The Face of War
The collected war reporting, which she expanded in 1967 to take in Vietnam.
Read our take
Vietnam: A New Kind of War
Six dispatches on what the war was doing to civilians, and the reporting that got her barred.
- 1966
- 34
About Martha Gellhorn
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeIn September 1966 the Guardian ran six articles by Gellhorn on what the war was doing to Vietnamese civilians. The paper collected them the same year as a thirty-four-page illustrated booklet. She was refused a visa to return to South Vietnam afterwards, and never reported from the country again. It is the shortest item in her bibliography and one of the most consequential.
The story, in more detail
Gellhorn was fifty-seven and had not reported a war in some years when she went to South Vietnam in 1966. She did not attach herself to the American briefings, which is the decision the whole series follows from. She went to the hospitals, the orphanages and the camps where displaced villagers were being held, and she wrote about what the war was doing to the people it was ostensibly being fought for. The Guardian ran the six pieces in September 1966.
The consequence was immediate. She was refused permission to return to South Vietnam and never reported from the country again, which is why a career of sixty years contains only these six articles on the defining American war of her lifetime. The Guardian collected them the same year as a thirty-four-page illustrated booklet — the physical object recorded here — and she later folded the reporting into expanded editions of The Face of War. The booklet itself is scarce.
Themes and analysis
On the cool floor
Gellhorn begins A New Kind of War with an official promise to protect the Vietnamese population, then tests that language against the hospital ward. The children sitting on cool tiles make the contrast stark: their stillness is not evidence of peace. She traces their injuries to different attacks, refusing to make civilian suffering a story about only one side’s weapons. Returning from these individual lives to the opening promise, the report makes bodily safety the measure of a policy’s credibility.
Counting the days home
In Real War and the War of Words, the soldier’s paperback and countdown shift attention from military pronouncements to an ordinary person. He talks about the aircraft, his depot job and going home. Gellhorn places their conversation between descriptions of support work and a criticism of exaggerated danger. Her affection for him complicates any simple opposition between criticizing the war and respecting its participants. The passage asks readers to notice particular hardships, including boredom, instead of treating every serviceman as the same heroic figure.
Why we recommend it
The civilians, not the campaign
She went to the hospitals and the refugee camps rather than the briefings, which is why the series reads differently from most 1966 coverage.
It cost her the assignment
Barred from returning. Few pieces of reporting carry their own consequence this legibly.
Fifty-seven years old and still going
Thirty years after Spain, in a war her own country was prosecuting.
What this book explores
Timeline
1966
Gellhorn reports from hospitals, orphanages, and camps for displaced people in South Vietnam.
September 1966
The Guardian publishes her six reports, subsequently gathered into an illustrated booklet that year.
1967
The reporting enters an expanded edition of The Face of War.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- The Guardian
- 1966
Reader reviews
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Vietnam: A New Kind of War: frequently asked questions
Who wrote Vietnam: A New Kind of War?
Martha Gellhorn. It was published in 1966.
What is Vietnam: A New Kind of War?
Six articles the Guardian ran in September 1966 on what the war was doing to Vietnamese civilians, collected the same year as a short illustrated booklet.
What happened after Gellhorn reported it?
She was refused a visa to return to South Vietnam and never reported from there again.
What was her focus?
The war's effect on Vietnamese civilians rather than the military campaign — her lifelong view from the ground.
When did she go to Vietnam?
In 1966, at fifty-seven, after some years away from war reporting.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Vietnam: A New Kind of War, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Martha Gellhorn: A Life
BiographyCaroline Moorehead, 2003Used forUsed to verify Vietnam: A New Kind of War's bibliographic context and its place within Martha Gellhorn's published work.
2Martha Gellhorn — War Correspondent and Writer | Blue Plaques
WebsiteEnglish HeritageUsed forUsed for independent archival, institutional, or historical context surrounding Martha Gellhorn and Vietnam: A New Kind of War.
3Ernest Hemingway Collection — Martha Gellhorn (Hemingway) | EH@JFK, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
WebsiteJohn F. Kennedy Presidential Library and MuseumUsed forUsed to cross-check chronology, publication history, and the circumstances in which Vietnam: A New Kind of War appeared.
4Martha Gellhorn | Historic Missourians
WebsiteThe State Historical Society of MissouriUsed forUsed for an additional scholarly or biographical perspective on Vietnam: A New Kind of War and Martha Gellhorn's wider career.
5A New Kind of War / Real War and the War of Words (Literary Journalism anthology texts)
EssaysMartha Gellhorn, 1966Used forBoth reports read in a later course anthology; page numbers belong to that anthology, not the original booklet. No original-edition collation.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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