SIR,—Christopher Booker's opinions on the press are not worth bothering
about, but his factual in- accuracies arc becoming intolerable. In your issue of March 19, he complained that 'only three national dailies appear even to have a man of their own in Saigon' to report the Vietnath war. The truth is that there are five national dailies with staff men on the spot—the Sun and the Daily Minor in addition to the three named' by Mr. Booker in his article. So far as the Sun is concerned, we have had Anthony Carthew in South Vietnam for more than five weeks and have published at least twelve major dispatches from him, as well as the normal news coverage.
Mr. Booker also stated that the excellent report in The Times on March 15 was 'almost the first in recent weeks to extract any sort of first-hand life and colour from behind the dry deluge of official Saigon and Washington communiques.' On Feb- ruary 22, the Sun published on page 1 and the
centre spread a vivid report from Anthony Carthew, who had been out with a South Vietnamese jungle patrol. His account and his criticisms of the quality of the South Vietnamese troops was widely quoted. both in this country and abroad. Mr. Booker may think he has covered his inaccuracies by the slip- shod use of words like 'almost.' To the rest of us, it will seem again clear that he does not even read the newspapers which he sets out to criticise.
SYDNEY JACOBSON Editorial Director The 'Sun,' WC2
[Christopher Booker writes: 'I am slightly baffled by Mr. Green's implication that 1 ignored the presence of a Daily Telegraph staff correspondent in Saigon—since the whole purpose of my reference to his paper was to state just that fact. As for Mr. Jhcobson, 1 can only apologise for having allowed his paper's faults to blind me to one of its virtues. Mr. Carthew's reports from Vietnam have indeed been excellent, certainly better than any appearing in the Sun's immediate competitors.'—Editor, Spectator.]
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