The General Goes Zapping Charlie Cong

The General Goes Zapping Charlie Cong is an example of The New Journalism by Nicholas Tomalin, an English journalist, in 1966. The narrative relates the activities of General James F. Hollingsworth during The Zapping Mission of the Vietnam War. This narrative first appeared in the British newspaper The Sunday Times.

Nicholas Tomalin (30 October 1931 – 17 October 1973) was an English investigative reporter and foreign correspondent who wrote for various London newspapers throughout his professional career. He died while reporting the 1973 Arab- Israeli Yom Kippur War. His father was a communist, which may have given him a unique perspective when reporting the Cold War proxy conflict that was the Vietnam War. Tomalin wrote "The General Goes Zapping Charlie Cong" for the weekly London paper The Sunday Times, which ran the story on 5 June 1966. In 1959, the paper had been acquired by Lord Roy Thomson, a Canadian media entrepreneur, and incorporated into his larger media conglomerate; in 1966, he also bought The Times.

General James Francis Hollingsworth (24 March 1918 – 2 March 2010) was born in Sanger, Texas on a family farm. He graduated from Texas A&M in 1940 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. A decorated and battle hardened World War II veteran, Hollingsworth had attained the age of forty- eight and rank of Brigadier General by the time Tomalin covered him for the Sunday Times article. He continued to gain distinction (as well as various awards for merit and valor) throughout his term of service in Vietnam, and soon rose to be an integral combat leader in the American operations carried out in the region between Saigon and the Vietnam- Cambodia border (especially the strategically valuable "Iron Triangle"). In addition to his distinction in combat, Tomalin’s article would subsequently gain Hollingsworth considerable notoriety.

Tomalin spent his day reporting on General Hollingsworth in 1966, during the period of escalation (i.e. increased U.S. involvement in the ground war) initiated by President Lyndon B. Johnson. This escalation was carried out in an attempt to halt the U.S. and South Vietnamese "losing trend" that had prevailed in prior months. The escalation was carried out in accordance with Phase Two of General William Westmoreland’s three- point victory plan. The escalation marked a significant shift in U.S. strategy (defensive to offensive), and provoked a matching escalation on the part of the North Vietnamese, trapping the two combatants in a perpetuating cycle of escalation. A key region wherein this escalation strategy was employed was the Iron Triangle, a 120 square mile area located roughly twenty-five miles north of Saigon, precisely the region that Hollingsworth describes to Tomalin at the outset of the article. Route 13 is a major thoroughfare running from Saigon, through the Iron Triangle, to the Cambodian border. It is a landmark that General Hollingsworth refers to specifically early in Tomalin’s article. The divisional office at Ki-Na (where Tomalin begins the narrative) is situated twenty miles north of Saigon, meaning that it was just to the south (or on the southern edge) of the Iron Triangle. The Iron Triangle was an insurgent stronghold during this period, where the Viet Minh maintained an elaborate tunnel system and logistic outposts. The strength of insurgent forces in this region posed a particularly palpable threat to the U.S. Forces and U.S.- backed South Vietnamese government due to the region’s close proximity to Saigon. The U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division (A.K.A. "The Big Red One", in which Hollingsworth was a general) carried out operations throughout this area during the period 1965-1970. These missions employed typical counterinsurgency tactics that were being fine- tuned in many countries engaged in civil and revolutionary wars during this era. Some major offensive missions undertaken (or participated in) by the 1st Infantry Division during this period were Operation Attleboro, Operation Cedar Falls, and Operation Junction City. Operation Attleboro was carried out in November 1966, the same year that Tomalin reported on General Hollingsworth. Of particular importance to these operations were Search and Destroy tactics—strategies wherein forces are succinctly inserted, seek out enemy forces, destroy them, and quickly withdraw. This allowed a smaller number of troops to secure and occupy a comparatively larger geographic area. However, Search and Destroy tactics were notorious for being carried overboard, and massive civilian casualties were often an unfortunate consequence. This was one factor contributing to international dissent and protest regarding the conflict, and also proved to be a significant obstacle to the pacification of the region. Against this background, the mission described by Tomalin was evidently a search and destroy mission, carried out in the southern part of the Iron Triangle in 1966, which General Hollingsworth participated in actively. The General uses an M16 (AR-15) carbine (rifle), flies in a Bell Iroquois UH-1B helicopter, which carries two M60 7.62×51mm calibre machine guns; all of these items were typical standard- issue equipment. On the whole, it seems that Tomalin witnessed a fairly representative Search and Destroy mission, a quotidian undertaking for General Hollingsworth.

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