About Ron Ridenhour

In 1969, Vietnam veteran Ron Ridenhour wrote a letter to Congress and the Pentagon describing the horrific events at My Lai – the infamous massacre of the Vietnam War – bringing the scandal to the attention of the American public and the world.

Ridenhour later became a respected investigative journalist, winning the George Polk Award for Investigative Journalism in 1987 for a year-long investigation of a New Orleans tax scandal. He died suddenly in 1998 at the age of 52. At the time of his death, he was working on a piece for the London Review of Books, had co-produced a story on militias for NBC’s Dateline and had just delivered a series of lectures commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of My Lai.

Selected Articles by Ron Ridenhour

“Perspective on My Lai: ‘It was a Nazi kind of thing,'” Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1993 (PDF)

“Jesus Was a Gook,” anthologized in Nobody Gets Off the Bus: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book, Volume 5 Number 1-4, March 1994 (PDF)

“What We Learned in Vietnam,” In These Times, March 3, 1997 (PDF)

“Tax Dodge: Millions Go Uncollected; City Hall Protects the Favored Few,” New Orleans CityBusiness, February 16, 1987, for which Ridenhour won the prestigious George Polk Award (PDF)