David Halberstam, US writer on Vietnam, dies in car crash

SAN FRANCISCO: Pulitzer prize-winning author and Vietnam War journalist David Halberstam died in a car accident in northern California on Monday, authorities said.   

Halberstam, 73, author of 15 bestsellers but perhaps most famous for his epic 1972 book on the origins of the Vietnam War "The Best and the Brightest," was killed in a car crash in Menlo Park, the San Mateo County Coroner's Office said.   

He died of internal injuries at the scene after the car in which he was traveling was struck at high speed by another vehicle, said fire chief Harold Schappelhouman.   

The front seat passenger's side, where Halberstam was seated and wearing his safety belt, bore the brunt of the impact, Schappelhouman said. The driver, a journalism student, was injured.   

Halberstam spoke on Saturday night at the University of California Berkeley on "Turning Journalism into History," and was on his way to interview a former football player when the crash occurred, the New York Times said.   

The New York-based Halberstam, who authored a total of 21 books during his life, had been working on a book about the Korean War that was to be released in the fall.   

He reported from Vietnam for the New York Times, in the process angering then president John F. Kennedy, who asked the Times to remove him.   

Still, the war coverage won Halberstam a Pulitzer Prize at age 30.   

"The Best and the Brightest" refers to the military loss in Vietnam that was engineered by the top minds Washington had to offer.

The book swayed many Vietnam war hawks to rethink the conflict, which ended in a US withdrawal, despite upbeat forecasts from the military.   

After graduating from Harvard in 1955, Halberstam worked at the Daily Times Leader in West Point, Mississippi.   

While writing for The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, he covered the early Civil Rights movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Once in Vietnam, Halberstam found material for "The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era."   

His books marveled at the arrogance of the "whiz kids," from academia and industry, whom Kennedy had assembled in Washington, but whose "brilliant policies that defied common sense" were put into place despite the warnings of senior staff.   

In 500 interviews for "The Best and the Brightest," Halberstam identified the faulty decision-making process that led to the US involvement in Vietnam.   

He found that an anti-Communist witch hunt by senator Joseph McCarthy had removed many government experts on Vietnam, and left Democrats cowed by claims that they had "lost China" to communism.   

Further, government studies showed that a million US troops would be needed to defeat the Vietnam communists, but the United States' choice of a gradual escalation meant Vietnam could train and field troops faster than US solders could kill them.   

Halberstam also wrote "Summer of '49," a baseball book about the 1949 pennant race between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

His latest book, "The Education of a Coach," focused on New England Patriots football coach Bill Belichick.   

He wrote another bestseller, "Firehouse," about a New York City fire station which lost 12 of the 13 men who responded to the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001.   

Halberstam, who is survived by his wife and daughter, reflected on his life in journalism during a 1993 interview with the California-based Mercury News.   

"It's been a wonderful life," he said. "Actually, when I think about my career I am sometimes stunned. I'm stunned by the richness of it.

It gave me all the things I ever wanted. I loved being a reporter."