Butler, David Vertume, 1941-2012
Biography
David Butler was born on June 18, 1941, in Wakefield, MA. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1963. After graduation he worked for the McGraw-Hill Book Company as a supervising editor. In 1966, he became a reporter for the "Claremont (NH) Daily Eagle." Later that year, Butler took an editing job at "Playboy" magazine. It was while working for "Playboy" that he made his first two visits to Vietnam (1971 and 1973). He returned to Vietnam in late 1964, working as a stringer for NBC News. As one of the last journalists airlifted from Saigon, he was an eyewitness to the last few months of the war and to the evacuation of Americans and Vietnamese from Saigon in April 1975. After stints in Bangkok and New York, working for NBC radio and "Newsweek" magazine, Butler moved to Washington, DC in 1982, to begin researching and writing a book about his experiences in Vietnam. "The Fall of Saigon" was published in 1985. Butler died on January 31, 2010 in Bangkok where had lived as a journalist and freelance writer. Butler died in Bangkoh on January 12, 2012.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
David Butler papers
David Butler (1941-2010), journalist and writer. Consist of research materials, including correspondence, articles, interviews and notes for his study of the war in Vietnam as well as manuscript drafts of his book "The Fall of Saigon."