The Best and the Brightest (Modern Library)

by David Halberstam

  I have mentioned that Dan Ellsberg was generous with his time. There are two others whose professional help I would like to acknowledge. James Thomson, a lecturer in American-East Asian relations at Harvard and now curator of the Nieman Fellows as well, was particularly helpful in making the crucial connection for me between what had happened to the China experts and the impact of this upon the bureaucracy during the Kennedy-Johnson years. In effect, he opened doors which, when I began the book, I did not know existed. He was also extremely generous in showing me his own work on the subject, and his article for the Atlantic Monthly on the anatomy of decision making on Vietnam is by far the best single analysis of what happened. With Leslie Gelb, who edited the study which became known as the Pentagon Papers, I had many fruitful discussions about the era. He made available to me his own as yet unpublished chapters on the Roosevelt and Truman era, which were of great value. I am very appreciative of his kindness, particularly in the light of the fact that what I was writing was in effect competitive with his own work.

  Among others who have helped me are Richard Merritt, who was quick and fast in checking factual material; Barbara Willson at Random House, firm, tenacious and very effective in editing what was a very long manuscript which came in piece by piece; Julia Kayan, Elaine Cohen and Ann Lowe were also generous with their time at Random House; my lawyer Marshall Perlin was generous and conscientious when I was subpoenaed. Karen Witte was kind enough to Xerox much of the manuscript for me—no small job; Jean Halloran and Avery Rome, both of them Harper’s exiles, typed the manuscript and occasionally edited it as they typed. Others who were helpful were the staff at Claridge’s in Washington, my favorite hotel where I often stayed during long weeks of interviewing; Sam Sylvia of Nantucket was particularly generous on a personal level; and Rhonas A. McGhee of Washington made helpful suggestions from time to time.

  Besides listing the usual bibliography, I would like to mention some of the sources which were particularly valuable and upon which I was more than normally dependent. They include Milton Viorst’s article on Dean Rusk, originally published in Esquire and then reprinted in his collection Hustlers and Heroes; John Finney’s magazine article “The Long Trial of John Paton Davies,” New York Times Magazine, August 31, 1969; E. J. Kahn’s profile of Averell Harriman in The New Yorker, May 3 and May 10, 1952; Pat Furgurson’s biography of Westmoreland, entitled Westmoreland: The Inevitable General, which saved my doing a good deal of legwork on the general’s boyhood; the books on Lyndon Johnson by Hugh Sidey, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, and also Phil Geyelin’s book; Joe Goulden’s book on the Tonkin Gulf incident; Chalmers Roberts’ article on the decision not to intervene in Indochina in 1954, “The Day We Didn’t Go to War,” The Reporter, September 14, 1956; Leslie Gelb’s chapters from his as yet unpublished book on the origins of the war in Vietnam dealing specifically with the Truman and Roosevelt eras; Don Oberdorfer for what happened in the latter stages of the Johnson Administration in his book Tet, and Townsend Hoopes’s book The Limits of Intervention on the same general period. Ed Dale of the New York Times suggested that I spend some time finding out about the economic policies of the Administration during the escalation and was helpful in trying to guide me through it. In addition, the interviews given for the Kennedy Library by Robert Lovett, Henry Luce, Joe Rauh, Dean Acheson, George Kennan and John Seigenthaler were unusually valuable, particularly the Luce interview. It dealt with his 1960 dinner with Joseph Kennedy when they discussed how Jack Kennedy should run as a presidential candidate, and it closely parallels material that Luce gave to John Jessup for Jessup’s book on him.

  Bibliography

  BOOKS ON JOHN F. KENNEDY HIMSELF, AS WELL AS THE KENNEDY CIRCLE AND THE KENNEDY STYLE AND CULTURE:

  Abel, Elie, The Missile Crisis. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1966.

  Bowles, Chester, Promises to Keep: My Years in Public Life 1941­1969. New York, Harper, 1971.

  Bradlee, Benjamin, That Special Grace. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1964.

  Burns, James MacGregor, John Kennedy: A Political Profile. New York, Harcourt, 1959.

  Doyle, Edward P., ed., As We Knew Adlai. New York, Harper, 1966.

  Fay, Paul B., Jr., The Pleasure of His Company. New York, Harper, 1966.

  Galbraith, John K., Ambassador’s Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1969.

  ———, The Triumph. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1968.

  Hilsman, Roger, To Move a Nation. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1967.

  Jessup, John K., ed., Ideas of Henry Luce. New York, Atheneum, 1969.

  Lansdale, Edward Geary, In the Midst of War: An American’s Mission to Southeast Asia. New York, Harper, 1972.

  McNamara, Robert S., The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office. New York, Harper, 1968.

  Morison, Elting, ed., The American Style. New York, Harper, 1958.

  Rostow, Walt W., The Stages of Economic Growth. 2nd ed. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1971.

  Salinger, Pierre, With Kennedy. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1966.

  Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., Kennedy or Nixon: Does It Make a Difference? New York, Macmillan, 1960.

  ———, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1965.

  Sorensen, Theodore, Kennedy. New York, Harper, 1965.

  Stein, Jean, and Plimpton, George, American Journey: The Times of Robert F. Kennedy. New York, Harcourt, 1970.

  Tanzer, Lester, ed., The Kennedy Circle. Washington, D.C., Luce, 1961.

  Taylor, Maxwell, The Uncertain Trumpet. New York, Harper, 1960.

  Walton, Richard J., The Remnants of Power: The Tragic Last Years of Adlai Stevenson. New York, Coward-McCann, 1968.

  Whalen, Richard J., The Founding Father: The Story of Joseph P. Kennedy. New York, New American Library, 1964.

  White, Theodore H., The Making of the President 1960. New York, Atheneum, 1961.

  Wise, David, and Ross, Thomas B., The Invisible Government. New York, Random House, 1964.

  JOHNSON AND THE JOHNSON PEOPLE AND STYLE:

  Anderson, Patrick, The President’s Men: White House Assistants from FDR through LBJ. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1968.

  Brammer, William, The Gay Place. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1961.

  Evans, Rowland, and Novak, Robert, Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power. New York, New American Library, 1966.

  Furgurson, Ernest B., Westmoreland: The Inevitable General. Boston, Little, Brown, 1968.

  Goldman, Eric F., The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. New York, Knopf, 1969.

  Hayes, Harold, ed., Smiling Through the Apocalypse: Esquire’s History of the Sixties. New York, McCall’s, 1970.

  Johnson, Haynes Bonner, and Gwerztman, Bernard M., Fulbright: The Dissenter. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1968.

  Johnson, Lyndon B., The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency. New York, Holt, 1971.

  Johnson, Sam Houston, My Brother Lyndon Johnson. New York, Cowles, 1970.

  McPherson, Harry, A Political Education. Boston, Little, Brown, 1972.

  O’Neill, William L., Coming Apart. Chicago, Quadrangle, 1971.

  Reedy, George E., The Twilight of the Presidency. New York, Norton, 1970.

  Sidey, Hugh, A Very Personal Presidency: Lyndon Johnson in the White House. New York, Atheneum, 1968.

  Steinberg, Alfred, Sam Johnson’s Boy. New York, Macmillan, 1968.

  Trewhitt, Henry L., McNamara: His Ordeal in the Pentagon. New York, Harper, 1971.

  Viorst, Milton, Hustlers and Heroes: An American Political Panorama. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1971.

  White, Theodore H., The Making of the President 1964. New York, Atheneum, 1965.

  White, William S., The Professional: Lyndon B. Johnson. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1964.

  Wicker, Tom, JFK and LBJ: The Influence of Personality upon Politics. Baltimore, Penguin, 1968.

  THE DECISION MAKING ON VIETNAM:

  Austin, Anthony, The President’s War. P
hiladelphia, Lippincott, 1971.

  Brandon, Henry, Anatomy of Error. Boston, Gambit, 1969.

  Ellsberg, Daniel, Papers on the War. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1972.

  Geyelin, Philip, Lyndon Johnson and the World. New York, Praeger, 1966.

  Goulden, Joseph C., Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin Affair—Illusion and Reality. Chicago, Rand, 1969.

  Goulding, Phil G., Confirm or Deny: Informing the People on National Security. New York, Harper, 1970.

  Graff, H., The Tuesday Cabinet. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1970.

  Heren, Louis, No Hail, No Farewell. New York, Harper, 1970.

  Hoopes, Townsend, The Limits of Intervention. New York, McKay, 1970.

  Janeway, Eliot, The Economics of Crisis: War, Politics and the Dollar. New York, Weybright, 1971.

  Leacocos, John, Fire in the Outbasket. New York, World, 1968.

  Loory, Stuart H., and Kraslow, David, The Secret Search for Peace in Vietnam. New York, Random House, 1968.

  Manning, Robert, and Janeway, Michael, Who We Are: An Atlantic Chronicle of the United States and Vietnam 1966­1969. Boston, Little, Brown, 1969.

  Oberdorfer, Don, Tet. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1971.

  The Pentagon Papers, as published by the New York Times. Written by Neil Sheehan, Hedrick Smith, E. W. Kenworthy and Fox Butterfield. New York, Bantam, 1971.

  The Pentagon Papers, U.S. Department of Defense. The Senator Gravel edition. Boston, Beacon Press, 1971.

  Stavins, Ralph; Barnet, Richard J.; and Raskin, Marcus G., Washington Plans an Aggressive War. New York, Random House, 1971.

  Taylor, Maxwell, Swords and Plowshares. New York, Norton, 1972.

  Weintal, Edward, and Bartlett, Charles, Facing the Brink: An Intimate Study of Crisis Diplomacy. New York, Scribner, 1967.

  THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN INDOCHINA:

  Buttinger, Joseph, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. 2 vols. New York, Praeger, 1967.

  Cameron, Allan W., ed., Viet-Nam Crisis: A Documentary History, Vol. I, 1940­1956. Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1971.

  De Gaulle, Charles, The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1968.

  Devillers, Phillippe, and Lacouture, Jean, End of a War: Indochina Nineteen Fifty-Four. New York, Praeger, 1969.

  Draper, Theodore, The Abuse of Power. New York, Viking, 1967.

  Fall, Bernard B., Hell in a Very Small Place. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1966.

  ———, Street Without Joy. Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole, 1966.

  ———, Two Vietnams: A Political and Military Analysis. 2nd rev. ed. New York, Praeger, 1967.

  Gettleman, Marvin E., Vietnam. New York, New American Library, 1970.

  Greene, Graham, The Quiet American. New York, Viking, 1957.

  Gurtov, Melvin, The First Vietnam Crisis: Chinese Communist Strategy and United States Involvement, 1953­1954. New York, Columbia University Press, 1967.

  Halberstam, David, The Making of a Quagmire. New York, Random House, 1965.

  Hughes, Emmet John, The Ordeal of Power. New York, Atheneum, 1963.

  Kalb, Marvin, and Abel, Elie, The Roots of Involvement: The U.S. in Asia 1784­1971. New York, Norton, 1971.

  Lederer, William, and Burdick, Eugene, The Ugly American. New York, Norton, 1958.

  McAlister, John T., Jr., Viet-Nam: The Origins of Revolution. New York, Knopf, 1969.

  Mecklin, John, Mission in Torment. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1965.

  Pfeffer, Richard M., ed., No More Vietnams: The War and the Future of American Foreign Policy. New York, Harper, 1968.

  Ridgway, Matthew B., The Korean War. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1967.

  ———, Soldier. New York, Harper, 1956.

  Schell, Jonathan, The Village of Ben Suc. New York, Knopf, 1967.

  Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., The Bitter Heritage: Vietnam and American Democracy 1941­1966. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1967.

  Shaplen, Robert, The Lost Revolution: U.S. in Vietnam 1946­1966. New York, Harper, 1965.

  THE CHINA ERA:

  China White Paper: August Nineteen Forty-Nine. United States Department of State. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1971. (Reprint of 1949 ed.)

  Clubb, O. Edmund, Communism in China As Reported from Hankow in 1932. New York, Columbia University Press, 1968.

  Davies, John P., Jr., Foreign and Other Affairs. New York, Norton, 1964.

  Feis, Herbert, The China Tangle. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1953.

  Service, John S., The Amerasia Papers. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1971.

  Sevareid, Eric, Not So Wild a Dream. New York, Knopf, 1946.

  Stilwell, Joseph W., The Stilwell Papers, arranged and edited by Theodore H. White. New York, Sloane, 1948.

  Tuchman, Barbara W., Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911­45. New York, Macmillan, 1971.

  Wedemeyer, Albert C., Wedemeyer Reports! New York, Holt, 1958.

  THE MC CARTHY PERIOD:

  Buckley, William F., Jr., and Bozell, L. Brent, McCarthy and His Enemies. New Rochelle, N.Y., Arlington House, 1954.

  Cook, Fred J., The Nightmare Decade. New York, Random House, 1971.

  Harper, Alan D., The Politics of Loyalty. Westport, Conn., Greenwood, 1969.

  THE COLD WAR PERIOD:

  Acheson, Dean, Morning and Noon. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1965.

  ———, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. New York, Norton, 1969.

  Barnet, Richard J., The Economy of Death. New York, Atheneum, 1969.

  Campbell, John, The Fudge Factory. New York, Basic Books, 1971.

  Forrestal, James, Forrestal Diaries. Walter Millis and E. S. Duffield, eds. New York, Viking, 1966.

  Gardner, Lloyd C., Architects of Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Policy. Chicago, Quadrangle, 1970.

  Halle, Louis Joseph, The Cold War As History. New York, Harper, 1967.

  Kennan, George F., Memoirs, 1925­1950. Boston, Little, Brown, 1967.

  Steel, Ronald, Imperialists and Other Heroes. New York, Random House, 1971.

  Stimson, Henry L., and Bundy, McGeorge, On Active Service in Peace and War. New York, Harper, 1948.

  THE NIXON YEARS:

  Riegle, Don, O Congress. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1972.

  Whalen, Richard, Catch the Falling Flag. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1972.

  MILITARY:

  Janowitz, Morris, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait. Glencoe, Ill., Free Press, 1960.

  Just, Ward, Military Men. New York, Knopf, 1970.

  Raymond, Jack, Power at the Pentagon. New York, Harper, 1964.

  Rodberg, Leonard S., and Shearer, Derek, eds., The Pentagon Watchers: Students Report on the National Security State. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1971.

  Index

  Abrams, General Creighton W., Jr.

  Acheson, Dean G.

  Ackley, Gardner

  Adenauer, Chancellor Konrad

  Agency for International Development (AID)

  Agnew, Vice-President Spiro

  Alexander, Henry

  Allen, Richard V.

  Alperovitz, Gar

  Alphand, Ambassador Hervé

  Alsop, Joseph

  Alsop, Stewart

  Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)

  Andreson, Wilbur

  Angell, Robert

  Arnett, Peter

  Auchincloss, Louis

  Ayub Khan

  Bailey, John