Wallace Carroll interviewing young Royal Air Force pilots during the Battle of Britain. Source: Wake Forest Magazine, Wake Forest University.
Histories of the Vietnam War always refer to an editorial in the Winston-Salem Journal published on March 17, 1968, arguing for an end to the war. The editorial was written by Wallace Carroll, then editor and publisher of the Journal. In Wallace Carroll’s obituary, published July 30, 2002, the New York Times wrote:
“On March 17, 1968, he published a signed editorial in Winston-Salem under the headline “Vietnam — Quo Vadis?” that argued that United States policy in Southeast Asia was misguided and irrelevant to the goal of thwarting Soviet expansion.
“Dean Acheson, the former secretary of state and an adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson, showed the editorial to Johnson and stood by while the president read it. Later that month, Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election and would begin peace negotiations with North Vietnam. In an article about events leading to Johnson’s announcement, the Washington Post reported that Mr. Carroll’s editorial had influenced his thinking.”
Who was Wallace Carroll?
In 1939, Carroll became editor of the United Press International Bureau in London. He covered both the London Blitz and the Battle of Britain. From Wikipedia: “From 1942 to 1945 he headed the European division of the United States Office of War Information, charged with all propaganda efforts aimed at Nazi-conquered Europe during World War II.” In 1955, he became head of the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. In 1963, he moved to Winston-Salem to become editor and publisher of the Winston-Salem Journal, which, under Carroll, won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1971.
Mary Llewellyn McNeil, who was in one of Carroll’s classes at Wake Forest University and who later published a biography of Carroll, wrote for Wake Forest Magazine:
“Wallace Carroll was not just the editor and publisher of the local newspaper. He was present and reported on most of the major events of the 20th century. He knew, befriended or advised nearly all the mid-century’s key decision-makers — from Winston Churchill to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. As a correspondent for United Press he covered the League of Nations in the mid-1930s, sent dispatches on the bombing of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, interviewed Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery following the British army’s narrow escape from Dunkirk and reported nightly from his office rooftop on the bombs falling on London during The Blitz. He was on the first convoy into the Soviet Union following the Nazi invasion in 1941 and remained to cover the Nazi’s initial assault on Moscow. Barely making it out, on his way home via Persia (now known as Iran), Singapore and the Philippines, he landed in Hawaii seven days after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack and filed among the first reports from the field. He eventually became the first director of the U.S. Office of War Information in London, specializing in psychological warfare operations during World War II.”
Carroll wrote a book about his work for the U.S. Office of War Information, Persuade or Perish.
I was too young then to really appreciate someone of Carroll’s stature, but I knew Carroll when I was only a whipper-snapper summer intern at the Winston-Salem Journal, and, later, a rookie copy editor.
Online at last
Until now, the text of this editorial existed only on microfilm. A few years ago, I had facsimile made from microfilm with the intention of keying in the editorial so that it would at last exist in digital form. I never quite finished that job until recently. I uploaded the page image to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT helped me with the transcription.
Here is the link to the full text of Vietnam: Quo Vadis
Carroll introduces Dean Acheson, former U.S. Secretary of State. I believe this photo is from Shirley Auditorium at Salem College in Winston-Salem. Source: Wake Forest Magazine, Wake Forest University.