation of the remains of fellow American servicemen.