October 1964 (56 page)

Throughout Halberstam’s coverage of the Vietnam War, he was committed to reporting what he saw despite intense and continuous political pressure. Halberstam reported on the corrupt nature of the American-backed government in Saigon. Unlike many of his colleagues, he refused to report the misinformation that American commanders fed to the press, choosing instead to talk to soldiers and sergeants on the frontlines. His steadfast dedication left President Kennedy so infuriated that he personally asked Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, then-publisher of the
New York Times
, to replace Halberstam. Sulzberger refused.

Halberstam won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Vietnam and worked for the Times’ Warsaw bureau after the war. After leaving the
Times
in the late sixties, Halberstam turned his focus to writing books and magazine articles. He described his books as stories of power—sometimes used wisely, sometimes disastrously. Halberstam quickly established himself with
The Best and the Brightest
(1972), a blistering, landmark account of America’s role in Vietnam. For each social or political book he published—such as
The Powers That Be
,
The Fifties
, and
The Children
—Halberstam wrote one on sports, one of his favorite subjects. His books were regularly praised for their impeccable detail as well as for their absorbing narrative style.

Halberstam died in a car accident in Menlo Park, California, in 2007, at the age of seventy-three. He was en route to an interview for an upcoming book about the 1958 National Football League championship game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts. His obituary in the
Guardian
hailed him as “one of the most talented, influential and prolific of the American journalists who came of age professionally in the 1960s.”

Young Halberstam and his typewriter in the Congo in 1960.

An editorial meeting at the
New York Times
office, around 1962. Halberstam is at far right; Scotty Reston, who hired Halberstam, is to his right.

Halberstam, shown second from left, walking with military officers in Vietnam, around 1962.

Halberstam with Robert F. Kennedy, around 1967.

Halberstam and his daughter, Julia, at a Fourth of July parade in Nantucket, in 1983.

Halberstam and his friends James T. Wooten (in the poncho), a
New York Times
and ABC reporter, along with Richard C. Steadman and Gerry Krovatin in Nevis in the early 1990s.

Novelist John Burnham Schwartz (
Reservation Road
) and Halberstam in Nantucket in the mid-1990s.

Halberstam took an interest in rowing because of his work on
The Amateurs
, a study of four rowers striving for a place on the US Olympic team, published in 1996.

Halberstam and friends.

Halberstam, second from right, on a
New York Times
panel. Journalist Dexter Filkins (
The Forever War
) is to his right, discussing the Iraq war. This is one of the last photos of Halberstam before his death in 2007.

A memorandum written for Halberstam following his fatal car accident in 2007.

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