Richard M. Blystone, a longtime Associated Press correspondent who covered the Vietnam War and went on to become one of the first journalists at the CNN network even before it went on air, has died in London. He was 81.
His sister, Louise Reilly, said her brother died Tuesday in a hospital of cardiac failure, following a stroke.
Blystone began his career with AP in Atlanta in 1965, covering the civil rights struggle, and later worked at the news cooperative's New York headquarters before moving to the AP's Saigon bureau in 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War. He covered major combat action and, in 1973, became AP's Chief of Bureau in Bangkok, Thailand.
Michael Putzel, a former Saigon colleague of Blystone, recalls that "his dry humor and running cartoon strip about AP life kept the Saigon bureau entertained."
While in Bangkok, Blystone uncovered and reported the story of 54 barefoot, ragged children held as slave laborers in a garment factory. A police raid followed, freeing the children.
Blystone remained involved in coverage of strife in Indochina, and in a story from Phnom Penh before the takeover by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, he described how the wives and children of Cambodian soldiers missing in action "live in squalor and desperation . high in Phnom Penh's sports stadium."
After the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge, he flew in a small chartered plane to the bomb-cratered Phnom Penh airport to pluck a Cambodian AP newsman — Chaay-Born Lay — and his wife and two children to safety. They were pulled into the aircraft as it rolled along the runway for takeoff.
AP's Chief U.N. Correspondent Edith M. Lederer called him "one of the smartest, sharpest war correspondents I met and worked with at AP in Vietnam — a veteran who knew the U.S. military."
"He had a wonderful irreverent streak and didn't suffer fools, but he cared deeply about the victims of war and telling their stories to the world. He was a stickler for accuracy, a master wordsmith, a wonderful friend and an original member of the Chinese Eating Club I started when we both lived in London," Lederer added.
In 1977 and 1978, he was an Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and then moved to the AP's London bureau until he joined CNN in June 1980, three weeks before the then-fledgling news network went on the air. He went on to cover many wars and conflicts for CNN from its earliest day and became a senior correspondent for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
"Dick Blystone was one of the correspondents who traveled the world for CNN in its early years and helped build the network's global reputation. A fantastic writer and reporter, and I am truly saddened by the news of his passing," said CNN's Barbara Levin, a vice president for U.S. communications.
At CNN, Blystone covered some of the world's biggest hotspots. He reported on the Iran-Iraq war, civil war in Lebanon, the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and its satellite nations, famine in Africa, U.S. interventions in Somalia and Haiti, the Gulf conflict, Northern Ireland and NATO's bombing of Kosovo.
But as a change of pace from politics, war, violence and famine, Blystone also produced wry and droll reports on quirky events such as the traditional gathering of the Royal Swans near London.
