I hope you will never get this letter
Before covering the Vietnam War, Martha Gellhorn writes to her mother
Martha Gellhorn was born in 1908 and became one of the twentieth century’s most fearless journalists, reporting from almost every major conflict over six decades. In 1966, aged fifty-seven, she travelled to Saigon to cover the Vietnam War for The Guardian. Before leaving, she left behind a sealed letter for her mother, to be opened only if she failed to return. It was never needed.
August 19, 1966
London
My best beloved, my dearest little Fotsie, my one lifelong companion: I hope you will never get this letter and I do not think you will. But I am nearly thirty years older than when I went to Spain and far tidier: if by some accident I did not return from Vietnam I would hate to leave you without a word. Especially as I shall have been deceiving you, for the first time in my life and only for your own good and peace of mind, by not telling you that I am going to this evil, insane war. And I feel guilt about this, and guilt about going for your sake (though one can always drown in a bath-tub); but I believe you will understand why I must.
I cannot live with the sense that I have not done all I could (and small enough it will be) to protest against the war in Vietnam, protesting on behalf of Vietnamese, Americans and finally on behalf of the human race; since now folly and wickedness are more terrible than ever. It may be that the human race is on the way out, a failed species, and anything one tries to do is futile. But I think that even if I knew that was true, I would still believe that each individual is responsible for his conscience; and must live by his standards of right and wrong, as long as he breathes. All I know how to do is write: the only way I can write with any authority, in the hope of influencing even a very few people, is to write from first hand knowledge. You will understand this, and respect my motive; but that won't make it any easier for you. So I ask you to understand and forgive, should you ever get this letter; and know it is not any lack of love for you that allows me to take chances with my life. It's that I cannot live it, feeling, thinking and fearing for the future as I do, and not take the only action open to me.
I love you best of anybody; I always have. I'll love you as long as I live, and more grateful to you than I can ever say, because you are yourself.
Your
M
Excerpted from Selected letters of Martha Gellhorn, edited by Caroline Moorehead. Published by Henry Holt in 2006.
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