Appreciation: David Halberstam

When David Halberstam and I teamed up in 1963 to cover the Vietnam War--he for the New York Times and I for United Press International--we were too young to have reputations that might help protect us if our work was challenged. The Saigon regime was weak and corrupt, its troops would not fight, and the American advisers we followed into combat confirmed that we were losing the war. Yet we found ourselves under assault from the commanding general and the ambassador, men who insisted that the U.S. and its Saigon ally were winning. They said we were spreading falsehoods and ought to be fired. Many of our editors doubted us. These Establishment figures still had credibility then, but even as the going got rougher and rougher, no one, and nothing, intimidated David. He was completely committed to the belief that as free journalists we had a duty to find the truth and tell it to the American people. It was a credo he practiced through his years of newspapering and in writing the many distinguished books that followed. It is a credo that makes certain his legacy endures.

BY NEIL SHEEHAN, PULITZER PRIZEWINNING AUTHOR OF A BRIGHT SHINING LIE, WHICH DETAILS AMERICA'S FAILURES IN VIETNAM