april 23 last day of old hacks reunion in pp

Friday April 23, 2010
The Last Day of the Reunion in Cambodia….

A very emotional day yesterday for the old hacks. We drove way the hell down into the countryside where 9 journalists were executed by the Khmer rouge in 1970, not long after Flynn and Stone were captured. Carl Robinson said it was a classic competitive case of journalism….the CBS teams goes down a road and gets zapped; then they’re soon followed by an NBC team that gets captured and beaten to death, too. Villagers had come from miles around in this flat open countryside. It’s the end of the dry season so all the rice paddies are dead brown for as far as you can see. The Buddhist monks had erected a magnificent yellow and red tent over the site where the remains were found in 1992. Kurt Volkert, a German cameraman for CBS, rode with us on the bus and told us about being in the bureau that day and waiting for the team to come back….and then about the search for their remains that went on for 22 years.
It was unbelievably hot as we all tried to gather under the little tent, shoes and hats off….with the monks chanting…and the Japanese widow of one of the CBS cameramen opening the ceremony with a gift of jost sticks. Elizbeth Becker read the list of names of the 37 correspondents who were killed in Cambodia.

I had ridden down there sitting beside Ralph Hemecker, who was like a kid as he played boy reporter the whole day with a half dozen different cameras---the whole scene here is so overwhelming [not overwhelmingly beautiful or overwhelmingly sad and depressing, but both] The site near a magnificent wat or temple was so remote, there was no electricity and of course nor real water supply, although I did see a couple of new wells in the yards of some wealthier homes.

Back on the bus, George Hamilton, asked if he could sit with me, “I really want to talk with you.” “And I really want to talk with you….” What an extraordinary fellow he turns out to be; a real raconteur. But, he also has a passionate interest in his childhood friend, Sean Flynn, and he seems seriously supportive of the efforts to make a film of my book, Two of the Missing. Many of the stories he told me I recalled from his book—which got very good reviews. Dodging the draft and dating Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s daughter; visiting The Ranch and shooting deer from an open convertible. And stories of various movie stars he’s worked with—Robert Mitchum who said of his would-be actor son, “he doesn’t have the moves.”

Here is a report from a Japanese reporter about the memorial service near Wat Po:

Here is a report from Kyodo on today's moving ceremony at Wat Po sw of Phnom Penh. Pictures are from Martha & Steve Northup. Yoko Ishiyama, widow of Kyodo's Koki who died in early 1974, was a particularly strong link to our dead & missing. Memorial Dedication in Phnom Penh is taking place shortly. Amazing Day. Best, Carl

Former war correspondents mourn slain colleagues in Cambodia
By Puy Kea
WAT PO, Cambodia, April 22 KYODO - A group of over two dozen former war correspondents held a solemn ceremony Thursday to mourn the loss of their colleagues who were killed or went missing while covering the war in Cambodia more than three decades ago.
The ''Old Hacks,'' as they call themselves, gathered at a remote spot 63 kilometers southwest of Phnom Penh where eight fellow journalists and a Cambodian driver were killed by the Khmer Rouge in May 1970 and where the bodies of four of them were dug up and recovered in 1992.
The slain media workers are among 37 who were killed or went missing in Cambodia between 1970 and 1975, including 10 Japanese, eight French, seven Americans and five Cambodians. Others were from Switzerland, West Germany, Austria, Netherlands, India, Laos and Australia.
Carl Robinson, 67, a former Associated Press correspondent who co-organized the first-ever reunion of war correspondents in Cambodia, said their visit to the remote site, located down a dirt track more than 2 km off the main road, was ''like a day of pilgrimage.''
''It was a very moving ceremony with a few tears shed,'' he said. ''To use an overused word, it was like a 'closure' for a lot of people to actually be able to visit and to pay their respects here today.''
The ceremony began with the chanting of Buddhists monks and local villagers amid the burning of incense, which was followed by the reading of the names of all 37 journalists.
They then held a moment of silence and planted a Bodhi, the tree under which Buddha found enlightenment, on the side of the road, which the monks of the local temple promised to take care of.
''The memorial as such is the Bodhi tree,'' said Robinson, who was based in Saigon from 1968 through 1975.
The Old Hacks, mostly former journalists in their late 60s or early 70s who had worked for Western major news organizations, arrived in Cambodia on Tuesday for a reunion which also involves a public open forum, a photo exhibition, a visit to the notorious ''Killing Fields'' and the installation of a more formal memorial in front of the Le Royal Hotel in Phnom Penh where many correspondents stayed and worked while covering the war in this country.
Among participants in Thursday's ceremony was the widow of Koki Ishiyama, a Kyodo News correspondent slain in Cambodia in 1974.
Kurt Volkert, 73, a former CBS cameraman who was instrumental in mapping where executed journalists were buried and who returned in 1992 to help a U.S. military team recover the remains of some of them from the bank of a river, said he regrets Ishiyama's body was never found despite the ''heroic effort'' put into the search by diggers, who had to dam up the river to dig.
''We were not close friends but I respected him and it's infinitely sad that he's still here somewhere, swept away by the waters,'' he said. ''He just didn't get to go home.''
Volkert said he visited Ishiyama's wife in Tokyo later that same year to deliver her a little silver box containing soil from the digging site where the bodies of two other Japanese, one Frenchman and one American were found.
Robinson said the number of journalists killed in Cambodia was much higher than in Vietnam during the Vietnam War because in the latter case, ''journalists could count on the U.S. military to take them to wherever the fighting was'' whereas in Cambodia journalists had to basically take a taxi ride to the war zone.
To make matters worse, he said the Khmer Rouge policy then was to ''smash'' or execute all perceived enemies, including journalists.
The Old Hacks have held three reunions in Vietnam for those who covered the Vietnam War and they are slated to hold their fourth next week.
''But this is the first time we've ever had one in Cambodia so it's been a wonderful experience, a really nice and wonderful feeling,'' Robinson said.
At the same time, he said, feelings are mixed. With some Old Hacks not having been back to Cambodia since the early 1970s, ''it's been quite an emotional return for a lot of people.''
''You enjoy it but you can't help remember the sadness as well.''
==Kyodo
April 22, 2010


We got back to Phnom Penh and were treated [if that’s the word} to yet another Cambodian feast, a huge banquet laid out in a big restaurant. I usually like any kind of foreign food. Vietnamese food is genuine haute cuisine. But I just don’t like the Cambodian stuff and Ralph agreed we’re both losing weight here because of just barely touching the food put before us. [after last night’s event, we found a little Italian place on the riverfront and devoured a pizza with salami!]

The most moving moment for me came at the dedication of the site of a memorial to the missing journalists in front of the old Royale Hotel, which has been bought and vastly expanded and refurbished by the very elegant Raffles chain. It was pretty seedy when we journalists worked out of it in the early 1970s, now it’s the ritz!

After much discussion the group had decided to plant a Buddhist Bo [sp?] tree in memory of the correspondents. At first the government objected to the site, but soon came around with a wonderful site of their own. As our tuk tuk driver pulled onto the enormously gran boulevard, I saw for the first time yet another Buddhist yellow and red tent, with yet another contingent of monks chanting and praying. A bigger tent was provided for the rest of us, complete with white satin covered chairs.

The information minister under Lon Nol, Chhanh Song, who was the chief organizer of the reunion with Carl Robinson, was the main speaker. Close up, he’s impossible to understand, but with a microphone his English was quite clear. He had been genuinely impressed by the dedication of the western journalists he worked with—and the local ones as well. A very frail looking Matt Franjola, one of the legendary figures in press corps history, read the list of names of journalists who worked for western media; and a Cambodian read the names of the dead or missing Khmer journalists. A truly beautifl, tasteful, monument about 5 feet high was in place, it will be replicated in stone with all the names of the dead and missing engraved on it….i hope they don’t make it too much bigger; it’s a wonderfully understated design….

The moment came for me when they were reading the names; Franjola quickly got to “Sean Flynn and Dana Stone” and, oh, my, the tears welled up and I choked them back….and then the name of Kyoichi Sawada, the Pulitzer prize winning Japanese photographer who was such a gentle man and who was always so good to me…….We were all given white lotus blooms to place in front of the memorial in between where the two trees will later be planted. I was touched by JPAC’s Johnie Webb’s moment of genuine Buddhist reverence as he placed his lotus and offered a prayer…..

Afterwards when we got to the hotel where that night’s activities were planned, none of us could believe it but several hundred people had filled the hall where a forum was held and on out into all of the adjacent rooms and terraces and gardens…You literally couldn’t barely move around them. .Tim Page had put up a wonderful selection of photos from his Requiem book and they adorned the walls with grisly reminders of what it was all about….

Sylvan Foa, Dan Southerland, Matt Franjola and Jon Swain led the panel discussion about covering the 1970-75 war; I stood through most of it, but I was desperately hungry [the food for the event was long gone by the time our bus brought us there] ….And Alice Smith, who’s been so wonderful about showing me about town, was pushing the envelope a little too hard by ordering me to stay and have another glass of wine: No, I said and walked off alone….Ralph swiftly followed, “Hey, dude, I’m here for you!” And we had a great little Italian dinner, with a table full of Marine guards from the embassy across from us.

By the way, very nice air conditioned buses take us to all these events, and with a police escort. I’m sure the locals wonder just what new corruption their government is involved in as traffic is blocked and the sirens wail and this big group of westerners moves about town…..

A busy day today; we visit the killing fields this morning; Ralph and I plan to interview JPAC’s Johnie Webb this afternoon and maybe the group of us who knew Flynn….we’re invited to the American Embassy’s enormous fortress tonight….and then it will all be over.