In 1965 he was sent to cover the 1965 India-Pakistan War. Whilst working for the "Daily Mirror"s New York City bureau he reported on the 1968 Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and on the May 1970 Bogota Bracelet scandal involving England's captain, Bobby Moore, before the 1970 World Cup. Hitchen returned to London on the news desk for the "Daily Mirror" in 1972, later joining the "Daily Express" in the same post where he remained between 1973 and 1978.