Kevin Buckley, foreign correspondent and magazine editor, dies at 80

Kevin Buckley, a Newsweek overseas analogous who wrote gripping accounts of the Vietnam War, including revealing antecedently chartless atrocities by U.S. troops, and aboriginal wrote a publication astir the tangled relations betwixt the United States and Panama, died Nov. 4 astatine his location successful Manhattan. He was 80.

The origin was complications from a stroke, said his wife, Gail Lumet Buckley.

Mr. Buckley, described by a workfellow arsenic “one of the large swashbuckling reporters of the Vietnam era,” spent 4 years reporting from the beforehand lines of the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1972.

He arrived astatine property 27, not overmuch older than the young soldiers helium covered. He soon became Newsweek’s bureau main successful the erstwhile superior metropolis of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). Most reporters astatine that time, helium said, inactive supported the U.S. warfare effort and accepted the authoritative statements from subject leaders. But Mr. Buckley’s acquisition connected the crushed gradually made him much disillusioned.

“When I arrived successful Vietnam,” helium told the Yale Daily News in 2009, “the question was: ‘How are we doing?’ It was lone aboriginal that I switched it to: ‘What are we doing?’ ”

One of Mr. Buckley’s astir revelatory stories from Vietnam was his last, printed successful Newsweek successful June 1972. The erstwhile year, helium and a Vietnamese-speaking Newsweek reporter, Alexander Shimkin, recovered grounds of a prolonged U.S. subject cognition called Speedy Express that devastated the Mekong Delta state of Kien Hoa successful 1968 and 1969.

“I traveled passim Kien Hoa — connected foot, by jeep, successful boats and by raft — to speech with the people,” Mr. Buckley wrote successful his Newsweek story. “All the grounds I gathered pointed to a wide conclusion: a staggering fig of noncombatant civilians — possibly arsenic galore arsenic 5,000 according to 1 authoritative — were killed by U.S. firepower to ‘pacify’ Kien Hoa.”

More caller estimates person placed the fig of civilian deaths arsenic precocious arsenic 7,000. Thousands of others were wounded. The carnage was overmuch greater than astatine My Lai, a colony successful which arsenic galore arsenic 500 Vietnamese civilians were killed by U.S. troops successful 1968. An Army lieutenant, William Calley, was the lone subject serviceman convicted of wrongdoing successful the My Lai Massacre.

“Virtually each idiosyncratic to whom I spoke had suffered successful immoderate way,” Mr. Buckley wrote. “‘There were 5,000 radical successful our colony earlier 1969, but determination were nary successful 1970,’ 1 colony elder told me. ‘The Americans destroyed each location with artillery, airstrikes oregon by burning them down with cigaret lighters.’ ”

Mr. Buckley was furious with his editors astatine Newsweek for delaying work of his relationship by astir six months and for cutting immoderate of its much damning details. (Shimkin, his chap reporter, was killed successful a North Vietnamese grenade onslaught successful July 1972.)

The published nonfiction contained nary references to Maj. Gen. Julian J. Ewell, the commanding wide successful complaint of the 9th Infantry Division, which carried retired Operation Speedy Express. Ewell was aboriginal promoted, and nary subject officers who took portion successful the attacks were court-martialed.

Mr. Buckley’s struggles to person his communicative told were recounted successful Phillip Knightley’s 1975 publication astir warfare correspondents, “The First Casualty,” and successful Nick Turse’s 2013 book, “Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War successful Vietnam.”

After a one-year journalism fellowship astatine Harvard University, Mr. Buckley near Newsweek successful the mid-1970s and embarked connected a varied career, often moving for struggling publications, including New Times and a revived Look magazine. For six years, helium was the exertion of a U.S. mentation of Geo, a glossy European mag astir question and societal issues, earlier it folded successful 1985.

He aboriginal became the apical exertion of Lear’s, a start-up mag for older women. Mr. Buckley came up with the magazine’s catchy slogan — “For the pistillate who wasn’t calved yesterday” — but aft disagreements with its mercurial founder, Frances Lear, helium was gone earlier the archetypal contented was published successful 1988.

By then, Mr. Buckley was researching the murky narration betwixt the United States and Manuel Antonio Noriega, the dictatorial subject person of Panama. In a 1991 book, “Panama: The Whole Story,” helium described Noriega’s long-standing ties to U.S. quality agencies, which sought his assistance successful arming the contras, a counterrevolutionary unit successful Nicaragua. Noriega was aboriginal accused of quality rights abuses and coordinating with cause cartels earlier helium was ousted successful a 1989 coup, abetted by U.S. subject troops.

In a New York Times reappraisal of Mr. Buckley’s book, governmental idiosyncratic Jorge G. Castaneda called it “an bonzer relationship of a mostly untold, dramatically underreported and often unbelievable story.”

Kevin Paul Buckley was calved Dec. 31, 1940, successful New York City. His household aboriginal moved to Larchmont, N.Y. His begetter was a authorities official, and his parent was a homemaker.

Mr. Buckley was a 1962 postgraduate of Yale University, wherever helium was managing exertion of the Yale Daily News. He worked for the Associated Press successful Chicago earlier joining Newsweek arsenic a religion writer.

“I wrote 2 screen stories,” helium aboriginal said. “One had the lowest newsstand merchantability successful Newsweek history: ‘The New Missionary.’ I conjecture I was missing 1 word: ‘Position.’ ”

He was well-liked by his chap journalists, who noted his humor, wit and jaunty, self-invented slang. When mounting retired connected foot, helium would invariably say, “Let’s ankle.”

While moving successful Newsweek’s London bureau successful the 1960s, Mr. Buckley told the Yale Daily News, “I got to conscionable Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger, who came over, went done my records, enactment connected 1 of his ain and conscionable started Jagging astir my surviving room.”

Unmarried for galore years, Mr. Buckley was linked to a fig of glamorous women, including writer Frances FitzGerald, writer of “Fire successful the Lake,” astir the Vietnam War.

“He surely did person a large woody of charm and was incredibly good-looking,” FitzGerald said successful an interview. “He was rather dashing.”

She added that helium aboriginal introduced her to her aboriginal hubby — and she introduced Mr. Buckley to his aboriginal wife, writer Gail Lumet Buckley, the girl of entertainer Lena Horne.

In summation to his woman of 37 years, survivors see 2 stepdaughters; a brother; a sister; and 2 grandchildren.

Beginning successful 1992, Mr. Buckley spent much than 10 years arsenic enforcement exertion of Playboy magazine, successful complaint of nonfiction articles. He taught journalism astatine Columbia University and was a longtime subordinate and serviceman of the Century Association, a backstage nine of artists and writers successful New York.

During his little tenure astatine Lear’s magazine, Mr. Buckley told the Yale Daily News, 1 of his jobs was to prosecute a unit astrologer.

“In the interview, she said, ‘Can I beryllium honest, Mr. Buckley?” helium recalled. “‘Your aboriginal astatine this mag looks precise cloudy.’ I said, ‘That’s it! You’re hired!’”