Muddy Boots and Red Socks:: A Reporter's Life

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Browne was among the first journalists to question the American presence in Southeast Asia. Here he reveals how he came to be regarded as something close to a traitor by U.S. military authorities in Saigon (and at the U.S. embassy), and how he was treated as an enemy by the South Vietnamese government. In his detailed reminiscences of his experiences in Vietnam, Latin America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere, Browne clearly knows about the problems, dangers and tricks of his trade. He covered Operation Desert Storm as a disgruntled member of one of the ``licensed tour groups called pools'' and charges that the reporting of the 1990-1991 war was perforce misleading. ``Honest reporting,'' he maintains, ``is the last thing most people want when the subject is war.'' Having seen a good deal of the world, met its people and witnessed its governments, Browne is chilling in his warnings about overpopulation and its impact. ``I have seen the future and it doesn't work. It's the Third World, and it's coming our way, as inexorably as the Africanized killer bees of Brazil.'' Photos. (Sept.)