The plaudits seemed excessive, even by the standards of the recently deceased where gushing effusively is the norm. But there was nothing normal about David Halberstam. Not only was he the most respected and influential post-second world war American journalist and writer, he may have been the most respected American, full stop.
When Halberstam died this week in a car accident, the initial reaction was one of sorrow for a man of 73 who was still very much a vital force. Upon introspection, though, the loss of a firm but fair voice at a time when the United States is in desperate need of one, is the true tragedy of Halberstam's passing. Yeah, I know. The hype metre is going haywire here. But what can I say. Halberstam was all that and more. He was a brilliant political writer who also had a passion for sports. He was also a political writer who took the skills he learned covering politics and applied it to sports. In the process, he would come to redefine the literary genre in both politics and sports and did it in a most unassuming way.
I first heard of Halberstam from his seminal book on the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest. It was originally published in 1972, but I did not read it until several years later and was too young to have remembered the historical significance of Halberstam. Upon graduating from Harvard in 1955, he headed down to the American south to chronicle the burgeoning and violent civil rights movement.
A few years later, he would join the New York Times and was dispatched to the Congo when that African country unwittingly became a cold war battleground replete with espionage, assassinations and endless civil strife. In 1962, Halberstam went to south Vietnam as a still idealistic journalist who would report on the US government's attempt to stop the spread of communism. But what he saw bore little resemblance to what he had heard.
Long-time Hong Kong resident Hugh Van Es was also on the ground in south Vietnam as a photographer with Associated Press. Although he would occasionally see Halberstam, he did not know him that well. 'He was in a different league than us,' said Van Es admiringly.
Van Es' boss at the time in Vietnam, AP photo bureau chief Horst Faas, was good friends with Halberstam. 'I knew him back in the Congo,' said Faas from his home in Munich. 'We actually shared a house for a while in Saigon and remained good friends throughout our life.'
Faas described Halberstam as a meticulous craftsman who was fearless. 'He is perhaps the most serious journalist of our time,' said Faas. 'He was very careful with his facts. He had to be, he was working for the New York Times.'