The Best and the Brightest

Rating:
Summary: is this history or self-justification?
Review: I wasn't a great fan of Mr. Halberstam's reporting from Vietnam. It seemed to be at the time to be more than a little biased. Perhaps that put the idea into my head, but when I read this book it seemed in part to be an effort to justify the anti-war bias that marred his work as a reporter--a retroactive proof of his own superior judgment--rather than groundbreaking history

Rating:
Summary: a few warnings for younger readers
Review: If you are looking for a good intro to Vietnam history, it is hard to miss the glowing reviews given to TBATB by David Halberstam. I read the 750+ page text from cover to cover over the last month and finished yesterday. I was disappointed that none of the Amazon reviewers stopped praising Halberstam's genius long enough to critique his writing. It seems that someone enshrined this book as a classic some time ago, and nobody has noticed what I did - this guy is not a great writer.

Halberstam spent 750+ pages on information he could have covered VERY adequately in 600-650 pages. There is a lot of bloat here. One example: page 622 of the Modern Library hardback he describes how McNamara loved to dress in uniforms from early childhood; then on page 629 (seven pages later) he repeats the same exact sentence in a different form. It provides no additional emphasis to the point - just bloat. These examples are too numerous to mention and appear throughout the book.

TBATB could have a much better structure. It moves somewhat chronologically (from early Kennedy to mid-Nixon), but jumps around so much as to make one dizzy. There are no chapter titles and no table of contents. You dive in and hold on. Often he will change decades in mid-paragraph for no reason at all. His flow and logic are in there, but he makes you work for it too hard.

I got the impression while reading it that Halberstam was so immersed in his Vietnam project, that he had lost perspective - that is probably a characteristic of writers who do groundbreaking work - and badly needed an honest editor. Halberstam was so impassioned in his search for the causes of Vietnam (he had over 2,000 pages of single-spaced notes from interviews alone) that at the end of the years of research, he couldn't quite trim the fat down to make it as coherent as it could have been for the reader.

On the positive, this is clearly a watershed book that was exhaustively researched, insightful, and honest. I learned a great deal about Vietnam and am glad I gutted it out through a pithy read.

Just wanted to warn other Amazon readers what they are in for if they punch this one up. If you're looking for an intro book, I recommend that you read "A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan" FIRST and decide if you want to venture further.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, but Halberstam needs an editor...
Review: If you are looking for a good intro to Vietnam history, it is hard to miss the glowing reviews given to TBATB by David Halberstam. I read the 750+ page text from cover to cover over the last month and finished yesterday. I was disappointed that none of the Amazon reviewers stopped praising Halberstam's genius long enough to critique his writing. It seems that someone enshrined this book as a classic some time ago, and nobody has noticed what I did - this guy is not a great writer.

Halberstam spent 750+ pages on information he could have covered VERY adequately in 600-650 pages. There is a lot of bloat here. One example: page 622 of the Modern Library hardback he describes how McNamara loved to dress in uniforms from early childhood; then on page 629 (seven pages later) he repeats the same exact sentence in a different form. It provides no additional emphasis to the point - just bloat. These examples are too numerous to mention and appear throughout the book.

TBATB could have a much better structure. It moves somewhat chronologically (from early Kennedy to mid-Nixon), but jumps around so much as to make one dizzy. There are no chapter titles and no table of contents. You dive in and hold on. Often he will change decades in mid-paragraph for no reason at all. His flow and logic are in there, but he makes you work for it too hard.

I got the impression while reading it that Halberstam was so immersed in his Vietnam project, that he had lost perspective - that is probably a characteristic of writers who do groundbreaking work - and badly needed an honest editor. Halberstam was so impassioned in his search for the causes of Vietnam (he had over 2,000 pages of single-spaced notes from interviews alone) that at the end of the years of research, he couldn't quite trim the fat down to make it as coherent as it could have been for the reader.

On the positive, this is clearly a watershed book that was exhaustively researched, insightful, and honest. I learned a great deal about Vietnam and am glad I gutted it out through a pithy read.

Just wanted to warn other Amazon readers what they are in for if they punch this one up. If you're looking for an intro book, I recommend that you read "A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan" FIRST and decide if you want to venture further.

Rating:
Summary: The Biggest Threat to Political Power is its Misuse
Review: Inside the exhaustive research, the gripping narative, and the insightful biographies is a powerful statement on the use and abuse of political power. This book is an essential read for the history students of the Viet Nam era, but it should also be required of anybody who seeks to undertand politcal power. Inside the title, "The Best and the Brightest" is the suggestion that something more is required to be successful in politics, and the book uncovers it well. In trying to explain how the best intentions of the Kennedy administration got the Bay of Pigs so wrong Chester Bowles wrote in his diary how the rational intellect performed so poorly under stress without a moral center. It was insightful to point out how the anti-communist fever left over from the McCarthy inquisitions impacted the situation by causing the exit of many of the Asian State Department people who truly knew what was going on. It had the effect of insulating the White House from the truth. But what made the book was the details into the profiles of the people in power who made the decisions; what made the intelligent leaders with such great intentions make such regrettable decisions. There are great and unique lessons in leadership here. While Halberstam clearly displays the dammage done to the presidency, the Democratic party, the economy and to the country; I only wish he had mentioned the body count of the young Americans (and the Vietnamese of both sides) of my generation who died in that miserable war. That was the real tragedy. Those who have political power and those who delegate it with their vote should understand these consequences of the misuse of power. It is that lesson which makes Halberstam's in depth study of this period of history timeless.

Rating:
Summary: a few warnings for younger readers
Review: Judging by the reviews, this book appears to have seriously struck a chord with people who lived through the Vietnam era. I can imagine how in '72 when this first came out it must have been groundbreaking. But a few warnings for people who did not live through Nam reading this in the 21st century:

- This is not a history of the Vietnam war. This is a profile and a criticism of the people who got us into the war.

- No footnotes, no attribution of sources. Always a disturbing sign.

- I found his narrative style extremely annoying. He comes back to the history (events & dates) just long enough to introduce a new character and then shoots off onto a 20 page profile of said character. Again and again he does this, until I found myself going "Oh God, not another profile..."

This book is very good but I can't help but feel that Halberstam's style of writing (the moral superiority and lack of sourcing) helped plant the seeds for self-righteous liberal hacks like Michael Moore. Halberstam had the skill and intellect to pull it off, but he paved the way for a lot of the arrogant political writers we see today.

Rating:
Summary: This book was Popular
Review: My favorite review of this book was by Mary McCarthy, a novelist who had visited both halves of the geopolitically split country now universally known as Vietnam, when American policy was a major reason for considering that country split in two. American interest in the story which Halberstam tells in this book will always be greater than anything that Mary McCarthy might tell us about what any of the Vietnamese thought. For me this book was my first glimpse at the explicit nature of the thinking at the top, which definitely trickled down to the Americans out in the field in Vietnam, though none of them may have used it in the presence of a great American novelist like Mary McCarthy, who possessed an elite, upper-crust quality which made her defense of her own thinking on the topic as easy to dismiss as the superfluous usually are. Like a perverse philosopher viewing the comedy of mayhem, she would like to know "to what end all these excited words were assembled, . . . studded, like a ham, with anecdotes and gossip about historic decisions and high-status personalities, syrupy with compassionate insights into the gamesmanship of power?" That would be like asking why I review books, and particularly, this one.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Overview Of How We Slid Into A Quagmire In Vietnam!
Review: Nothing so brilliantly crystallized and clarified the epic true story of how the American people were led into the tragedy of Vietnam better than did this classic book by David Halberstam. Already famous for his journalistic overview in "The Making of a Quagmire", Halberstam riveted the nation with his absorbing, literate, and very detailed account of how the arrogant, insular, technocratically well educated, and affluent sons and daughters of the Power Elite in this country led us into the unholy miasma of Vietnam. This is a classic story superbly told by a journalist with impeccable credentials.

Halberstam already had a wealth of personal experience as a correspondent in Vietnam before initiating the research for this book, and he draws a number of fascinating, intimate, and quite absorbing in-depth portraits of the major figures involved in this fool's errand formerly referred to as French Indochina. From the feckless and perhaps clueless Robert McNamara to McGeorge Bundy, brother William Bundy, former Oxford Scholar Dean Rusk, George Ball, William Westmoreland, Maxwell Taylor, and Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, all these alumni of the best schools and best families (with the single exception of LBJ, an accidental president) pranced their pseudo-macho way toward the single most disastrous series of military decisions this side of Pearl Harbor.

Unlike those of us who actually saw the jungles of Vietnam up close and personal, these men were neither ignorant, nor provincial (at least not in the ordinary use of that term), nor poorly informed; rather, they both considered themselves and were considered by others to be the most outstanding, capable, and effective members of the contemporary "Power Elite" i.e. the best of the then contemporary ivy League graduates Kennedy could lure from the bastions of the academic, business, and corporate world into the magic and presumptuous world of Camelot. In essence, these guys were seen as the best and the brightest of their generation. Just how their elite educations, presumptuous world-views, and de-facto actual ignorance and lack of what we would now refer to as "street-smarts" led them to conclude it was in the nation's interests to fight what others have called "the wrong war in the wrong place with the wrong foes at the wrong time" is an epic tale of arrogance, insular thinking, and mutually sustained delusions.

Through their efforts they embroiled us in an unwinnable war, a conflict that the rest of us paid so dearly for in blood, sweat and tears. They led a nation then so singularly blessed with affluence and peace into a bottomless cauldron of dissent, inter-generational strife, and almost pitched us off the precipice of social and political revolution. It is important to better understand what kind of men they were, and why they led us so carelessly into such sustained disaster. Why did they react to defeats by escalating, even when the evidence clearly indicated (as McNamara has recently admitted) doing so was futile? Who led whom down the primrose path in the meetings in which these decisions were repeatedly argued, hammered out and finally refined?

All these questions and many more are answered in this wonderfully documented and exhaustively detailed account of how it is that so few individuals engaged in a series of such disastrous policy decisions that led America into the quagmire of Vietnam. By the way, after carefully re-reading the book I am more convinced than ever that McNamara and Westmoreland (among others) should be indicted and tried as war criminals. Let them spend their dotage in federal prison. After all, there is no statute of limitations on conspiracy to commit murder, and I have dozens of friends gone too soon based on nothing more than the deliberately callous and reckless decisions made by these men as outlined in this book. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: powerful lessons still relevant 30 years later
Review: The Best and the Brightest is an 816-page tome about the men who came to power under Kennedy and continued to serve under Johnson. The men who were supposedly the brightest and most able men ever assembled by a President. The men who led their country into the disastrous Vietnam war.

Halberstam spent over two years interviewing people to write this book and he clearly did his research. His writing shows a clear understanding of the region, history, politics and players. Despite some repetitive or dry sections, most of the book is surprisingly fast-moving and well written.

In an effort to portray a complete picture of the players, there are a lot of men covered, not all of whom seem critical. I felt I could use an organizational chart or a quick reference section at the end to remember who was who and what their role was.

Though written over 30 years ago, this book's lessons are still relevant today. Halberstam teaches readers about the restrictions on speaking up against China policy, then Vietnam. He tells of how the officials demanded patriotism, opposing viewpoints were closed off, considered non-patriotic, their proponents excluded from access to power. The lesson is the importance of debate, of being open to information (bad news as well as good), of the difficulty many people have in holding on to their principles when power is at stake.

Perhaps the greatest lesson of the book is that "best and brightest" is a relative term. Even the seemingly most perfect people have flaws that can have disastrous consequences, especially in situations where dissent is discouraged and problems are papered over. And also, that best and the brightest in the 1960s was an exclusive word, limited to ambitious white men, most of whom craved power and were afraid to make mistakes. If the definition of best and brightest had been more inclusive, if different types of intelligent and thoughtful people had been allowed access to decision-making, the results might have been different.

For those interested in how decisions were made from the American side, in how a group of smart men could make such serious mistakes, this is a book worth reading.


Rating:
Summary: Who were the Best and the Brightest
Review: The Best and the Brightest is the signature work from an author who has perfected a literary style that is unique and unequaled in the recounting of history.

David Halberstam is a genious at introducing us to the people of history, not just the events. This approach is perfectly suited for a study of the key citizen and military leaders who were central to the war in Vietnam.

Each chapter presents fascinating sketches of people like Harvard whiz kid McGeorge Bundy, former Ford superstar and Defense Secretary Robert McNamera, General Westmoreland, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and many others. Amazingly, these character sketches do not digress from the recounting of the events, instead they provide a valuable context.

In the end you understand the events of Vietnam because you understand the people that were making the decisions on Vietnam.

A consuming read for anyone who wants to understand a tragic moment in our past.

Rating:
Summary: Forest for the trees--Time for Clearer View!
Review: The problem with a book that was written as far back as this is that new events hadn't come to light and those who knew what they were talking about didn't get a chance to say it. Do you ask an American journalist living safely back in the US whether communism was bad. Or do you ask a refugee who just escaped from Vietnam whether Americans fighting in Vietnam was wortwhile. Or even better yet, how about asking an American teenager from California who lived in Vietnam from the Tet Offensive of 1968 until the pull out of troops in 1972, who later became a fledglin photojournalist who sneaked into Vietnam to find out the truth of what happened, something those well paid journalists like Halberstam would never risk doing once they got famous. Read stories about Vietnam from very unfamous journalists who were held for 11 months ONLY because they were American, and then you've got the story of what really happened in Vietnam.

It's called "The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War". Maybe Halberstam should interview Cork Graham about his memoir. Maybe many more journalist should get out of their "good old boy" network and see what the world has offered and then "The Best And Brightest" would be a lot more accurate and there wouldn't be such an avoidance of noting sources. I guess it's all perspective. One American journalist pals around with generals and officers speculatingon the communist threat and then there were those who really believed in what they were doing because they'd seen what had happened in North Vietnam, Africa, and Cuba. And then when we lost, they saw what many never saw except those who paying attention in countries like Nicaragua, Poland, El Salvador.

Sure get "The Best and Brightest" if you want to know about what people guessed about Vietnam before 1975, and then IN ORDER TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED in Vietnam read "The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War" by Cork Graham and you'll get what was missed by us over here. You'll get an American's personal perspective of what only a Vietnamese political prisoner could know. And then you can follow along with Graham as he continues reporting in Central America and gets so disgusted with how it was turning into another Vietnam debacle through the assistance of continued inaccurate reporting that he became the second American trained by the US Navy SEALs and participated in that war as a corpsman. Sure refreshing than rehashing reason for why we lost, instead of seeing how we could have won as evidenced by the American victory in Central America--only the ignorant or those who've never left the US on anything other than a "fact finding junket" would say that there wasn't a Domino Theory. What do you call what happened Central America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia? No domino theory, then why were American weapons lost in Vietnam in 1975 turning up as arms of the communist FLMN in El Salvador, having been shipped to Nicaragua and smuggled across the Gulf of Fonseca. Cold War. . .right! How about HOT WAR!