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The Best and the Brightest

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Author: David Halberstam
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$16.95~~
Buy Used: $7.29
You Save: $9.66 (57%)

New (44) Used (33) from $7.29

Media: Paperback
Edition: 20 Anv
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 720
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3

ISBN: 0449908704
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.922
EAN: 9780449908709
ASIN: 0449908704

Publication Date: October 26, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Inventory subject to prior sale. Used items have varying degrees of wear, highlighting, etc. and may not include supplements such as infotrac or other web access codes. Expedited orders cannot be sent to PO Box. Sorry, not able to ship to APO, FPO, Alaska, and Hawaii.

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 6-10 of 59

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Poor deluded SOBs February 6, 2008
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.

1 out of 5 stars

I couldn't / didn't read it January 23, 2008
10 out of 45 found this review helpful

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.br /br /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.br /br / 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. br /br /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.br /br /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.br /br /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. br /br /

4 out of 5 stars

Fascinating account of Kennedy and Johnson and Vietnam September 15, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

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.

5 out of 5 stars

A number of similarities with Iraq 40 years later. June 11, 2007
13 out of 18 found this review helpful

I read this book when it was first published and then found it to be an excellent description of the failures of the Kennedy-Johnson administration as it incrementally entered a war with North Vietnam. I have read it again after I read of Mr. Halberstam's death a few weeks ago.br /br /I had been very bothered by the actions of the US in Iraq. After reading The Best and Brightest I know what was bothering me. It is a repeat although with different characters, different enemies, different locale but the same thinking process and lack of thought for the many "what ifs" that war produces. It would have been nice if a few of the planners of the Iraq fiasco could have read Halberstam's book and taken note of the mistakes that were made in 1963 before launching the war in Iraq in 2003.br /br /Halberstam quotes Henry Kissenger as saying something to the effect of "we won't make the same mistakes . . . we'll make our own mistakes." It looks like the current planners and executors of Iraq strategy are making the same ones that were made in 1963 - and learning the same lessons about a counterinsurgency war being fought with traditional troops, equipment and strategy. br /br /The Iraqi insurgency in Iraq will go the same way as the insurgency in Vietnam - they will wait us out but without the large scale battles that took place in Vietnam once the army of North Vietnam entered the action in large numbers.br /br /Vietnam was disaster and tragedy for the Vietnamese as well as the Americans. What seems to be preventing the same level of disaster in the US is the fact that this war is being fought by non-draftees. That is one dissimilarity with Vietnam which has prevented the large scale protests across the nation which were seen as the presidency of Lyndon Johnson unraveled.br /br /I recommend this book to all students of political and military strategy. It is an exceptional read and I would predict you won't come away angry - just saddened that so much talent brought forth so little in the way of return for Vietnam and the United States.

5 out of 5 stars

Decisions that led to 59,000 US and 3,000,000 Vietnamese dead. June 10, 2007
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST by David Halberstam interprets US Foreign Policy of the Vietnam War as delusional.br /br /The principals: Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, William Bundy, George Ball, Dean Rusk, Averill Harriman, and Dean Acheson, not to mention Maxwell Taylor, and General Westmoreland. There are others of course.br /br /The author weaves the character of each individual with the politics of the day and shows how it led to decisions that were made from inner needs and wishful thinking rather than on facts. This error in thinking started at "the creation" i.e. the end of WWII. It torpedoed the power of rational thought. br /br /Halberstam reasons that the US perceived the Soviets to be on the verge to swallow Western Europe. This led the US to turn to France to provide a bastion against them. Charles De Gaulle was ready to cooperate but only if the US allowed France to seize Indochina again. br /br /In Halberstam's mind, the loss of China to the Communists, the Communist North Korean invasion of South Korea, the Communist Chinese invasion of Korea, McCarthy's hunt for Communists in the government, and then the Cuban missile crisis exacerbated and perpetuated fears about world domination by the Communists. These factors, according to Halberstam, contributed to the continued support of France in Indochina as an ally against monolithic Communism. After Dienbienphu, we did replace the French and decided that we would carry the crusade against Communism. We were then perceived by Ho Chi Minh as another western power colluding with another western but effete colonial power. The US nevertheless chose to allow France to regress to its former status as a colonial power over Vietnam in the name of stopping Communist aggression.br /br /Neither Kennedy nor Johnson could show hesitation, ambivalence, or appeasement. Their obsession of not wanting to be viewed as weak trumped their instincts to look for alternatives. All the leaders, especially Dean Rusk, and with the exception of George Ball, put forth the Munich analogy to justify intervention and escalation.br /br /In Halberstam's analysis, the Vietnam War was a defeat before it even began because it was based on a faulty strategy: To stop communist aggression. The idea to expel the French once and for all and to help unify North and South Vietnam was thought about but never acted upon. br /br /Halberstam holds the Bundy brothers along with McNamara responsible not only as instigators but the propagators of the war. McNamara was characterized as a whiz kid with a funny haircut who used his unbelievable grasp of statistics to flim-flam the pentagon in doing his bidding. It brings to mind Mark Twain's three types of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. br /br /Despite their super-education, their impeccable character, and their natural brilliance all the principals viewed the war as a war against Communist hegemony; they too could not show any hesitation, ambivalence, or appeasement to their president. To do otherwise was political suicide. On the other hand, George Ball was consistent in his opposition to the war from JFK to LBJ. To Halberstam JFK was changing his mind about the morality of the war but got gunned down; George Ball was the hero, LBJ the looser and France the thorn in our side. br /br /br /

Copyright 2007 White Hat Communications.
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