The Powers That Be
December 4, 2007
Written by David Halberstam, author of The Best and the Brightest, Ho, and others, The Powers That Be is another 740-pager that somehow found its way onto Mt. Toberead. I don’t know why friends keep giving me these big blockbuster books and expect me to read them. Maybe I really do.
How about a little contest? If you can tell me the names of each person above, I will award you 15 minutes of virtual, eternal fame. There’s fame for you, to quote Jack Aubrey.
Back to the book. According to the dust cover blurb (and also a clue to the names),
[TPTB] is the inside history of four of America’s greatest media institutions: Time Incorporated, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and CBS. All are rich in money and resources, all hugely powerful, and all the creation of a few inspired men and women whose individual obsessions and dreams they still to an icredible degree embody.
[Name giveaways]
We see these people and the men of political and financial power with whom they dealt as we have never seen them before - caught up in ambition or rage or triumph, making decisions or evading them, revealing themselves memorably in ways large and small.
A little hype here, but I daresay that anyone who has read any of Halberstam’s books (and I had not), will agree that here is one author that may live up to his puffery.
If personality is the essence of power, The Powers That Be is the most vivid and immediate account we have yet of power at work in modern-day America.
The events portrayed spanned the presidencies of FDR to tricky-Dicky, that is to say, during my adult lifetime. Of course I remember the events of Kennedy’s assassination, LBJ’s belly scar, and Nixon’s dramatic resignation from the presidency. That being so, reading this book makes me feel like a real hick, to say nothing of real stupid. I had not a clue what was really going on, and now I know the reason why. I was being professionally and thoroughly duped, and it doesn’t make me feel very proud.
I ask myself, “What about today and George Bush? (Larry, there’s your opening.) Fox News will never be the same to me.
If you haven’t guessed, I liked the book. If you are about to go into hibernation for the winter and have good, strong forearms and don’t mind going prematurely blind, this is the book for you.
Dave, squinting and blinking.
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This may have been Halberstam’s last book, as he died earlier this year in an automobile collision.
I’ll have to read the book. Some of the same material was covered by Legacy of Ashes, NY Times reporter Tim Weiner’s recent history of the CIA. Evidently quite a few former CIA employees went on to work for the big media conglomerates and managed to slant the news for several decades, especially during the Cold War period.
The Best and the Brightest is an outstanding piece of historical journalism about the beginnings of the Viet Nam conflict.
As for George Bush, no comment. I’m thoroughly tired of even thinking about the man!
Hey dad, I remember Larry recommending The Best and The Brightest and I got it free with a book club offering years ago. Alas, it’s never made to the top of my reading list, maybe I’ll drag it out. You can borrow it and comment here!