01c. 1970 AD[On writing:] "There's a great quote by Julius Irving that went, 'Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.'", March 25, 2007.)David Halberstam / quote ↗
03c. 1970 ADFear was the terrible secret of the battlefiled and could afflict the brave as well as the timid. Worse it was contagious, and could destroy a unit before a battle even began. Because of that, commanders were first and foremost in the fear suppression business.David Halberstam / quote ↗
05c. 1970 ADThe men were always wary of an officer who took form more seriously than function.David Halberstam / quote ↗
06c. 1970 ADWhy did McNamara have such good figures? Why did McNamara have such good staff work and Ball such poor staff work? The next day Ball would angrily dispatch his staff to come up with the figures, to find out how McNamara had gotten them, and the staff would burrow away and occasionally find that one of the reasons that Ball did not have comparable figures was that they did not always exist. McNamara had invented them, he dissembled even within the bureaucracy, though, of course, always for a good cause. It was part of his sense of service. He believed in what he did, and thus the morality of it was assured, and everything else fell into place. It was all right to lie and dissemble for the right causes. It was part of service, loyalty to the President, not to the nation, not to colleagues, it was a very special bureaucratic-corporate definition of integrity; you could do almost anything you wanted as long as it served your superior.David Halberstam / quote ↗
07c. 1970 ADIt was the kind of country that made you feel better about yourself.David Halberstam / quote ↗
08c. 1970 ADWhen he studied, it was not so much for a promotion as to EXCEL at his job.David Halberstam / quote ↗
09c. 1970 ADHe saw the pleasure you took from your job every day of his life, and THAT was what he wanted.David Halberstam / quote ↗
11c. 1970 ADHughes might discuss Calvinism ably, but he did not live it, he was—by Time corporate standards—just a little lazy.David Halberstam / quote ↗
12c. 1970 ADBeing well known for being well-known did not necessarily imply intelligence.David Halberstam / quote ↗
13c. 1970 ADBobby Kennedy said that when he had been a boy there were three major influences on children – the home, the church, and the school – and now there was a fourth – television.David Halberstam / quote ↗
14c. 1970 ADNewspapers might have as much to do in shaping the course of public events as politicians,David Halberstam / quote ↗
15c. 1970 ADIf the norm of the society is corrupted, then objective journalism is corrupted too, for it must not challenge the norm. It must accept the norm.David Halberstam / quote ↗
17c. 1970 ADUntil he (Time's founder Henry Luce) arrived, news was crime and politics.David Halberstam / quote ↗
18c. 1970 ADBecause history became his (Keenan's) genuine passion, he tended to see the world in terms of deep historical forces that, in his mind, formed a nation's character in ways almost beyond the consciousness of the men who momentarily governed it, as if these historical impulses were more a part of them than they knew.David Halberstam / quote ↗
19c. 1970 ADThe truth posed a great dilemma for a man who always had to be right, and yet, for all his grandeur, was often wrong.David Halberstam / quote ↗
20c. 1970 ADLippmann was very good at staying young, at not aging and becoming a prisoner of his past experiences.David Halberstam / quote ↗
21c. 1970 ADNixon under pressure turned only to reporters from publications already favorable to him; Kennedy, in trouble, turned to those most critical and dubious of him, and if anything tended to take those already for him a bit for granted.David Halberstam / quote ↗
22c. 1970 ADThey (the media) found little quality of depth to him, that when she said on the platform with that which he said to them in private. The qualities of introspection and reflectiveness that they particularly treasured were missing.David Halberstam / quote ↗
23c. 1970 ADThe author describes megalomania as seen in Chairman Mao by saying that what he was familiar with, he was really familiar with. This zeal moved the megalomaniac with a complete lack of appreciation for what he DID NOT know.David Halberstam / quote ↗
24c. 1970 ADSometimes the best virtue learned on the battlefield is modesty.David Halberstam / quote ↗
