David Halberstam, the author who won Pulitzer Prize for his reports on the war was killed in a car crash yesterday. He was 73. Halberstam was a passenger in a car that was broadsided by another vehicle. The accident occurred around 10:30 a.m., in Menlo Park, south of San Francisco. Halberstam was declared dead at the scene, cause of death appearing to be internal injuries.
Halberstam was being driven from the University of California, Berkeley, where the author had given a speech about the craft of journalism and what it means to turn reporting into a work of history to an interview he had scheduled with Hall of Fame quarterback Y.A. Tittle.
Jean Halberstam, his wife, said she would remember him for his “unending, bottomless generosity to young journalists.” She said that he was working on his new book, “The Game,” which dealt with the 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants, often remembered as the greatest game ever played.
Halberstam was born on April 10, 1934, to a surgeon father and teacher mother in New York City. His father was serving the military which led David to move around the country a lot. He attended the Harvard University, and was also the managing editor of the Harvard Crimson newspaper. He launched his career at the Daily Times Leader, a small newspaper after graduating from Harvard in 1955. In 1962 he went to Vietnam to cover the war crisis there for The New York Times. In 1963, he received the George Polk Award for his reporting at the New York Times. At the age of 30, in 1964 he won a Pulitzer Prize again for his reporting from Vietnam.
Sen. John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, who knew Halberstam from Nantucket said, ‘He was a brilliant journalist who set the standard during the war in Vietnam for courageous and accurate reporting. He was wonderful company, and I always learned something when I talked with him. I’m very sad to hear we’ve lost him.‘
In 1967, he quit daily journalism and took to writing. He authored 21 books covering diverse topics from the Vietnam War to the auto industry, from civil rights to baseball. His book “War in a Time of Peace’, a 2002 best-seller, was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.
Authorities say the accident is still under investigation.
His books
• The Noblest Roman. (1961)
• The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy. (1968)
• The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. (1965)
• One Very Hot Day. (1967)
• Ho. (1971)
• The Best and the Brightest. 1972)
• The Powers That Be. (1979)
• The Breaks of the Game. (1981)
• The Amateurs: The Story of Four Young Men and Their Quest for an Olympic Gold Medal. (1985)
• The Reckoning. (1986)
• Summer of ‘49. (1989)
• The Next Century. (1991)
• The Fifties. (1993)
• October 1964. (1994)
• The Children.(1999)
• Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made. (1999)
• War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals. (2001)
• Firehouse. (2002)
• The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship. (2003)
• Bill Belichick: The Education of a Coach. (2005)
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