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Jim Laurie
Writer, Media Consultant, Former International Correspondent for NBC News & ABC News
Jim Laurie
Writer, Media Consultant, Former International Correspondent for NBC News & ABC News
Biography
Jim Laurie has travelled the world as a reporter and broadcaster for more than 50 years. After five years covering the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, in 1975 Laurie became the only American network correspondent to witness the Communist takeover of Vietnam, ending the 20 year long American involvement in Indochina.
His book THE LAST HELICOPTER: TWO LIVES IN INDOCHINA tells the dramatic story of two people in the 1970’s bound together by war, love and the determination to survive.
After his assignments in Vietnam and Cambodia, Laurie took up residence in China.
In the aftermath of the death of Communist leader Mao Zedong, Laurie witnessed the remarkable period of China “opening up,” as it reached out to embrace a new relationship with the United States. In 1979, Laurie met and interviewed the man shaping China’s new reforms, Deng Xiaoping. Later he accompanied Deng on his ground-breaking visit to the United States: Washington, Atlanta, Houston and Seattle.
In 1981, Laurie opened the first American television network news bureau in China and began reporting regularly on the nation’s rapidly changing economy.
Unique among observers of China, Laurie has not only worked for American news organizations looking at China, but as a media consultant over the past ten years, he has examined China from inside the Chinese state media industry.
He continues to visit China, Vietnam, and Cambodia regularly most recently in 2024.
Beyond his work in Asia, Laurie has reported from three continents. He has interviewed Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow. He covered wars in Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He reported on Nelson Mandela and developments in the early days of black South African rule. And in South America, he has worked in Peru and Bolivia.
Laurie is the recipient of multiple journalism and broadcasting prizes; including several Emmies, an Overseas Press Club Award and a Peabody for his work in Vietnam and China.
Speaker Videos
Lessons from China
Examining Legacy of Wars in Vietnam and Cambodia
Speech Topics
Lessons from China: A Threat to America? A Long-Term Perspective.
In early 1978, Jim Laurie took the train from Hong Kong into mainland China for the first time. It was still a nation locked in the blue, grey, and browns of the rigid era of Mao Zedong; a poverty-stricken nation of rural communes and large inefficient factories inspired by the Soviet Union.
Nearly 50 years later, China is nearly unrecognizable from that era. Jim has been observing China up close since the late 1970’s, most recently working in Beijing, Shanghai, and Xian in 2024.
In this talk, he reflects on China’s remarkable development from poverty to prosperity; to its position as the world’s second most powerful nation. He surveys China’s leadership structure from the architect of the reforms of the 1980’s and ‘90s, Deng Xiaoping, who Jim met and interviewed in 1979, to China’s current leader Xi Jinping.
The talk tackles a series of complex but critical questions of the 21st century.
What are China’s global ambitions? Is China a threat to the United States?
What are Chinese attitudes toward Americans? Is war over Taiwan inevitable?
Jim’s perspective is unique. Not only did he cover China as a foreign correspondent for 22 years, but over the last ten years, Jim has worked inside the Chinese bureaucracy, observing the workings of State television.
The American War in Vietnam: Lessons For Our Time.
April 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the 20-year American involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia. The month saw both the United States military evacuations of Phnom Penh and Saigon. Jim Laurie was the only U.S. television correspondent to cover both the war and its dramatic conclusion as Communist North Vietnamese troops swept into Saigon minutes after the last US helicopter fled the roof of the U.S. Embassy ending a panicked pull-out.
In his talk Jim reflects on the legacy of the long-ago conflict and its lasting impact on American global actions today. He also tells a deeply personal story; of a friend left behind in Cambodia and her struggle for survival in a post-war era worse than the war itself.
With stories based on his highly acclaimed book THE LAST HELICOPTER: TWO LIVES IN INDOCHINA, Jim details life-changing experiences of a young man and woman in their 20’s, who forged a deep wartime bond. The bond was disrupted by the woman’s imprisonment under the Khmer Rouge from which she escaped scarred but alive. In his talk, Jim explores some life questions relevant to all. What does it take to survive traumatic events? Why do some make it, and some do not?
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