David Halberstam’s Last Speech and Supper

Halberstam spent this past Saturday night dinning in the company of fellow journalists from UC Berkeley, just after giving a speech (mp3 – transcript) at the university (see original event page here). On Wednesday, Radio Open Source (mp3) talked with Halberstam’s supper guests — Orville Schell, dean of the Berkeley graduate program in journalism; Mark Danner of The New York Review of Books; and Sandy Tolan of NPR — and they reconstructed their dinner conversations, which touched on the Iraq war, the comparative state of journalism during Vietnam and Iraq, and Halberstam’s sense of mortality following his heart attack last year. They also recalled Halberstam’s dogged approach to journalism and how he resisted the temptation to line up behind the government position during times of war, even when faced with the threat of being called unpatriotic. Of course, if you watched Bill Moyer’s PBS expose on Wednesday, you’ll know that we’re not seeing enough of this these days.

Give this segment a listen (get mp3 here), and also spend some time watching the video clip below. Here, you get Halberstam reflecting on his days as a 28-year old reporter in Vietnam and the significant pressures that the American government brought to bear against him, all of which leaves you thinking — plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.