Is peter pritchard. He is former editor in chief of the usa today newspaper and he is former president of the newseum and he is the author of this book killing grace, a vietnam war mystery. Mr. Pritchard, what made you write a novel about the vietnam war . I had dreamed of writing a novel, but then life intervened and i became a newspaper editor and an executive. But when covid hit, i finally i had the time to try to write a novel and i wanted to write something that wasnt really a combat novel. That was more in the vein of quiet or the ugly american. Both of them, both books had great influence without away any spoilers. Whats books synopsis . Two employees in saigon in 1967 at the height of the war are called to the investigate the murder of an american tourist named grace waverly, who whose body is found in the saigon river. And it appears to be a drowning. And she is an antiwar activist who said she came to vietnam as a peace tourist. But her real goal is to help smuggle arms back to her associates, the United States and the mps gradually realize that her death is part of a bigger conspiracy. And they try to avert a disaster. Whos been kincaid . Kincaid, the lead mp and his partner is Elijah Jackson and normally they are charged with enforcing and keeping guys on straight and narrow and out of the bars after curfew. But they get pulled in because the National Police dont want to investigate this particular because it involves an american. Oddly enough, at the height of the war there were 20,000 american tourists who visited vietnam a year. I was shocked to read that. So, peter prichard, youre writing about something 50 plus years ago. Do have experience in vietnam . Yes. I also wanted to write about antiwar culture, which i experienced. I went to college at dartmouth in the 1960s. And when was a senior, i watched professors get on the steps of dartmouth hall and announce that they were sending their medals back to Lyndon Johnson because they thought the vietnam war was an unjust and illegal war. And it dawned on me i had been reading about the draft that. I could get caught up in this even before i started my adult life. So i tried to get out of the war. I a draft dodger. The best i could do teach english to kids in massachusetts and they were more than i was. I had a hard time. I had very little discipline over the classroom. And at the end of the year i got fired for not correcting papers. And two weeks later, i was doing push ups at, fort dix. And by end of that year, i was in vietnam. So you were both a draft dodger, as you say, and a veteran of the war . Yes, sir. I served almost 14 months in kent and sadik in vietnam. We were advisers supposedly intelligence advisers to the South Vietnamese ninth division at the height the war through the tet offensive. And so 67, 68, somewhere around there, you were in 67. I arrive in country on six january 1968, and i came home in march of 69. Besides a compelling mystery story. Mr. Pritchard were trying to accomplish anything else in killing. Yes, i. You know, for a lot of people, particularly young people, they dont necessarily know a lot about vietnam. And i thought the mystery format and the format would give me a chance to write about the conflicting currents in the country at that time. We always talk now about how divided the country is, but in many, america was more divided back then when young men were scared to death of going to war and being killed in a war that was started in certain circumstances. So never even declared war and was very unpopular at home. Once the build up started, well lets go back to july 28th, 1965. Here was then president johnson. I have asked the commanding general, general westmoreland. What more he needs to meet this mounting aggression. He has told me and we will meet his needs. I have today ordered to vietnam air Mobile Division and certain other forces which will raise our fighting strength from. 5000 to 125000 men, almost immediately. Additional forces will be needed later and they will be sent as. This will make it necessary to our active fighting forces. Raising the monthly draft goal from 17,000 over a period of time to 35,000 per month. And for us to step up our campaign for a volunteer enlistment, peter prichard, what do you think when you hear that nearly 60 years later . Well it reminds me of the spring. Of 1967 when i walk out to my mailbox in amherst, massachusetts, and there were two letters inside and opened the first one, and it was from peace corps. And they they had accepted me as an english teacher in micronesia. And i breathed a great sigh of relief and imagined a lot grass skirts and me teaching people micronesia and. I opened the second letter and it was from general louis b hershey, and he said i was to report the new haven Induction Center and three weeks so didnt know what to do. So i called the peace corps and i got a nice woman on the phone and she said, sorry, mr. Prichard, but it in these circumstances, the defense takes precedence. So thats the first thing it reminds me of. The second thing it reminds me of is how it was an undeclared war which Congress Never really voted on or formally approved. There was only the tonkin gulf resolution and we consumed by the specter of a. Q. Communism and the domino theory and all of that was really probably false proposition, a false assumption that we fought a war which 58,000 americans died and millions and millions of civilians and vietnamese died. 3 million troops served over an eight year period. From 1965 to 1973. 58,000 american and servicemen women gave their lives. Mr. Pritchard, when you were there, 67, 68, did you see combat. As i said in my other note, i never had to fire my weapon. We got from time to time and would to run to the bunkers. I had some convoy duty that was the closest i ever had to into combat. We were being shot at from across a rice paddy and we stopped the jeep, hid behind the tried to see if we could see to shoot at. And then we looked and the rest of the convoy had on and we were the only vehicle left. So we got back in and drove as fast as we to get out of there. But the reality of vietnam was that you could get killed in like a thousand different ways, you know, you could get in accident, run over by a truck fall out of a helicopter, get killed by friendly. It wasnt safe anywhere. What is the time frame that killing takes place in . Exactly it starts in early 1967 with a scene at the gridiron dinner where one of the organizers of the radical group is attending the gridiron dinner with his father, whos a washington lobbyist and. He imagines easy it be to have some kind of terrorist incident at the gridiron dinner. And thats a spark that ignites his ideas about what to do about the. And then continues all through 1967 and into 68 and it was at the beginning of 1968 that the tet offensive began. What exactly was that . With the tet offensive was a series of coordinated attacks across the country. I think there were more than 500 attacks, including attacks near where i was in the delta and i had not been in country very long and we were all observing the holiday with the vietnamese and we were standing in the square in canto watching a vietnamese man crawl up a greased pole to put something on top of it as part of the ceremony and a young aide ran up to the colonel who was in charge of intelligence and said, colonel, theres a formation of five sam pans down the river and we dont know whats on. So at least in the delta, we had no warning of the tet offensive. It was a complete surprise. And although it proved to be a stunning defeat in terms of the casualties the north vietnamese and the viet cong lost, it was a complete political defeat and really changed. Americans opinions about the war and is cbs mike wallace reporting on the tet offensive january 31st, 1968. Good evening. Im mike wallace. With a bold series of raids the last three days, the enemy in vietnam has demolished the myth that alive strength controls that country. The communists hit the very heart of saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, and at least ten cities which correspond to state capitals here in the United States. And then as if to demonstrate that, no place in that war torn nation is secure. They struck at least Nine American military strongholds, unnumbered field positions. Tonight, the magnitude of those became apparent in the us report on casualties. The communists paid a heavy toll for the air strikes. Almost 5000 dead, including 660 in saigon alone, and almost 2000 captured by allied. Also, our high. 232 americans killed. 929 wounded. Peter prichard. It was more of a socalled moral victory for, the viet cong, than it was a military, wasnt it . Correct. For months, the had been telling the American People and all us soldiers there was light at the end of the tunnel that we defeating the enemy across, the country, and that there was hope that the war would ensue. And of course, when this offense had occurred, that completely upended that assumption. I remember listening to the radio the morning of the tet offensive. And general westmoreland came on the radio and said the is secure and weve the enemy. Well, it didnt seem very secure when the terrorists got inside the embassy and people had to throw a gun to somebody up there trapped to get him to be able to escape. So it really proved to the people that the war wasnt over. And apparently wasnt going to end any time soon. Does the tet offensive play a role in killing grace. I in this particular book that the story just before the tet offensive. But im doodling around on a sequel which will correct that problem. Already a sequel. Well im hoping people have told me that they might read it. So well see . Writing a book is hard and. You get into it and see what can do. But as Kate Atkinson said, youre never quite you can pull it off until do. Well, just to give some perspective from, 1961 until the fall of the saigon government, the us spent more than 141 billion in South Vietnam, about 7,000 for each of South Vietnams 120 million people, approximately. 800 billion in todays dollars. How do you that today . Well, you know, one of the themes in my book is, all of the corruption that occurred and all of the u. S. That went missing were on the black market or ended up in the hands of the viet cong and was just such an amazing stream of men and materiel that there was no way anybody could keep track of where went. Which also plays the plot of this book and any serviceman who was serving there could see that. I mean they were there. The whole premise the war was faulty because instead of declaring war and making it a Real National cause that the people were behind. We had a policy that people only served 365 days in the war zone and as a result most soldiers were focused on crossing the days off on a calendar rather than caring first about winning the war. They were focused on getting home. And, you know, we tried to serve hot food to soldiers in field. We had xs back. We had a golf course in saigon, which also plays a part in the book. And it was an insane way to fight a war. My have we changed that the years in subsequent wars, in the iraq war, etc. . How we how we leave personnel in the field . Yes, i think so. The defeat in vietnam and it really was a political defeat really had a profound effect on the American Military. And it led to the establishment of an all professional military and, the end of the draft and as a result, i think the military probably became a better it might not be better for the country because you have a force thats kind of separate from society and not everyone shares in the obligation to defend the United States. Obviously in israel, everybody has to serve in the military and long been a proponent for of some kind of National Service either served in the military or help people in hospitals or be in the peace corps. I think that would bring people together more than we are today. You mentioned corruption. Why are black markets so ubiquitous and seemingly easy to form during like this . I think its mainly because the volume of material and the opportunity to steal it. Its just very hard. Keep track of things in chaotic war, torn societies. It happens. The earthquake, you know people, you have all this aid and the enterprising criminals take a good portion of it and then charge people too for it. Its just human in some ways. And i think anyone has devised a way to stop things from going missing during conflict. So i think its a problem. Great to peter prichard. Before we talk more about killing grace and the vietnam era. Lets go to the cspan Video Library and our wayback machine. Peter prichard is former editor in chief of usa today and, president of the newseum, has appeared on cspan 63 times over his washington career and. This was the first one. It was july 2nd, 1984. Just as the rest of the newspaper is from most traditional, because its has shorter stories and more stories, the opinion page is different. Its a single topic page and any topics that we consider or do during that week will be very close to the news. And we will run for points view on that topic. Besides our own. In addition to these among four points of view will be the opposing view which will be completely opposite of what we think in the editorial column, so that we are the only newspaper in the United States that consistently, every day runs an opposing point of view, its editorial position, and our feeling is that that gives the reader a chance to read all the views, make up his or her own mind. And thats whats unique about our opinion page. And we find it is popular. So. Mr. Prichard, what were al neuharth, John Siegenthaler, the other of usa today and thinking what was your what was your for this paper. Al was the al neuharth the chief executive of the u. S. Company, then the largest Newspaper Company in the United States. And his vision was to have a National Newspaper that was available. Every state that appeal to travelers and to people who didnt get full National Report in their local newspapers. And he thought that the connecticut was in a great position to provide it because we had newspapers all over the country and printing plants all over the country. And John Siegenthaler came up with the concept of an opinion page that represented points of view, and it did not have a dominant position, an institution on every issue. As a result al said that usa today would not endorse a candidate and the president. Sure, elections in because it would put a Bumper Sticker on your nameplate and that it would turn off people who were with the candidate that you endorsed and that was his vision and he thought that usa today could a Unifying Force for the country and i think for a while was i mean it helped contribute to a common of knowledge that could get form their opinions using. Were a long ways from that today with the multiplicity sources that people listen and for a long time best selling daily newspaper in the United States and a must read for many of us here in washington. What do you think of the paper today . Well, its changed lot. And i usa today is suffering from the same forces that all other newspapers in, america, are facing. The Tech Companies have basically taken all of the revenue that used to go into newspapers, think the newspaper revenue has fallen 80 from its peak and weve lost of newspapers across, the country, so that people dont have a good source in their communities. And because of people have migrate to sources that, match their political points of view and they dont see the other of view and its just made the whole media landscape worse. My opinion, and its been very its been bad democracy because we dont have a Common Knowledge base that we can all draw upon to form our opinions. And to some extent, people are living in silos and echo chambers, listening to what they like to here, but they dont hear any other points of view in many cases. So from daily writing and editing of news to novel writing, what are the differences . Well, you dont have to worry quite so much about accuracy. You could use your imagination as my mother said. Newspaper writing very cut and dried. And the wonderful thing about novels is that you can exert your imagination. Think of all sorts of Different Things that might have. And its liberating in many ways and i really enjoy writing. Its its fun. However, in publishing climate, its difficult to sell books, difficult to get published. Its for new voices. Its just a tough economic. What kind of research did you do into killing grace . Well, since i was a vietnam veteran, ive read books about vietnam for years. Most recently i read max hastings wonderful history, where he recalls vietnam an epic tragedy, which it certainly was. And it a tragedy thats still casting ripples across the world today. And so i was familiar with many of the themes of the war and many of the things we could have done better. And i also love the quiet american, and i thought there might be a niche for a book that a veteran that was not a combat novel. There are lots of tremendous books by tim obrien and, karl marlantes, many other jim webb, many other people that are basically about combat experiences of the protagonists and i thought it would be fun to write a mystery set in vietnam that would try to capture some of the crosscurrents of American Opinion and the Antiwar Movement at the time. Now, are any of the principal characters in killing grace based on you knew from that period . Yes, several of them are. We had an interpreter at our unit in South Vietnam in the delta, who was . Chinese. Vietnamese. He had up in chalon, the chinese suburb of saigon. And one day i asked sergeant duch. His name was kept the same name. How is your war going . And he said, my war is terrible precharge, he said. And i said, w