…a former library book purchased for one pound

This is the best-selling memoir of foreign correspondent Edward Behr (1926-2007) who reported for Time Life - and various other magazines and newspapers during his long career - on famous conflicts such as Indian Partition, the Algerian War, the Vietnam War and other now mostly forgotten confrontations..

Behr gives a vivid first-hand account of a journalist’s life behind the lines from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. And despite the often grim nature of the events he witnessed, the book is told with good humour, and is not wholly without its lighter side.

The provocative title comes from an overhead remark, shouted by a British TV reporter to a group of Belgian civilians being evacuated during the 1961 War of Independence in the Belgian Congo. The country was subsequently renamed Zaire, and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo

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The title was considered too strong for US tastes, and was therefore published in the US as: Briefings: A Foreign Correspondent’s Life Behind the Lines.

For more information on Edward Behr, consult hisWiki page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Behr_(journalist)