Rick Fredericksen reported, anchored and produced award-winning stories during his 40-plus years as a journalist. His most recent project is a subject close to his heart, the Vietnam War.
In his new e-book, "After the Hanoi Hilton: An Accounting," he covers the POW-MIA issue in postwar Vietnam. This month we look back with the former KGMB reporter.
Fredericksen, who hails from Des Moines, Iowa, enlisted in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War in 1967. The following year he earned his journalism degree from the Defense Information School at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis. One of his instructors was the late Bill Bigelow, a longtime radio and TV newsman.
"My first big story was the Vietnam War, and I was hooked for life," Fredericksen said.
While working as a newscaster and reporter for the American Forces Vietnam network in Saigon, he crossed paths with Joe Moore, now KHON’s longtime news anchor. "I met Joe at AFVN in Saigon when we worked in the same newsroom, sports for him and news for me," Fredericksen said.
In 1970 he returned from Vietnam and landed a job at his hometown CBS affiliate, KRNT in Des Moines, where he reported and later anchored the news. In 1982, while seeking a return to Asia, Fredericksen chose Honolulu as a good starting point. After sending in his audition tapes, KGMB offered him a job.
"(Bob) Sevey hired me. My first assignment from Sevey was to go shave off my beard. I went up the street to a barber at Ala Moana Shopping Center and have never had one since. It was part of my identity in Iowa, but I was ready and eager to shed it for the Hawaiian sunshine," he said.
Coming from Iowa, Fredericksen never expected his most memorable story at KGMB would involve snow. His assignment was covering the passing of a comet from atop Mauna Kea. "An international team was tracking it from a telescope. My photojournalist and I drove straight to the top," he said. "We were supposed to be there for just a few hours, but a storm socked us in. It was dark, zero visibility, and we were stuck.
"Before noon a snowplow arrived and cleared a path down the mountain. The snow was nearly hip deep in some drifted sections. Coming from Iowa, I never imagined I’d get stranded by a blizzard in Hawaii."
In 1984 he became the first KGMB morning news anchor when he covered the local station break cut-ins during the "CBS Morning News."
Fredericksen earned his big break when he became CBS bureau chief in Bangkok in 1985. During his decade in Asia, Fredericksen won a Peabody Award for his radio coverage of the Tiananmen Square student protests. A number of big names came through Asia during that time, and Fredericksen covered them all, from Henry Kissinger and Margaret Thatcher to Robin Williams.
"I spent a day on the set with Robin Williams during the filming of ‘Good Morning Vietnam,’ which was the fictionalized story of my unit in Vietnam," he said.
Next month is the 40th anniversary of the diplomatic negotiations that led to "Operation Homecoming," which resulted in the release of nearly 600 American soldiers held as prisoners of war in North Vietnam. Fredericksen’s new e-book explores what happened to the other 2,500 Americans who did not return home.
"I covered the issue in six countries for over 10 years, including Hawaii," he said.
With more than 3,000 radio, TV and print stories from Asia to his name, Fredericksen’s body of work helps tell the story with great detail.
"The biggest story of my decade in Thailand was covering the POW-MIA issue. No one wants to be left behind, and our men and women in uniform volunteer and go to war knowing that they will not be forgotten," he said.
Fredericksen was CBS bureau chief in Bangkok when the operation closed in 1987, but he stayed for several more years representing CBS and launched an independent news agency. He returned home to Iowa in 1995 and began working for Iowa Public Radio, where he remains.
A.J. McWhorter, a collector of film and videotape cataloging Hawaii’s TV history, has worked as a producer, writer and researcher for both local and national media. Email him at flashback@hawaii.rr.com.
