Barry Zorthian Barry Zorthian ( October 8 , 1920 – December 30 , 2010 ) was an American diplomat , most notably press officer for years during the Vietnam war , media executive and lobbyist . " By his own reckoning , Zorthian was the last surviving member of the original cadre of U . S . diplomats and military leaders whose policy decisions shaped events in Vietnam . " Early life and education . Baryoor Zorthian was born on October 8 , 1920 , in Katahya , Turkey , the child of Armenian parents . " His father , a writer , was imprisoned in Turkey but escaped . His mother , refusing to divulge her husband ’ s whereabouts , was herself sent to jail , along with their son . [ The family ] eventually migrated to New Haven , Connecticut , the father working in a dry cleaners . Barry went to Yale , where he edited the student newspaper and joined the secretive Skull and Bones society . " Career . Military service and early career . Zorthian " was a Marine in the Pacific during World War II . After working for a Vermont newspaper [ the " Caledonian Record " ] , he joined CBS Radio and then the Voice of America ( VOA ) . He earned a law degree by attending New York University at night . " In 1948 he covered the Korean war as one of VOA ’ s first overseas correspondents . Later , he was a co - author of the VOA Charter , which persists to this day , and served as program director . In the last role , he launched several programming initiatives which were still on the air more than a half century later . Also at VOA , in response to a proposal from director Henry Loomis , Zorthian helped develop a Special English broadcasting capacity with slower word rate and limited vocabulary for non - English speakers . It was launched in 1959 and proved successful , according to a 2012 VOA review . After 13 years at VOA , Zorthian became a diplomat in India . Service in Vietnam . Zorthian was best known for his four years as chief spokesperson for the U . S . government in Saigon , Vietnam from 1964 - 68 . " His daily afternoon briefings for press correspondents . . . were dubbed “ Five O ’ Clock Follies ” by reporters frustrated by the lack of complete transparency . . . . " New York Times " Correspondent , Gloria Emerson , declared him ' a determined and brilliant liar ' at a 1981 conference on the Vietnam War . Despite the criticism , many still trusted him as an honest public official . ' He had a conscience . He believed in informing the American public , ' Neil Sheehan , a Pulitzer prize - winning author and a former " New York Times " reporter in Saigon , told the " Washington Post " . ' His problem was that he was trying to sell a bad war . ' " He was " Murrow ' s last recommendation before retiring from USIA , [ an appointment ] so sensitive that it required President Lyndon Johnson and the secretaries of state and defence , Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara , to sign off on it . " He oversaw the 500 - person Joint United States Public Affairs Office under Carl T . Rowan after Murrow retired . Other journalists he faced were members " of a tough school in American journalism covering the war [ including ] Richard Pyle , . . . Halberstam , Apple , Arnett , Kalb , Karnow – several of whom made their reputations in Vietnam . " One obituary described his job in Saigon as trying to " defuse an increasingly acrimonious relationship between American officials and news correspondents covering the war [ . He ] used a mixture of charm , sly wit and uncommonly straight talk in trying to establish credibility for the U . S . effort . . . [ H ] e refused to be intimidated by either officials or the news media . ' He talked back , ' said George McArthur , who covered the Vietnam war for " The Associated Press " and the " Los Angeles Times " [ and later was AP Cairo bureau chief ] . . . ' Barry ' s door was always open and although he never shared a classified thought , he left you feeling that he had , ' said former " New York Times " and CBS reporter Bernard Kalb . ' Even when he told you nothing , he was always persuasive . ' ' In postwar years , Barry Zorthian remained steadfast to his conviction about the significant role the media must play in a democratic society , ' said Peter Arnett , a Pulitzer Prize - winning war reporter for the " AP " in Vietnam and later a CNN foreign correspondent . . . . Arnett recalled that when he [ Arnett ] complained about an American military policeman threatening to shoot him during a 1965 Buddhist street demonstration in Saigon , ` Zorthian shook his head in mock concern , and said ` D - - - it , Peter , you threatened him and he was just responding . ' ' What ? ' I replied . ' Yes , ' Barry said , ` you were aiming your pencil at him and that ' s more dangerous around here than a . 45 . ' " Zorthian was press media advisor to three successive U . S . ambassadors to South Vietnam — Henry Cabot Lodge , Maxwell D . Taylor and Ellsworth Bunker — and to Gen . William C . Westmoreland , the U . S . military commander there . " Zorthian remained proud of his most controversial achievement . . . [ the ] Follies . . . [ T ] he briefings lasted a decade , the only regular forum in which U . S . and South Vietnamese officials spoke entirely on the record and were often challenged or contradicted by reporters , sometimes to their embarrassment . . . [ i ] n the first U . S . war without formal censorship . " The press briefings convened in the conference room and rooftop garden of the Rex Hotel , which was in a French - built , colonial - era building converted beginning in 1959 . The war history remains a selling point for the revived Ho Chi Minh City hotel in 2011 . Career after Vietnam . " After leaving Saigon in 1968 , Mr . Zorthian was an executive at Time Inc . and a lobbyist on communications issues . " " After The New York Times and other newspapers in 1971 published a history of the Vietnam War that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers , Mr . Zorthian wrote an Op - Ed column in The Times asserting that the Vietnam war had been ' the most open war in history . ' He said that almost all the important disclosures in the documents had already been known to journalists . In a letter to the editor in response , Elliot Bernstein , the ABC News Saigon bureau chief in the mid - 1960s , countered that the press had been kept in the dark about the extent of beginning in 1964 , as well as the fact that bases in Thailand were being used to conduct air raids on North Vietnam . " Zorthian retired from the Marine Corps Reserve as a Colonel in 1973 . From 1990 to 1994 , he was a member of the oversight body for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty , the Board for International Broadcasting . Speaking in a National Press Club forum on March 19 , 1991 , Zorthian said , “ The Gulf War is over and the press lost ” about coverage of the later overseas US military engagement . In the late 1990s , he became president of the Public Diplomacy Foundation ( predecessor of the Public Diplomacy Council ) and served four years in that role before occupying a seat on the Council ’ s Board much of the last decade . He testified in August 2010 , before the recently reformed Broadcasting Board of Governors on public diplomacy and VOA issues . In 2009 , Zorthian was a communications consultant with Alcalde and Fay . At that time he participated in a panel discussion on the history of the Smith - Mundt Act and the relationship between public diplomacy and the media . Personal . Zorthian was given a " 90th birthday ' roast and toast ' [ which included ] Richard Holbrooke , who was himself to die a few weeks later and who earned his diplomatic spurs in Vietnam . " Zorthian ' s wife of 62 years , Margaret Aylaian Zorthian , died in July 2010 . They are survived by two sons , Greg and Steve , a daughter - in - law and two grandchildren .