Morley Safer: ‘I Was Not a Communist, I Was a Canadian’

It’s been 50 years since CBS News aired a report by Morley Safer, showing U.S. Marines burning the huts of villagers in Cam Ne, Vietnam.

The village, Safer said, was mostly women and children, and his story–considered a watershed report for public opinion about the war–“ignited a powder keg of suspicion, even hatred.”

Reflecting on the story in a 60 Minutes Overtime interview, Safer says he got death threats—and phone calls from an outraged White House. “The worst of it was the spreading of totally false allegations, saying that they had evidence I was a Communist,” Safer remembers. “And the president was reminded that I was not a Communist, I was a Canadian. And he said, ‘Must be the same thing.'”