Photojournalist François Sully, born in 1927 or 1928 in France, fought against the Nazis in the French Resistance as a teenager. He later joined the French Army which assigned him to Vietnam. After choosing to be discharged in Saigon in 1947, Sully became a correspondent for both Vietnamese and French publications including the French magazine Southeast Asia. By 1959, Sully was working for UPI. He wrote articles for Time and his photographs were carried by Black Star until Newsweek hired him in early 1961.

In September 1962, South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem expelled Sully. Unofficially, Diem intended the expulsion to serve as a warning to all journalists reporting the failings of his U.S.-assisted war against the Viet Cong. Sully worked in bordering countries until Diem's November 1963 assasination, when he returned to Vietnam.

Although Newsweek was Sully's primary employer until his death in a helicopter crash in March 1971, he also wrote for a number of other newsmagazines including The Nation and The New Republic. In 1967 and 1968, Sully wrote articles for McGraw-Hill's business-reporting service World News which distributed them to Business Week, Medical World News, Engineering News Record, and other publications. In addition to writing news stories and taking photographs, Sully wrote Age of the Guerilla: the New Warfare (New York: Parent's Magazine Press, 1968; reprinted by Avon, 1970) and compiled and edited We the Vietnamese: Voices from Vietnam (New York: Praeger, 1971).

For context, see Francis D. Faulkner's Bao Chi: The American News Media in Vietnam, 1960-1975 (Dissertation: University of Massachusetts, 1981; Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1981). For more biographical information, see Newsweek September 17, 1962, page 68, or March 8, 1971, page 75.

Papers & photographs

The papers of Francois Sully consist of stories Sully wrote for Newsweek and other newsmagazines, material he used in editing We the Vietnamese: voices from Vietnam, and subject files he used as background information for his newstories, including articles and clippings published in the United States and both South and North Vietnam, government and military press packages, captured documents, etc. This collection also contains contact sheets, negatives, and submission sheets Sully sent to Newsweek, color slides, and military publicity photographs.