Steve Dunleavy: The Writer They Call Mr. Blood and Guts

Hong Kong — August 16th, 1965 — A young reporter for the Hong Kong 'American' sits in heavy thought at his desk. He faces the toughest assignment to come along yet in his twenty-nine-year-old life. Early the next morning, William C. White, an American soldier who defected to Red China during the Korean War, will return from China and surrender himself to the American consul in Hong Kong. The writer is Steve Dunleavy . His assignment: to get an exclusive interview with White. Wide-open newspaper competition is nothing new to Steve, who dropped out of school at age fourteen to start newspaper work in his native Sydney, Australia. Once, when he and his father worked on competing papers in Sydney, young Steve slashed his father's tires to beat him on a story. His father retaliated by locking Steve in a laundry room at the scene of a crime. Steve sits, chain-smoking du Mauriers and pondering all the possible angles to get to White before the competition. He obviously can't get into China and intercept White before he gets to the border … but … what about the transfer point? Steve remembers that the American consul has a blue 1963 Buick four-door sedan and is always driven… Read full this story

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