T.D. Allman, Assertive Globe-Trotting Journalist, Dies at 79

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T.D. Allman, a free-spirited journalist who challenged American mythmaking in pointed, personal reporting over five decades on topics as varied as the Vietnam War and contemporary Florida, died on May 12 in Manhattan. He was 79. His death, in a hospital, was caused by pneumonia, his partner, Chengzhong Sui, said. In March 1970, as a 25-year-old freelance journalist, Mr. Allman, accompanied by two other reporters, walked 15 miles over the mountains in Laos to report for The New York Times about Long Cheng, a secret C.I.A. base that was being used to fight the communist Pathet Lao revolutionaries and their allies, the North Vietnamese. “At the end of the paved runway were three Jolly Green Giant rescue helicopters,” Mr. Allman reported. “Their presence is believed to be one of the reasons the United States tries to keep Long Cheng secret. The Jolly Green Giants are regarded as proof that the United States bombs not just the Ho Chi Minh Trail but northeastern Laos as well.”