Halberstam, David

David Halberstam (April 10, 1934 April 23, 2007) was an American writer, journalist, and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, Korean War, and later, sports journalism. He won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1964. Halberstam was killed in a car crash in 2007, while doing research for a book.

Early life and education

Halberstam was born in New York City, the son of Blanche (Levy) and Charles A. Halberstam, schoolteacher and Army surgeon. His family was Jewish. He was raised in Winsted, Connecticut, where he was a classmate of Ralph Nader. He moved to Yonkers, New York, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1951.
In 1955 he graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. degree after serving as managing editor of '' The Harvard Crimson''. Halberstam had a rebellious streak and as editor of the ''Harvard Crimson'' engaged in a competition to see which columnist could most offend readers.

Career

Halberstam's journalism career began at the ''Daily Times Leader'' in West Point, Mississippi, the smallest daily newspaper in Mississippi. He covered the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement for '' The Tennessean'' in Nashville. John Lewis later stated that Halberstam was the only journalist in Nashville who would cover the Nashville sit-ins, organized by the Nashville Student Movement which Halberstam focused on in his 1998 book '' The Children''. Halberstam's fiery, rebellious streak first came out when covering the civil rights movement as he protested against the lies of the authorities who portrayed the civil rights protesters as violent and dangerous.

Republic of the Congo

In August 1961 '' The New York Times'' dispatched Halberstam to the Republic of the Congo to report on the Congo Crisis. Although initially eager to cover the events in the country, over time he grew jaded over the demanding working conditions and the difficulty in handling Congolese officials' lack of truthfulness. In July 1962 he quickly accepted an opportunity to move to Vietnam to report on the Vietnam War for ''The New York Times''.

Vietnam

Halberstam arrived in Vietnam in the middle of 1962. A tall and well built man, he conveyed much self-confidence and initially the American embassy approved of him. However, Halberstam was prone to fits of rage when faced with lies and soon came into conflict with American officials. When the chief American officer in South Vietnam, General Paul D. Harkins, launched an operation with 45 helicopters flown by American pilots landing a battalion of South Vietnamese infantry to attack a Viet Cong base while excluding the media, Halberstam flew into a rage when he was told to report the operation as a victory. In a letter addressed to Frederick Nolting, the American ambassador to South Vietnam, Halberstam wrote about the reasons for the media blackout: "The reason given is security. This is, of course, stupid, naive and indeed insulting to the patriotism and intelligence of every American newspaperman, and every American newspaper represented here." Halberstam argued that the operation could not have been the victory that Harkins had claimed as the Viet Cong must have heard the helicopters coming and accordingly retreated as guerrillas normally do when faced with superior force, leading him to write: "You can bet the V.C. knew what was happening. You can bet Hanoi knew what was happening. Only American reporters and American readers were kept ignorant."

With the help of military sources like John Paul Vann, an active duty officer in Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), Halberstam, along with colleagues Neil Sheehan of UPI and Malcolm Brown of the AP, challenged the upbeat reporting of the United States mission in South Vietnam. They reported the defeat of government troops at the first major battle of the Vietnam War known as the Battle of Ap Bac. President John F. Kennedy tried to get the New York Times to replace Halberstam with a more compliant journalist. The Times refused. Like a few other US journalists covering Vietnam, he considered information from ''LIFE'' magazine reporter Phạm Xuân Ẩn, who was later revealed to be an intelligence agent for the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam.

During the Buddhist crisis in 1963, Halberstam and Neil Sheehan debunked the claim by the Diệm regime that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam regular forces had perpetrated the brutal raids on Buddhist temples, which the American authorities had initially believed, but that the Special Forces, loyal to Diệm's brother and strategist Nhu, had done so to frame the army generals. He was also involved in a scuffle