Newport Beach (California) USA. Noted war correspondent Peter Arnett is no more. Arnett, winner of the most prestigious Pulitzer Prize in global journalism, breathed his last on Wednesday at the age of 91 in the city of Newport Beach. During his lifetime, he spent decades dodging bullets and bombs to bring the world’s first-hand accounts of war from the paddy fields of Vietnam to the deserts of Iraq.
Arnett won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1966 for his coverage of the Vietnam War for the Associated Press (AP), The Guardian reported. His son Andrew Arnett said that he was surrounded by friends and family during his last moments. He was admitted to the hospital on Saturday as he was suffering from prostate cancer.
He reported from Vietnam from 1962 until the war’s end in 1975. He became a household name after broadcasting live updates for CNN during the first Gulf War in 1991. Arnett arrived in Vietnam just a year after joining the AP as its Indonesia correspondent. He stayed in Vietnam until 1975. Arnett remained with the AP until 1981. After this he became a part of CNN.
Ten years later he arrived in Baghdad to cover another war. He not only reported on frontline battles, but also conducted controversial interviews with then-President Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Arnett left CNN in 1999. He covered the Second Gulf War for NBC and National Geographic in 2003.
Arnett also worked for stations in Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and Belgium. In 2007, he took a job teaching journalism at Shantou University in China. After retirement in 2014 he and his wife, Nina Nguyen, moved to the Fountain Valley suburb of Southern California. Born on November 13, 1934 in Riverton (New Zealand), Arnett got a job at the local Southland Times immediately after high school. He also worked for Bangkok World. Arnett is survived by his wife and their children, Elsa and Andrew.
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