Books The Best and the Brightest
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - History repeating itself
I read this book for the first time over ten years ago and returned to it for the bitter relevancy it has as I reflect on our situation in Iraq today.

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Rating: - Poor deluded SOBs
Despite the logorrhea, the fragments, the absolute structures, and the never-ending repetition, this book is worthwhile as the explication of a man who surrounded himself with sycophants. Americans, in general, paid a high price.

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Rating: - I couldn't / didn't read it
I know that this will appear to be a strange review, since I bought the book but refused to read it. I have read three other books on the Vietnam War and was looking forward to reading Halberstam's version of it, since he's such a good writer.

Recent books about Vietnam have access to documents not previously available to writers. Now, with a more factual rendering of the Vietnam War, it is easier to understand what was going on during that time. One of the things I learned was that David Halberstam, a reporter for the NY Times during the Diem period, was one of the contributors to the mess we called the Vietnam quagmire.

His reporting was far from objective, and he painted such a distorted picture of Diem because of his personal dislike of the man, that it helped in the November removal/murder of Diem. After that event, the war went downhill, and eventually US troops were injected into the war.

Basically, it seems that Halberstam was part of the problem to the point that the NY Times was going to remove him from Vietnam until Kennedy requested the removal. The Times refused, then, not wanting to appear to do something forced on them by the President.

So, why can't I read the book? If Halberstam was not objective during the war, how can I expect him to be objective after the war. He's not going to tell us how wrong he was about removing Diem, etc., and how he misreported battle results to make Diem look bad. Now available North Vietnam/Communist documents disprove most of Halberstam's battle assessments. They freely admitted to themselves that Diem's military was beating them, and that Diem was a strong President who they, the Communists, would like to see gone. Unfortunately, the US Gov't helped do that for North Vietnam...and Halberstam was one of the reporters who helped in that process. Check out President Kennedy's remarks about Halberstam if you don't believe me.

That is why I can't read his book. If anyone has read the book, agrees with my assessment, but says that Halberstam admitted his mistakes, please let me know. I'll read the book then and only then.

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Rating: - Fascinating account of Kennedy and Johnson and Vietnam
While a little dry sometimes this is Halberstam's definitive book. It really shows how the years of McCarthyism leading up to Kennedy's administration led to many terrible decisions about supporting Diem and trying to not look weak to the Russians. After the fiasco that was the Bay of Pigs Kennedy became even more determined to show strength. However the first tragedy among many was the assasination which while horrible in itself also came at a critical time in the course of the Vietnam policy. Halberstam theorizes that Kennedy was nearly ready to pull the plug on Vietnam when he died. Well written, incredibly well researched and an important book.