But after the Communist victory came the refugees to Thailand and the floods of boat people desperately seeking to escape the Cambodian killing fields and the Vietnamese gulags. Their eloquent testimony should have put paid to all illusions. At the least Shawcross was saying that the human costs, all costs, needed to be weighed in any summary judgment of the war, that in Vietnam these costs compelled a close consideration of the benefits and necessities supposedly being purchased by them. Different answers were possible. Something else is important to me now as I close out my 40 Post years.
Journalism wears many guises.
I think its ultimate justification is not to solve problems and set policies but to look truth in the eye, as much as one can, clearly and fairly, even when it hurts. This in turn poses a requirement to purge the mind of workaday vanity and political excuses. I am working on it. News Jobs AP Shopping Archives Entertain.