Halberstan Supports JFK, Condemns 'One-Man War'

Do not look for any good news from Paris. For Nixon, peace means means victory." David I. Halberstam '55, told a near capacity audience in Lowell Lecture Hall last night.

Halberstam is the author of "The Best and the Brightest," an analysis of the Vietnam War. But last night he spoke more about the loss of faith and loss of confidence of the American people in the "best and the brightest" of the nation's leaders. He addressed himself to the how and why of the nation's involvement in Indochina.

Halberstam defended former President John F. Kennedy '40, for his candor and insight, concerning the war in Southeast. Asis but said that "his perceptions were much stronger than his willingness to act upon them."

He said that Johnson was concerned with keeping Congress on his side. "He wanted to have the Great Society work and thought perhaps that the war might get lost in the shuffle," he said. Halberstam attributed the escalation left over from the McCarthy era and a sense of American superiority.

He saved the brunt of his criticism, however, for Richard Nixon, when he called "a man with an extraordinary amount of unchecked power--this has almost become a one-man war."

Halberstam said that he thought presidential advisor Henry Kissinger meant and believed his pre-election message that "peace is at hand," because at the time the U.S. was closer to Hanoi than to Saigon.

Nixon, however, interpreted the flexibility of the North Vietnamese as weakness, "and so we went through these terrifying weeks with Congress out of session. In one week more bombs were dropped on North Vietnam than Germany dropped on London during the entire World War," Halberstam said.

He said that antiwar demonstrations show the rest of the world that Nixon's actions do not speak for the whole country, and expressed confidence in "the upcoming generation." They have begun to realize that this country is not the noble country we thought it was," he said.