COLD WAR CORRESPONDENT

In this 11th edition of Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales, Marguerite Higgins, war correspondent, takes over the narration to share harrowing stories of being a frontline reporter.

The story follows Higgins as she risks life and limb as the Far East correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, covering the Korean War in 1950. As Westerners flee Korea when the North Korean People’s Army crosses the 38th parallel and invades the democratic South, Higgins and her fellow reporters try to get in. The mostly black-and-white—with touches of yellow—graphic format enhances Higgins’ experiences. Readers will see what being a real-life war correspondent is truly like as they observe Higgins escaping a sinking ship, reporting from no man’s land, interviewing Gen. Douglas MacArthur, nursing soldiers, and being temporarily banned from the front just for being a woman. Readers will even learn how reporters sent their articles back to the U.S.: in Morse code, via trans-Pacific telegraph. Beyond Higgins’ personal, gripping story, Hale coherently and accurately conveys the factors that led to the Korean War, the political gambling by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and battle strategies. While Korea is the setting, however, the story is told from a U.S. perspective, focusing on American war heroes and reporters who are mostly male (Higgins is a notable exception) and White.

Exciting reportorial derring-do.