OPC member Edie Lederer visited Horst Faas, also an OPC member, in Germany in July, and they started making plans for a reunion of Vietnam War correspondents in Ho Chi Minh City next year on April 30, the 35th anniversary of the end of that war.
In a message to former Vietnam correspondents, Lederer wrote, “While some have said the old Saigon of the ’60s and early ’70s is gone, Ho Chi Minh City remains fascinating to us, and we look forward to seeing the changes to the city. We also look forward to seeing our old Vietnamese colleagues and meeting young Vietnamese.”
Faas, 75, veteran AP photographer, was paralyzed from the waist down by a spinal illness when he visited Hanoi in 2005.
Lederer, chief AP correspondent at the U. N. , reported on August 5, “I visited Horst Faas in the hospital in Murnau, Germany last month. He has been there since February and has undergone 12 operations arising from complications related to his paralysis. He is now starting to sit up and has begun to use his wheelchair on a limited basis in the hospital garden.”
Both Lederer and Faas reported from Vietnam during the war.