Oral history transcript, Barry Zorthian, interview 1 (I), 5/6/1969, by Paige E. Mulhollan

Assignment to Saigon; Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge acts as his own press officer; Vietnam press relations an issue at the Honolulu conference of 1964; unifying press relations functions in JUSPAO; the maximum candor policy; origin of the "Five O'Clock Follies" press conference; accusations of false optimism about Vietnam, as in McNamara's "light at the end of the tunnel" statement; persistent pessimism about Vietnam in the press; quantifying the war, as in body counts; the Hamlet Evaluation Survey (HES); the censorship issue; lifting Ev Martin's (Newsweek) credentials; Oriana Falacci; overall performance of the press in Vietnam; the Caravelle Bar issue; individual journalists characterized; TV journalism; Morley Safer; LBJ and the press in Vietnam; the optimism of W. Rostow; briefing visiting VIPs; LBJ on peasant land ownership; Ambassadors Taylor, Lodge, and Bunker compared; reassignment from Vietnam; a contribution to the 1968 HHH campaign