Going beyond the first draft of history

Endy Bayuni, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"The war ended at 11:35 this morning."

These words, which appeared in a Reuters news flash on April 30, 1975, came from a dispatch by Nayan Chanda, correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review who was then working with a British news agency while covering the last days of the Vietnam War.

Being one of the few journalists to remain in what was then the capital of South Vietnam, his story virtually broke the news to the rest of the world.

But if a journalist is said to write the first draft of history, India-born Chanda has gone one beyond most other reporters who witnessed that monumental event which changed the history of Asia. He got to write the history himself.

As a trained historian, Chanda wrote an authoritative book about the Indochina war that broke out after the Vietnam War ended. In fact, Brother Enemy: The War after the War (Harcourt Brace, 1986), starts with his personal account of the fall of Saigon.

"I was fortunate to witness the end of a historic war, although I was the very last to appear on the scene," Chanda, who was in Jakarta last week to visit friends, says, recalling that thousands of journalists had been covering the war before him.

The fall of Saigon was such a historical moment that Chanda can still recount the event vividly as if it was yesterday.

"I was sitting in the office that morning, writing a report about the end coming nearer because I just witnessed the last of Americans take off from the embassy roof top ... I went back to the Reuters office and wrote the report about the impending fall of Saigon. I had hardly finished writing when, through the open door, I saw a tank across the street. At the back of the tank, a red flag (the North Vietnamese flag) was hanging. I rushed out to take pictures of the tank going into the palace. Then I came back and wrote the one-sentence flash."

Besides his familiarity with the history of Indochina, Chanda has had access to the various archives, as well as to the major players, of the Indochina War - thanks to his profession - that he was able to piece together the events that led to the Indochina War involving China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

He admits that later historians would be in a better position to explain the events that led to the war as more of the archives from that period become available. "But I'd like to think that my book is a sort of provisional history of the period."

A journalist and a historian -- that's a potent combination that opens up all sorts of career possibilities. In Chanda's case, it turned him into a prolific writer.

He has written and edited no less than 13 books. His latest work is The Age of Terror: America and the World after September 11 (Basic Books, January 2002) which he co-edited with Strobe Talbott. Although no longer with the Review, he still regularly writes op-ed columns on Asian affairs for the International Herald Tribune.

It was his study of Asian history -- he majored in the subject while doing his post-graduate studies in international relations at the Sorbonne -- which gave him his first break into journalism. In 1974, he was asked by the Review to become its Indochina correspondent in Saigon on account of his academic background.

As a journalist he became privy to a number of historical moments, getting a "front row" seat as he calls it. The fall of Saigon was only one of several. He witnessed the birth of Bangladesh in 1971, then, as a student in India, he was stringing for the Review and covering the declaration of independence from a village near the Indian border. He also witnessed the start of the Indochina War in 1979, covering it from a Vietnamese village when it came under attack from China.

His academic training as a historian served him well.

"Journalism, in many ways is writing the first draft of history. You're watching things happening before you, and you're trying to assess the significance."

He feels that history and journalism are entirely compatible.

"History gives you the rearview mirror. You're moving forward but you're looking in the rearview mirror of what has happened in the past, and assessing the present in the light of what happened in the past."

Chanda sees historical similarities between Afghanistan and Indonesia in their struggle for a national identity in the post- colonial era.

"Indonesia as a nation was a new concept. Sukarno succeeded in building what historians called an `imagined community'. Soeharto succeeded in building the state, which was structured to hold the nation together," he said.

This historical awareness, he believes, is crucial not only in understanding the present. "This awareness is very helpful in making the right policies."

Chanda became familiar with Indonesia, especially on foreign affairs and security policies, through his work for the Review.

His first interview with an Indonesian political figure was with then foreign minister Adam Malik in 1973. Other figures with whom he became familiar include Ali Alatas, Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, Benny Murdani, and Ali Murtopo.

As a stringer and later a correspondent, Chanda worked his way up the career ladder at the Hong Kong-based Review all the way to become its editor in 1996. He quit the magazine last year and moved to New Haven, Connecticut, to work as director of publication for the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, part of the prestigious Yale University.

His passion for writing and reading about East Asian affairs and history remains as strong as it has ever been, although his new work takes him to a different field.

"Having spent close to 30 years in East Asia, obviously I cannot walk away from it. In terms of writing a book on Asia, may be it is not something I will do in the immediate future. But I certainly would like to come back to some Asian themes eventually."