FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., Aug. 18 (UPI) — Ray F. Herndon, a Pulitzer Prize finalist who covered the Vietnam War for United Press International and was known as a “tough Texan,” died Sunday from cancer, his wife said. He was 77.
Herndon, who retired as an editor for the Los Angeles Times in 2004, died at his home in Fountain Valley, Calif., his wife, Annie, told the Times.
Herndon was born Jan. 12, 1938, in Houston, Texas, and began his career in journalism when he volunteered for the U.S. Army and became an editor for the Pacific Stars and Stripes in Tokyo. After leaving the service, he joined UPI in 1962 and was immediately dispatched to cover the Laos War then the Vietnam War.
He was a member of the so-called “Boys of Saigon,” a group of journalists covering the rebellion of Buddhist clergy in South Vietnam.
Neil Sheehan, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Bright Shining Lie,” worked with Herndon in UPI’s Saigon bureau. He called Herndon a “tough Texan.”
“Ray was a splendid journalist, because he had both physical and moral courage,” he told Times. “(He) really believed in getting the truth out no matter what the risk.”
After his time with UPI, Herndon worked for the St. Petersburg Times, the Miami Herald, the Dallas Times Herald and the Los Angeles Times.
At the Times Herald, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his investigative stories on Michael Anthony Woten, who was serving a 55-year prison term for a robbery conviction. Herndon’s articles proved Woten’s alibi at the time of the robbery, resulting in his freedom from a Texas prison.
“Ray believed in using journalism to stand up for the underdog and as a force for doing good,” said Times editor Davan Maharaj. “He achieved a tremendous record of using daily journalism to hold elected officials accountable for their actions. He imparted many of those values on journalists across the country.”
Despite his extensive career, his son, Philippe Herndon, told The Orange County (Calif.) Register his father was a devoted family man.
“He just did some really remarkable stuff but you would never gather it because he was cooking his five-alarm chili at home,” he said. “He was just a very incredibly committed man.”
Herndon is survived by his wife, Annie, two sons, Paul and Philippe, and a grandson.
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