From: Rick Fredericksen
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Thanks Rodger for posting my little blurb in Vietnam magazine. It is getting good comment as well on the AFVN email group.
From: David Youngman
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
All this resulted in me being called by the Air Force Pentagon office to volunteer to go to Saigon AFVN in 1970.
From: Brian Whalen
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Robert Lawrence, is it going to be in a book? Sounds like a good read where ever it will be.
From: Randall Moody
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Robert Lawrence, looking forward to that story!
From: Les Howard Jacoby
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
David, I, too, was with AFVN, Saigon in 1970 as host of The Dawnbuster.
TIME Magazine's posed photo of the four involved in the Censorship controversry.
[Posted on Facebook by Rick Fredericksen on January 17, 2020.]
Subject: Facebook Comments on TIME Magazine Photo
From: Jerry Nelson
Dated: January 28, 2020
Rick, are you saying that after the newscast that the powers-that-be let Time Magazine come into the station and take pictures of the four of you? I know that when I arrived in January 1970, that Bob and Tom ere already gone from AFVN and you and Hugh were up country.
Subject: Facebook Comments on TIME Magazine Photo
From: Rick Fredericksen
Dated: January 28, 2020
Yes, some time after the Lawrence newscast and after the peak of allegations, the commanders did allow Time to cone into the station and position us around the anchor desk for Time's story on the censorship issue. They cooperated with Time as well as with others. I was interviewed in the day room by a TV network reporter--I think it was ABC.
From: Rick Fredericksen
Dated: January 6, 2020
Subject: Censorship
John, great story and good background on your programming "policy." You were clearly our of the reach of AFVN. I'm not qualified to answer your question but look forward to input from the group. I can say this: I would have liked to serve under Gen. Tolson. Rick
Rick Fredericksen
AFVN Group Conversations
From: Dick Ellis
Dated: January 6, 2020
Subject: Censorship
He was on the air giving the ANZAC News when the bomb went off next to the station....
From: Dick Ellis
Dated: January 6, 2020
Subject: Censorship
General Tolson was from North Carolina and married to a distant cousin of mine. I got to speak with him while in Vietnam and everybody around him wanted to know why he would spend his time with a Spec-4. I also spent more time with him when he moved to Raleigh. A really good man!!!!
Dickie
From: Rick Fredericksen
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
As a reminder, the first inside story of the overall censorship controversy at AFVN is covered in depth in the e-book "Broadcasters: Untold Chaos." Just google it. On Amazon and other digital platforms.
From: Ken Kalish
Dated: January 8, 2020
Subject: Censorship
John,
Frank, the Aussie reports were written out of the Aussie IEEAF office, run by an Aussie Major. The enlisted guys wrote the copy gave it to the Major, then got it back and read it. I was in their office frequently, and never once saw the Major do anything other than pick the copy up and move it from the in box to the out box. He didn’t even read it.
Side note: the first time I went to that office I was in my Navy jungle greens. I was sitting on the couch waiting for some film to be processed and a guy walked in wearing a long-sleeve tee shirt with broad blue and yellow stripes. He saw me and said “Hello, Petty Officer,” and I said “Hi, how’s it going?” He walked into an office marked CDR and closed the door. Sgt. Hounslow came over and bumped my arm: “Holy shit! That’s the Major! Try to at least say ‘sir’!”
Ken
From: Ken Kalish
Dated: January 8, 2020
Subject: Censorship
John,
Forrest, I’m sure Nash was an Army Artillery LTC. If I’m wrong, I’d sure like to know where I got that idea. I interpreted your CMD to be an Army guy’s take on the Navy CDR (also an O-5).
Ken
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The following comments are from a somewhat concurrent discussion on Facebook.
From: Rodger McKnight
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
January 3, 1970
Internal dissent over MACV censorship at AFVN blew up when Specialist Bob Lawrence ended his live TV newscast alleging that “a newscaster at AFVN is not free to tell the truth.” Lawrence was reassigned as a chaplain’s assistant. The protest prompted a congressional investigation and command censorship would end the following year.
From: David Youngman
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
I was News, did TV anchor and radio news before moving up country.
From: John Bagwell
Dated: January 6, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Interesting. There were lots of great stories about General Tolson.
The 1st Cav PIO had a guy who was our official "scrounger." I wish I could remember his name. This guy could trade and get almost anything. I remember one day they called us out to dig a bunker. He told us to put down our shovels and within a few minutes a backhoe pulled up and dug it for us. He had traded something for the use of that equipment.
This was before computers, obviously, and he kept everything on index cards. This guy had -- or could get anything.
Once An Khe had been under attack for several weeks and we could not get any supplies in. General Tolson sent his aide over to our enlisted club to borrow a case of beer. The bartender advised him that no supplies had come in. His aide replied, The General knows that. He also knows that if there are two cases of beer on base that PIO has both of them". The bartender reached under the bar and handed him a case to which he replied, "The General thanks you." Several weeks later, after we got supplies, the General sent us enlisted men a case of beer with a note that he was returning the favor.
I'm not sure I ever knew another officer that was so kind to a regular enlisted person.
John Bagwell
From: Les Howard Jacoby
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Tim, Anti-war lyrics were banned on AFVN for troop morale reasons.
From: Rodger McKnight
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Robert Lawrence looking forward to the story.
Censorship - 50 Years Later - Page Two
January 2020
From: Tim Abney
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Robert Lawrence I can hardly wait. Being at KLIK where we experienced NO censorship (at least while I was there), I've always found AFVN's policies weird. Especially when it came to the music they wouldn't allow.
From: Forrest Brandt
Dated: January 6, 2020
Subject: Censorship
That should have read “followed by the !st Cav."
From: Rick Fredericksen
Dated: January 6, 2020
Subject: 50 Years Ago Today
Frank, on its surface, submitting copy to the lieutenant before airing might not be censorship, but just the normal editing process. In my civilian news jobs after the war I typically had to submit my stories to an editor which is simple good newsroom practice. Newscasting is a little more difficult; to edit every story, every hour, but in general I favor editors---they have saved my ass many times from embarrassing mistakes. Of course I don't know about the situation you describe.
Rick Fredericksen
From: Steve Pennington
Dated: February 14, 2015
Subject: Restoring This WWII B-29 Bomber Has Taken 300K Hours So Far
This is an amazing airplane project. Before I retired from Boeing 9 years ago I would check out the progress whenevver I was in Wichita. Andy Labosky , who was one our Navs in the 11th ARS when I was at Altus, was one of the drivers in the effort. I have a chunk of the airplane on my bookshelf in my den. What a great success story.
Steve Pennington
From: Nancy Smoyer
Dated: January 7, 2020
Subject: Censorship
John,
I love your story about General Tolson. He was the general when I was a Donut Dollie at An Khe April to July 67. He loved us and called us his girls. He made it very easy for us to get out in the field. At one point he said something to the effect that here all these guys in their battle gear and the girls in blue dresses.
Nancy
From: Michael Goucher
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Do keep me in the loop. I was just DEROSed when all that sh!t hit the fan and I was amazed that finally someone had the cojones to speak up.
From: Thom Whetston
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Robert Lawrence, I really want to see that.
From: Robert Lawrence
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Former Marine Corporal Tom Sinkovitz reminded me that tonight, January 3, 2020, is the 50th anniversary of my charges of censorship at AFVN, Saigon, on our late evening TV newscast. As usual, I anchored the news and Tom anchored sports, and while I made the charges at the end of my news segment, his words of support at the beginning of his sports report, got him in trouble along with me. While much has been written by others over the years regarding that night and the aftermath, I’ve abstained from writing my own account due to work and family obligations. Now, unrestrained, I’m writing my account of that and more for publication by the end of this year or shortly thereafter. It’s a saga covering my being pro war and drafted, given assurance of remaining in my broadcast profession, ending up in the infantry, threatened with court martial in Korea in my attempt to escape to AFKN, becoming the lead attorney in a court martial trial, winding up at a Nike missile base in California, using my sway over a Pentagon Army colonel I’d saved from disgrace to get a transfer to AFVN, but assigned to the infantry instead. It was a wild ride to be sure.
From: Rodger McKnight
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
I was questioned about censorship before the E-5 board. “l know nothing “
From: Les Howard Jacoby
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Anxious to read your account, Bob. Please give me a heads-up to where to find it when you are able to release the info. Thanks!
From: Frank Rogers
Dated: January 6, 2020
Subject: Censorship
At least in 1970, an Aussie military man came into Saigon station to give a short Australian news report and other info for Australian troops. I believe it was weekly. I have no idea if his report needed to be cleared by MACV or anyone.
FrankR
From: Robert Lawrence
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Thom Whetston Thanks, Thom, and you shall.
From: Joe Huser
Dated: January 3, 2020
Subject: Censorship
Thank you ...I was at AFVN Saigon 72-73
See Below for How this Picture Came About.
Posted on Facebook by Rick Fredericksen on January 17, 2020.
Subject: Facebook Comment
From: Jerry Nelson
Dated: January 27, 2020
Rick, are you saying that after the newscast that the powers-that-be let Time Magazine come into the station and take pictures of the four of you? I know that when I arrived in January 70 that Bob and Tom were already gone from AFVN and you and Hugh were up country.
Subject: Facebook Comment
From: Rick Fredericksen
Dated: January 27, 2020
Yes, some time after the Lawrence newscast and after the peak of allegations the commanders did allow Time to come into the station and position us around the anchor desk for Time's story on the censorship issue. They cooperated with Time as well as others. I was interviewed in the day room by a TV network reporter---I think it was ABC.
From: Forrest Brandt
Dated: January 6, 2020
Subject: Censorship
John, read the story of KLIK on the AFVN website. 1st ID had it’s radio station going in 1966 until they came home in 1970. To parallel your story, I was sent to Saigon in November of 68 to “ask” LTC Nash for airtime for a 15 minute weekly show about the First ID in Vietnam. Nash was none to happy, but by mid-December we had a show on a regular slot floored by the 1st Car.
Forrest