For fans of real-life historic drama: Lewis Simon’s ‘To Tell the Truth’

Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Lewis M. Simons recollects his 50 years as a foreign correspondent, one whose powerful stories contributed to transforming Asia from Vietnam War-era basket case to a global boomtown that today rivals the United States.

Simons’ investigative work led to the toppling of a dictator (Marcos) in the Philippines. He covered the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, bloody coups in Thailand, attempted genocide and societal collapse in Cambodia, and economic advance, decline, and rebirth in Japan. He was expelled from India for his exclusive reporting on Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s political misuse of the armed forces. Breaking his own strict rule against becoming personally involved with people whose stories he covered, he saved the life of a dying teenaged Tibetan Buddhist monk.

Simons molds the narrative of his lengthy, action-packed career from foxhole mud and backroom dirt. Layered with moments of tenderness and humor, as his camp-following family often accompanies him, the result is a masterful chronicle of war and murder; extreme poverty and suffering alongside repellent wealth and indulgence; wholesale larceny and ruling-class corruption — much of which escaped the scrutiny of other journalists. Readers who appreciate real-life historic drama will be enthralled.

Lew Simons began his career as a foreign correspondent in 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War. He saw the war through to the end, covering the fall in quick succession of the three former Indochinese states. 

Simons has reported on war, civil unrest, politics, and economics throughout Southeast Asia; India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh; Iraq and Iran; China, Japan, North Korea, and South Korea; as well as the former Soviet Union and Panama. He was a staff correspondent for The Associated Press, The Washington Post, Knight-Ridder Newspapers, and Time magazine.

With a foreword by the Dalai Lama, you won’t want to miss out on To Tell the Truth. – Rappler.com