13-02-2017, 09:23 PM
(This post was last modified: 13-02-2017, 11:47 PM by Jim DiEugenio.)
Here is my two-part retroactive review of Halbertsam's blunder of a book, which the MSM praised so heartily.
The Best and the Brightest was one of the luckiest books ever written. By the time it was published, and everything was going south, the MSM and the public needed a book that blamed someone, anyone for what had happened. Halberstam seemed to do so in a general way and seemed to show that there were certain people in the system who wanted to stop it but were either displaced or died. The only reviewer who said he was full of crap at the time was Mary McCarthy.
Halberstam was one of the first to point the finger at McNamara. We now know that McNamara was actually implementing JFK's withdrawal policy at his behest in 1963. LBJ personally reversed that policy, telling McNamara he never agreed with it. And then sent him to Vietnam in early 1964, telling him to get the real intel figures, since LBJ knew from his military aide what those figures actually were. He then used those to base his plan to expand the war, which was enclosed in NSAM 288.
When McGeorge Bundy reread Halberstam in the nineties, he told Goldstein that The Best and the Brightest got it all wrong since Halberstam did not understand who JFK was or what he was doing. That is what inspired me to write my long review of Halberstam in light of the declassified record. Good books persevere even in light of new info. Halberstam's book is a dinosaur today.
https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kenne...est-part-1
What Newman's book did was to clear the field and set a new paradigm. Which is why JFK and Vietnam is a milestone today.
The Best and the Brightest was one of the luckiest books ever written. By the time it was published, and everything was going south, the MSM and the public needed a book that blamed someone, anyone for what had happened. Halberstam seemed to do so in a general way and seemed to show that there were certain people in the system who wanted to stop it but were either displaced or died. The only reviewer who said he was full of crap at the time was Mary McCarthy.
Halberstam was one of the first to point the finger at McNamara. We now know that McNamara was actually implementing JFK's withdrawal policy at his behest in 1963. LBJ personally reversed that policy, telling McNamara he never agreed with it. And then sent him to Vietnam in early 1964, telling him to get the real intel figures, since LBJ knew from his military aide what those figures actually were. He then used those to base his plan to expand the war, which was enclosed in NSAM 288.
When McGeorge Bundy reread Halberstam in the nineties, he told Goldstein that The Best and the Brightest got it all wrong since Halberstam did not understand who JFK was or what he was doing. That is what inspired me to write my long review of Halberstam in light of the declassified record. Good books persevere even in light of new info. Halberstam's book is a dinosaur today.
https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kenne...est-part-1
What Newman's book did was to clear the field and set a new paradigm. Which is why JFK and Vietnam is a milestone today.