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Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspondent
This is an inspiring and thought-provoking inside story of a foreign correspondent's two adventurous careers, marked by personal crises, battles for principles and brushes with danger. It is also a candid observer's compassionate account of his role in war and peace, in the sweep of history, and is a thoughtful commentary on the urgent problems of journalism and communication today. PART Born with a Caul; The Education of a Journalist; Oaths of Devotion; Round Trip to War; Present at the Creation; Peron and Evita; PART Scoundrel Time; A Movable Feast; The Human Radar; Nothing But the Truffe; PART Reverence for Life; Swords and Ploughshares; Future The Vietnam Peace Story; the Unknown DeGaulle; Mission to Moscow; A Hero of Our Sakharov; Links and Chains; PART Return to America; A State of Mind; Academic Adventures; Afghanistan and Academia; PART Foreign Endangered Species?; Why Do They Hate Us?; Cherchez la Femme; The Spiritual Dimension.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published August 31, 1992
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March 29, 2017
Although I knew the author, Bern Redmont, for 15 years or so as a fellow parishioner in my local Unitarian-Universalist congregation, reading this book showed me that I did not know much about his life. But this book definitely did reinforce what little I did know of Bern, namely that he was a man of unusual ability, experience, and character.
Bernard Redmont was a foreign correspondent for something like 35 years, after which he took up teaching journalism at Boston University, eventually becoming Dean under President John Silber. This book tells the story of his career, and the lives he and his wife Joan lived in Mexico, Argentina, Paris, Moscow and finally in the Boston area. The tales he tells of their adventures are entertaining as well as illuminating, and rich in historical events and characters. Some of his most memorable stories involved his personal interactions with people as varied as Senator Joseph McCarthy, John F. Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle, Marilyn Monroe, and Andrei Sakharov. The stories are full of humor, intrigue, and some danger, both physical and political. With 25 years in Paris and several years in Moscow, Bern writes warmly and with humor about the challenges, joys, and accomplishments of being Americans resident in another country. (I could envy their years in Paris, but not the ones in Moscow!)
The final section of the book is more philosophical. Bern has a chapter on his wife Joan and her importance to him throughout his life, a chapter on what he sees as the regrettable decline of the role of foreign journalists, another chapter on the decline in journalism itself (mind you, this was written in the early 1990s, 20 years ago, not in the current environment of "fake news"), and a chapter on his spiritual outlook.
I was particularly keen to read this because I had known Bern and Joan (they both died in the winter of 2016-2017), but I think most anyone would enjoy it who has an interest in journalism or in the events of the period from 1950-1990. Bern's writing is good, clear, erudite, personal and direct but not pretentious. He does get slightly long-winded on one or two topics, but overall it is a tightly written narrative.
Bern was quite a guy, and I miss him. Reading this book helped me to know him better.
Bernard Redmont was a foreign correspondent for something like 35 years, after which he took up teaching journalism at Boston University, eventually becoming Dean under President John Silber. This book tells the story of his career, and the lives he and his wife Joan lived in Mexico, Argentina, Paris, Moscow and finally in the Boston area. The tales he tells of their adventures are entertaining as well as illuminating, and rich in historical events and characters. Some of his most memorable stories involved his personal interactions with people as varied as Senator Joseph McCarthy, John F. Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle, Marilyn Monroe, and Andrei Sakharov. The stories are full of humor, intrigue, and some danger, both physical and political. With 25 years in Paris and several years in Moscow, Bern writes warmly and with humor about the challenges, joys, and accomplishments of being Americans resident in another country. (I could envy their years in Paris, but not the ones in Moscow!)
The final section of the book is more philosophical. Bern has a chapter on his wife Joan and her importance to him throughout his life, a chapter on what he sees as the regrettable decline of the role of foreign journalists, another chapter on the decline in journalism itself (mind you, this was written in the early 1990s, 20 years ago, not in the current environment of "fake news"), and a chapter on his spiritual outlook.
I was particularly keen to read this because I had known Bern and Joan (they both died in the winter of 2016-2017), but I think most anyone would enjoy it who has an interest in journalism or in the events of the period from 1950-1990. Bern's writing is good, clear, erudite, personal and direct but not pretentious. He does get slightly long-winded on one or two topics, but overall it is a tightly written narrative.
Bern was quite a guy, and I miss him. Reading this book helped me to know him better.
Displaying 1 of 1 review