@lrlt @srrtßponùwt September 1985
Atribute to atrue professional NEIL DAVIS:1934-85 When they invented the safari (nee TV) suit, they must have had Neil Davis in
mind. In any case, it should have been renamed the Davis Suit. Neil was probably the best-dressed guy I ever met, but never saw in a suit or tie. There was a never a crease out of place, though
I doubt he ever
visited a tailor higher up the fashion ladder than Mr Minh of Saigon. But he moved as easily through the marbled halls of power in Asia, Africa and the Middle East as he did through the jungles of Indochina or the mean streets of Beirut.
He was as much at home around
the
Groaning Table in Phnom Penh as he was around the swimming pool of the Oriental
Hotel. As his longtime colleague John McBeth, of the Far Eastern Economic Review, puf it: "When Neil Davis was born they threw away the mould." If anyone deserved to_ be known as a legend in his own time, it was Neil Davis. He did it all, and always with class. If he ever had an unkind word for anyone, I never heard him utter it. He was rarely seen without a smile.
The morning of September 9 saw an
abortive coup in Thailand. As the rebel tanks took up their positions
outside Bangkok's 1st Division Radio
Station, Sl-year-old Neil Davis, bureau chief for the US-based Na-
tional Broadcasting Company, and his
soundman William Latch were already at the scene.
The ¡ebels lired a barrage at the
radio station, slightly
wounding
Davis, who filmed the action for 50 seconds. During a lull, he and Latch pulled back from the line of lire, but a second burst of cannon hit the wall next to them. Davis was killed instantly by shrapnel and Latch died six hours later in hospital. By four that afternoon, the rebellion had been put down.
tradition,
succinctly:
"Davis had a quick wit, a quicker smile and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of funny stories. [He] was known and liked by military commanders, politicians, soldiers and civilians throughout Southeast Asia.
Not even Neil Davis. Those wars over, Davis moved on, to Lebanon, Angola, Iraq but basing himself in Bangkok. Somewhere along the line
-
he was married, but only briefly. No one ever asked what happened, but you can't be married to a woman and your job.
Bangkok's historic Christ Church on
can television network but money didn't mean that much to him. It was something
the wire-service
Killed with him was his soundman, William Latch. Davis was still filming at the moment he died. Still, he managed to throw his body on to that of Gary Burns of Visnews, knocking him down and away from the shooting. When Saigon fell to the communists 10 years ago, the only TV film of their tanks moving on the presidential palace came from Davis' camera. He was inside waiting for them. He had been in Phnom Penh a few weeks earlier, but left just before its fall. Nobody can be in two places at once.
Convent Road was filled to overflowing for a Davis-Latch memorial service. Late arrivals had to stand outside, The church was filled with wreaths from far-flung friends and colleagues, dozens of whom were unable to travel to Thailand at such short notice them people like Donald - among Wise, Jon Swain, Kate Webb, Udo Nesch, Ed Bradley and Sylvana Foa. Neil Davis smoked a lot; he just never seemed to buy any. He used to say that if he bought them he would smoke more. He bummed his first from me circa 1970 in
He had enough money, given his status as a ranking correspondent for an Ameriyou paid the rent or bought the necessities of life with. On his infrequent visits to Hong Kong, Davis could have stayed in the Peninsula or the Mandarin, or any place he might choose. But it was ahvays the somewhat run-down Harbour Hotel on the Wanchai waterfront, not far from the NBC offices. "The staff know me there," he would explain. "I know I can always get a room." An anonymous hand in UPI's Bangkok bureau perhaps summed it up best and, in
in TV there's no story without film.
Neil Davis
Phnom Penh. When
"His peers considered him the top war correspondent in the region. His concern for the people he encountered on his journalistic travels was legendary. He was always slipping money to people he met who were in need . ." Over the years, people have lost count
of the number of times Davis had
been
wounded, but he always managed to survive. I suppose he should have known bet-
ter, the fateful morning of
September 9,
than to expose himself to the guns of dissident Thai troops attempting to carry out a two-bit coup. But the story came first, and
I
last saw him, in
Manila around the end of 1984, he reached easily for one of my Silk Cut, suggesting that I switch to Marlboro. We had a standing joke over the years, and I reminded him that he now owed me more than 12,000 cigarettes. He claimed the count was closer to 11,500. It was the last time we were to debate the subject. I remember during a two-year spell in the United States catching Neil on the
NBC Nightly News. "Good friend of mine," I remarked to my mother, aged 82. "He looks like a nice young man," she replied. "Sure is, ma," I said. Sure was,
ma.
-
Bert Okuley,