Four Wars, Five Presidents Four Wars, Five Presidents A Reporter’s Journey from Jerusalem to Saigon to the White House Terence Smith ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Rowman & Littlefield An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2021 by Terence Smith All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 978-1-5381-6061-9 (cloth) 978-1-5381-6062-6 (electronic) ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. To Grand Daughters three: Scout, Neva and Saylor “Writing is easy: just sit down, open a vein and bleed.” —Red Smith Contents Contents Contents 1 Here We Go 1 2 From New York to Jerusalem 5 3 From the Trib to the Cathedral 19 4 The Holy Land 29 5 The Battle for Jerusalem 33 6 Six Days in June 43 7 Southeast Asia 61 8 Out of the Frying Pan . . . 67 9 War Redux 77 10 Green Beret Murder 83 11 Life in Saigon 89 12 At Home at Home 93 13 Diplomatic Dissonance 99 ix