Gloria Emerson
Encyclopedia
Gloria Emerson was an American
author, journalist and New York Times war correspondent
, who won a National Book Award
for her book about the Vietnam War
, Winners and Losers.
During her long career, she wrote four books as well as articles for Esquire
, Harper's, Vogue
, Playboy
, Saturday Review and Rolling Stone
.
and Paris
bureaus until she convinced the paper, as she said in the obituary she wrote for herself, "that she be sent to Vietnam because she had been in that country in 1956 and wanted to go back to write about the Vietnamese people and the immense unhappy changes in their lives, not a subject widely covered by the huge press corps who were preoccupied with covering the military story."
Among her first reports for The New York Times, Emerson exposed false "body counts" and "unearned commendations" to field-grade officers and the use of hard drugs by American soldiers. She also reported on the suffering of the Vietnamese people. At a 1981 conference on the Vietnam War, Emerson declared U.S. spokesman and host of the Five O'Clock Follies Saigon briefings Barry Zorthian
"a determined and brilliant liar."
In her self-written obituary, which reporters at the Times discovered on the day she died, Emerson described the plaudits that came her way:
One of the most quoted parts of the book was Emerson's condemnation of "killing at a distance":
and Yoko Ono
at the Apple Records
headquarters in London, during which she disputed the effectiveness of Lennon and Ono's anti-war campaign, undertaken at great professional and financial cost to the Lennons. Her abrupt manner and skeptical approach enraged Lennon. Ironically, given Emerson's own anti-establishment positions, the interview became famous as an example of the establishment press resistance to the Lennons' peace movement. The interview was prominently featured in the 1988 documentary Imagine: John Lennon
and the 2006 movie The U.S. vs. John Lennon.
Emerson said at the time—and repeated decades later—that she believed the Beatles and Lennon "could have stopped the war" had they performed for U.S. troops in Vietnam.
for Social Justice Journalism.
as "beguiling and memorable... a funny, moving and strangely profound novel". The novel sprang from Emerson's fascination with the British novelist Graham Greene
whom she had interviewed in Antibes
in March 1978 for the magazine Rolling Stone
. It is set partly in Princeton, New Jersey
, where she lived (and taught) for many years, and in Algiers
, where she visited briefly in 1992 at the outset of the Algerian civil war
which claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people. This fiction is the distillation of Emerson's experience as a journalist and an activist. This novel was the first book by Emerson to be translated into a foreign language and appeared in France in April 2007.
in 2004. Unable to contemplate a future in which she could not write, Emerson committed suicide
on August 3, 2004.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author, journalist and New York Times war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
, who won a National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
for her book about the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, Winners and Losers.
During her long career, she wrote four books as well as articles for Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, Harper's, Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
, Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
, Saturday Review and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
.
Coverage of Vietnam
Born to wealthy bluebloods William B. Emerson and Ruth Shaw Emerson, Gloria Emerson, who grew to 6' tall, spent some of her youth in Saigon. It was there that she first began to write for the newspapers, freelancing for The New York Times in 1956. Subsequently tiring of writing only about fashion, she returned to America and quit to get married. Returning in 1964 to the Times, she worked in the paper's LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
bureaus until she convinced the paper, as she said in the obituary she wrote for herself, "that she be sent to Vietnam because she had been in that country in 1956 and wanted to go back to write about the Vietnamese people and the immense unhappy changes in their lives, not a subject widely covered by the huge press corps who were preoccupied with covering the military story."
Among her first reports for The New York Times, Emerson exposed false "body counts" and "unearned commendations" to field-grade officers and the use of hard drugs by American soldiers. She also reported on the suffering of the Vietnamese people. At a 1981 conference on the Vietnam War, Emerson declared U.S. spokesman and host of the Five O'Clock Follies Saigon briefings Barry Zorthian
Barry Zorthian
Barry Zorthian 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...
"a determined and brilliant liar."
In her self-written obituary, which reporters at the Times discovered on the day she died, Emerson described the plaudits that came her way:
Her dispatches from Vietnam won a George Polk Award for excellence in foreign reporting, and, later, a Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications. Her nonfiction book on the war, Winners & Losers (Random House, 1977), won a National Book AwardNational Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in 1978 but she described it as "too huge and somewhat messy". Its subject was the effects of the conflict on some Americans, or "an absence of the effect", as she once said.
One of the most quoted parts of the book was Emerson's condemnation of "killing at a distance":
Americans cannot perceive — even the most decent among us — the suffering caused by the United States air war in Indochina and how huge are the graveyards we have created there. To a reporter recently returned from Vietnam, it often seems that much of our fury and fear is reserved for busing, abortion, mugging, and liberation of some kind. ... As Anthony LewisAnthony LewisAnthony Lewis is a prominent liberal intellectual, writing for The New York Times op-ed page and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He was previously a columnist for the Times . Before that he was London bureau chief , Washington, D.C...
once wrote, our military technology is so advanced that we kill at a distance and insulate our consciences by the remoteness of the killing.
John Lennon and the anti-war movement
In December 1969, Emerson conducted a very contentious interview with John LennonJohn Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
at the Apple Records
Apple Records
Apple Records is a record label founded by The Beatles in 1968, as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger, and Billy Preston...
headquarters in London, during which she disputed the effectiveness of Lennon and Ono's anti-war campaign, undertaken at great professional and financial cost to the Lennons. Her abrupt manner and skeptical approach enraged Lennon. Ironically, given Emerson's own anti-establishment positions, the interview became famous as an example of the establishment press resistance to the Lennons' peace movement. The interview was prominently featured in the 1988 documentary Imagine: John Lennon
Imagine: John Lennon
Imagine: John Lennon is a soundtrack album of popular music composed by John Lennon for the 1988 documentary film, Imagine: John Lennon...
and the 2006 movie The U.S. vs. John Lennon.
Emerson said at the time—and repeated decades later—that she believed the Beatles and Lennon "could have stopped the war" had they performed for U.S. troops in Vietnam.
Gaza, a Year in the Intifada
This 1991 book is about a year she spent in the occupied territories. "The book provoked hostility among friends, and others felt it was anti-Israel, but Ms. Emerson insisted this was not the reason for writing it," she explained in her obituary; "she hoped to provide a primer for those who felt the situation in the Middle East was too complicated or too controversial to understand." She won a 1991 James Aronson AwardJames Aronson Award
James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism has been awarded by Hunter College since 1990.It is to honor the Hunter College professor of journalism and editor James Aronson....
for Social Justice Journalism.
Loving Graham Greene
In 2000 Emerson published her only novel, Loving Graham Greene, described by William Boyd in The New York Times Book ReviewThe New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
as "beguiling and memorable... a funny, moving and strangely profound novel". The novel sprang from Emerson's fascination with the British novelist Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
whom she had interviewed in Antibes
Antibes
Antibes is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.It lies on the Mediterranean in the Côte d'Azur, located between Cannes and Nice. The town of Juan-les-Pins is within the commune of Antibes...
in March 1978 for the magazine Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
. It is set partly in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
, where she lived (and taught) for many years, and in Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, where she visited briefly in 1992 at the outset of the Algerian civil war
Algerian Civil War
The Algerian Civil War was an armed conflict between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups which began in 1991. It is estimated to have cost between 150,000 and 200,000 lives, in a population of about 25,010,000 in 1990 and 31,193,917 in 2000.More than 70 journalists were...
which claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people. This fiction is the distillation of Emerson's experience as a journalist and an activist. This novel was the first book by Emerson to be translated into a foreign language and appeared in France in April 2007.
Parkinson's Disease
Emerson was diagnosed with Parkinson's DiseaseParkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
in 2004. Unable to contemplate a future in which she could not write, Emerson committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
on August 3, 2004.
Personal
On her application to the Times in 1957, Emerson described herself as a widow, giving her married name as Znamiecki. She was married to Charles A. Brofferio from 1960 to 1961.External links
- "Gloria Emerson, Chronicler of War's Damage, Dies at 75", Craig R. Whitney, New York Times, August 5, 2004
- "Journalist Gloria Emerson Dies", Patricia Sullivan, Washington Post, August 6, 2004
- Editor and Publisher
- "Gloria Emerson: Vietnam War reporter with an eye for illuminating detail", Nicholas J. Cull, IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, August 17, 2004