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.
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
At fifty-seven, Gellhorn reports from South Vietnam's hospitals, orphanages, and displaced-villager camps rather than the American briefings; the Guardian runs the six pieces that September and collects them as a thirty-four-page booklet. She is then refused a visa to return.
1967
She folds the reporting into an expanded edition of The Face of War; she never reports from Vietnam again.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- The Guardian
- 1966
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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.