A Veteran Reporter On American Power And The Modern World

Longtime foreign correspondent H.D.S. Greenway opens his notebooks on American power abroad—and how it’s changed.

To be an American foreign correspondent in the last half the 20^th century was a pretty heady experience.  Of conflict, war, peril there was plenty.  But the US was on top of the world, and everybody knew it.  Correspondent H.D.S Greenway was in the thick of it for nearly 50 years.  From Vietnam to Iraq.  Now, as another US president prepares another military campaign abroad – Obama against ISIS – and American correspondents are beheaded in the desert, this celebrated global reporter is taking stock.  This hour, On Point:  a life in the news and America’s role and standing in the world now.
- Tom Ashbrook

H.D.S. Greenway, former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post and Time magazine. Former contributing columnist for the Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune, and Global Post. His new memoir is "Foreign Correspondent."

The Washington Post: A long-time foreign reporter reflects on his career - "Greenway is obviously a pretty cool customer, a patrician Yankee with impeccable bloodlines that go right back to a couple of signers of the Declaration of Independence — a breed of cat that used to be much more commonplace in the newsrooms of big American newspapers than it is today — but he’s not embarrassed to show genuine feeling."

The Wall Street Journal: Book Review: 'Foreign Correspondent' by H.D.S. Greenway - "When H.D.S. Greenway was hired at Time magazine in 1962, Henry Luce told him to always travel first class. These are words that no reporter is likely to hear again, ever. Mr. Greenway's memoir, 'Foreign Correspondent,' depicts a vanished world."

The Boston Globe: How we talk about Israel - "The Middle East kept drawing me back again and again during my Boston years. We established a bureau in Jerusalem, and I would be tear-gassed in various Palestinian intifadahs. At one point I complained to Yitzhak Rabin, who was back in power, that the tear gas his country was using was unusually strong. 'Well,' he said, 'we got it from you Americans.'"