Arnett, who won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for his coverage of the Vietnam War for The Associated Press, rose to international fame in his decades-long career covering conflicts from Vietnam to El Salvador to the Gulf. His reporting throughout the conflict provided an on-the-ground assessment of the war that often challenged official US accounts. He was among the last reporters in Saigon as it fell to the communist-backed North Vietnamese.
Arnett stayed with the AP until 1981, when he joined CNN. He would soon rise to broadcast stardom. In 1991, Arnett landed in Baghdad for the outbreak of the first Gulf War, where he interviewed then-president Saddam Hussein and documented the lives of the Iraqi people living under the bombing.
His live frontline broadcasts — in some cases relayed by cell phone — would make him a household name. “His reporting in print and on camera will remain a legacy for aspiring journalists and historians for generations to come.” In 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden at a secret hideout in Afghanistan years before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.
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