De Borchgrave is dead.

"Arnaud was a giant of journalism,” Larry Beasley, president and CEO of The Times, said Sunday. “His globe-trotting reporting kept America informed, and his tireless work as our editor-in-chief helped put The Washington Times on the map in its early days.”

Osborn Elliot, onetime editor of Newsweek and later dean of the Columbia University journalism school, wrote that “de Borchgrave has played a role in world affairs known to no other journalist.”" Washingtontimes

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Arnaud de Borchgrave was a friend.  We used to have lunch together often and I came to have a high regard for him.  Reverence would not have been too strong a term.  I have not seen as much of him the last few years as I should have done, but that was my fault, not his.

He was a Belgian nobleman from the Ardennes who renounced his title when he immigrated to the US.  His father was head of Belgian intelligence in the exile government during WW2.  His maternal grandfather was Sir Charles Townshend. the British general who surrendered to the Turks at Kut in the Mesopotamia Campaign of 1916.  After the surrender Townshend lived comfortably in captivity in Istanbul while his men died by thousands in Ottoman prison camps.  Arnaud was not proud of his grandfather.  Arnaud enlisted in the Royal Navy at 16 and was the coxswain of a landing craft in the British landings in Normandy on 6 June, 1944.  After the war he became a journalist and covered so many wars and alarums that they can hardly be counted.  

Sitting in his CSIS office one day I walked around the room looking at the photographs while he went somewhere else in the building.  When he returned I asked him about the one in which he stood next to a C-47 and a large French officer while paratroops were to be seen just about everywhere. He explained to me that the big man was General Cogny and the place was Dien Bien Phu in November 1953 in the valley of the Nam Dong River in far western Tonkin.  Cogny was the commander of French forces in what is now North Vietnam.  Arnaud had been staying with him as a house guest when Operation Castor was launched to create a defensible airhead at DPB like the one at Na San the year before.  Cogny invited Arnaud to fly to DPB with him to view the progress of the landing.  On the way Cogny told him that he had been ordered by the high command in Paris and Saigon to establish this distant base to administer  "a lesson" to the Viet Minh in the context of ongoing negotiations over independence for Indochina.  Cogny said that he had protested on the basis of an an inadequacy of forces and the distance from supporting air bases, but had been over ruled.  He said the operation was doomed.

That is the kind of access that de Borchgrave had throughout his long career..  We are unlikely to see something like that for a long time.  pl

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/15/arnaud-de-borchgrave-former-washington-times-edito/#ixzz3Rv1LoMPC 
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnaud_de_Borchgrave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Castor 

Comments

[Margaret Steinfels]

"His maternal grandfather was Sir Charles Townshend. the British general who surrendered to the Turks at Kut in the Mesopotamia Campaign of 1916. After the surrender Townshend lived comfortably in captivity in Istanbul while his men died by thousands in Ottoman prison camps."

Just reading about Sir Charles and the total mess and chaos of the British in Iraq during WWI. Wonder what others have made of the book, Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson; subtitled: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. According to Anderson most of the troops were drawn from India.

[turcopolier]

Margaret Steinfels

The Indian Empire (British) was a separate state from the UK. It had separate institutions under the King-Emperor. One of those institutions was the Indian Army. This was a separate career service from the British Army. The British Army had units stationed in India but these were not part of the Indian Army although for tactical operations the British army units were "brigaded" with Indian army units, usually in the ratio of one British battalion to three Indian Army battalions. Townshend was a career Indian Army officer. In the Chitral Campaign of the late 19th Century he commanded a battalion of Sikh Pioneers who had relieved the siege of Chitral. The Mesopotamia Campaign of 1916 was an Indian Army operation and thus it was logical that Townshend, an Indian Army officer, would command and that most of the troops were Indian Army. All of these people were professionals and volunteers. pl

[Charles I]

Big respect.

O/T Louis Jordan just died at 93

[Swami Bhut Jolokia]

Sad news about de Borchgrave. May he rest in peace.

On Townshend, not so much. Another case of colonial masters living in comfort while the browns die. For King and country etc.