World War II Eager to become a war correspondent, Higgins persuaded the management of the
New York Herald Tribune to send her to Europe in 1944, after working for the paper for two years. After being stationed in
London and
Paris, she was reassigned to
Germany in March 1945. She witnessed the liberation of the
Dachau concentration camp in April 1945 and received a
U.S. Army campaign ribbon for her assistance during the surrender by its S.S. guards. She later covered the
Nuremberg war trials and the
Soviet Union's blockade of
Berlin.
Korea In 1950, Higgins was named chief of the
Tribunes
Tokyo bureau, and she received a cold welcome by her colleagues in Tokyo. She later learned that a recently published novel by her colleague in Berlin had created a hostile impression. The novel,
Shriek With Pleasure, depicted a female reporter in Berlin who stole stories and slept with sources. The gossip at the time speculated that the novelist, Toni Howard, based the main character on Higgins, raising suspicion and hostility among Tokyo staffers. This was a major breakthrough for all female war correspondents. Her initial banishment from Korea and MacArthur's subsequent reversal allowing Higgins to remain at the front made headlines in the United States and made her into a bit of a celebrity. They shared the honor with four other male war correspondents.
Covering world affairs As a result of her reporting from Korea, Higgins received the 1950 George Polk Memorial Award from the
Overseas Press Club. She contributed along with other major journalistic and political figures to the ''
Collier's magazine collaborative special issue Preview of the War We Do Not Want'', with an article entitled "Women of Russia". Higgins continued to cover foreign affairs throughout the rest of her life, interviewing world leaders such as
Francisco Franco,
Nikita Khrushchev and
Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1955, she established and became chief of the
Tribunes
Moscow bureau and was the first American correspondent allowed back into the Soviet Union after
Stalin's death. While in South Vietnam, another feud developed between Higgins and
David Halberstam, a
New York Times correspondent who was assigned to replace Bigart. Her battle was not for scoops or headlines this time. Instead, it was based on the ideological differences and ego between an experienced correspondent, Higgins, and a young Halberstam. As a war correspondent with two decades under her belt, Higgins's anti-Communist sentiments were well established. There were many
Buddhist protests against the
Ngo Dinh Diem regime, which she believed were set up by communists. This contradicted Halberstam's views and reporting, who thought of Higgins as a "past-her-prime sell-out whose anti-Communist views rose to the level of propaganda." Halberstam and many of the young correspondents in Vietnam at the time opposed the Diem regime and reported a negative view of the war. Higgins believed they did not have a real understanding of the war and oftentimes called them Rover Boys, who never ventured outside of
Saigon to the countryside to see what was going on. The Higgins–Halberstam rivalry never seemed to end, as Halberstam would continue to criticize her after her death in 1966. == Criticism in the workplace ==