A rich, rewarding, and reverberating book which both illuminates and empowers the reader, the best book in the field since Breach of Trust, writes Jim DiEugenio.

Jim DiEugenio continues his re-examination of Halberstam, emphasizing the near total antithesis between LBJ and JFK in terms of Vietnam (and foreign policy in general) which the book all but erased.

In the first of a two part study, Jim DiEugenio reexamines, in the light of what we now know, the book which perhaps more than any other epitomized the accepted wisdom on JFK's role in US involvement in Vietnam.

Although [Bundy] thought [Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest] was an entertaining and informative read, he concluded that the central thesis was just wrong. It was not the advisers—the best and brightest—who did the staff work who got us into the Vietnam War. It was the difference in the men who occupied the Oval Office. It was the difference between Kennedy and Johnson, writes Jim DiEugenio.

The book is well worth buying. In my view, it closes the chapter on a debate that has been going on since 1992. As shown here, it's a debate that should have never started, concludes Jim DiEugenio.

I actually wish the film had been longer so it could incorporate more of [the] facts and more of the revelations of the Assassination Records Review Board, since these all but closed the book on this ersatz debate about JFK and Vietnam, writes Jim DiEugenio.