From the Publisher

By Louis A. Weil III

War leaves painful memories of death and destruction. Yet, as George Santayana wrote, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Last week the clock ticked on for the opposing armies in the Persian Gulf, and some of the correspondents who covered Vietnam for TIME during the fighting there reflected on lessons from that conflict and how they might be applied to our coverage of the gulf crisis.

In one important way, things are the same. "Soldiers waiting for action are usually alike: anxious, annoyed, bored," recalls Tokyo bureau chief Barry Hillenbrand, who spent two years in Vietnam and later reported on the war between Iran and Iraq. Geographically, though, the two places are worlds apart. Senior correspondent James Wilde observed combat scenes for six years in Vietnam, "spending hours floundering around in swamps, up to the waist in water." Says Wilde, who is based in Rome: "Give me the desert anytime." The jungle terrain and guerrilla nature of the war in Southeast Asia made for unconventional fighting, recalls correspondent James Willwerth. During his 14 months in Vietnam, he witnessed ground won in bitter campaigns at great human cost changing hands again and again. By contrast, he says, a war in the gulf area would be more of a conventional military operation with a well-defined front.

That difference would have vital implications for journalists. Chicago bureau chief Gavin Scott, who was based in Saigon in the early 1970s, believes the freedom that reporters had to "go up the road in search of action" will disappear in the sands of the desert. Nor, reporters foresee, will their job be made easier. TIME's bureau chief in Washington, Stanley Cloud, was Saigon bureau chief for more than a year. The Pentagon, he says, learned at least one lesson in Vietnam: "Don't ever again let the press have free rein to cover a war pretty much as it sees fit." International editor Karsten Prager, who as a correspondent spent much time in the field during three years in Vietnam, agrees. "Newsmen had direct access," he says, "unlike what is happening now. You walked with a platoon or a company and covered things on the ground, not from headquarters." That kind of reporting gives the most accurate perspective on the drama and despair of war. It is surpassed only by the much more satisfying job of reporting the peaceful resolution of any conflict.