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| The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam Hyperion 736 pp.,$35 |
The cold, cold war
David Halberstam's final book – a comprehensive, compelling examination of the Korean War – is one of his best.
By Erik Spanbergfrom the September 25, 2007 edition
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David Halberstam died in a car crash near San Francisco in April, days after putting the finishing touches on The Coldest Winter, his exhaustive, compelling account of the Korean War.
At the time of his death, Halberstam was on his way to interview retired NFL star Y.A. Tittle – the beginning of yet another book for a tireless journalist whose pedigreed career included a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Vietnam War and numerous bestselling titles.
He routinely alternated between lighter sports fare and intensely researched political and historical chronicles, and his enthusiasm for the grunt work of journalism never wavered. Halberstam seemed to spend his life on planes and in hotels, pursuing major and minor players alike as he crafted portraits of White House administrations, wars, and shifting social conditions.
That relentless work ethic made for sober-minded portraits and also helped establish a ready rapport with all manner of subjects. "The Coldest Winter" offers infinite examples of Halberstam's ability to coax former soldiers to tell their stories in the starkest, most human terms.
A typical example: Paul McGee, a former Army platoon commander who led 46 men through a hillside battle that left just four of the men able to walk out under their own power. McGee's recollections provide the foundation for a stirring depiction of combat in all its ugly reality.
In an author's note, Halberstam remembers the day he interviewed McGee at his North Carolina home. After conducting five interviews in five days across the state, Halberstam awoke to a snowy, miserable day and pondered catching an earlier flight home.
"The temptation to bag the McGee interview and take an earlier flight was overwhelming; then I thought again, why not see him?" writes Halberstam. "I had come all this way and this was what I get paid to do. So I went out and found his home and for four hours it all poured out.... It was as if he had been waiting for me ... for fifty-five years, and he remembered everything as if it had been yesterday."
Halberstam worked on "The Coldest Winter" off and on for a decade. His commitment to the project shows, as the book chronicles multiple facets of the war: the battles, the soldiers, the commanders, geopolitical landscapes and the emerging cold war that shaped the responses of all the players.
The forgotten war
Many Americans have little notion of what caused the Korean War, what happened during the three years of agonizing battle – and how those machinations played a pivotal role in the subsequent Communist-containment war in Vietnam.
In that sense, Halberstam's Korea book serves as a companion to his Vietnam account, "The Best and the Brightest."
Both books provide remarkable insight into the bureaucratic web and political entanglements that led the US into untenable positions. Fear of Communist encroachment drove military and political leaders alike, with wildly uneven results.
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