Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from the War

Although his career continued for almost three decades after the 1939publication of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck is still most closely associated with hisDepression-era works of social struggle.

But from Pearl Harbor on, he often wrote passionateaccounts of America's wars based on his own firsthand experience.

Vietnam was noexception.Thomas E. Barden's Steinbeck in Vietnam offersfor the first time a complete collection of the dispatches Steinbeck wrote as a war correspondentfor Newsday.

Rejected by the military because of his reputation as a subversive,and reticent to document the war officially for the Johnson administration, Steinbeck saw inNewsday a unique opportunity to put his skills to use.

Between December 1966 andMay 1967, the sixty-four-year-old Steinbeck toured the major combat areas of SouthVietnam and traveled to the north of Thailand and into Laos, documenting his experiences in a seriesof columns titled Letters to Alicia, in reference to Newsday publisher Harry F.

Guggenheim's deceased wife. His columns were controversial, coming at a time when oppositionto the conflict was growing and even ardent supporters were beginning to question its course.

As hedared to go into the field, rode in helicopter gunships, and even fired artillery pieces, manydetractors called him a warmonger and worse.

Readers today might be surprised that the celebratedauthor would risk his literary reputation to document such a divisive war, particularly at the endof his career.Drawing on four primary-source archives-the Steinbeckcollection at Princeton, the Papers of Harry F.

Guggenheim at the Library of Congress, the PierpontMorgan Library's Steinbeck holdings, and the archives ofNewsday-Barden's collection brings together the last publishedwritings of this American author of enduring national and international stature.

In addition tooffering a definitive edition of these essays, Barden includes extensive notes as well as anintroduction that provides background on the essays themselves, the military situation, the socialcontext of the 1960s, and Steinbeck's personal and political attitudes at thetime.