John Steinbeck when he was a war correspondent in WW2 – carried a weapon and risked execution? Why is this?
According to Wikipedia, John Steinbeck would have been executed by the Germans if he was captured with his weapon, because he was a war correspondent. Why is this? Is that considered being a spy?
Quote below:
“As a war correspondent, Steinbeck would certainly have been executed if he had been captured with the automatic weapon which he routinely carried on such missions, but all were successful.”
War correspondents (and medics) I believe, were accorded special status as neutrals during war. Carrying a weapon would effectively make him a soldier and an enemy.
Same is happening today, some correspondents have started to carry weapons and it puts the whole press corps in danger now.
“A controversy over the issue flared in late December 2003 when the Wall Street Journal reported that New York Times correspondent Dexter Filkins carried a pistol while on assignment in Iraq (see Drop Cap, April/May 2004). In the wake of the episode the Times reexamined its policy and issued a strongly worded statement making clear that Times journalists were not to arm themselves. “The carrying of a weapon, for whatever reason, jeopardizes a journalist’s status as a neutral,” the paper said.”
Along with his passport, this volunteer (then age 42-46 or so) who was “embedded” with U.S. and allied troops would be carrying a number of means to record locations of the enemy forces and share them with commanders who would then ambush or capture the German officers and footsoldiers. It wouldn’t necessarily be that they would paint him with the status of being a covert espionage agent but just that they wouldn’t follow certain war conventions not to fire on non-combatants. It was following the post-war Nuremberg trials and at the time of the Geneva Convention drafting that such respect for journalist – observers would have been enforced at the level of international law probably!