The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War | David Halberstam

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War | David Halberstam | Riveting Account of the Korean War

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The Coldest Winter...

	The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War David Halberstam Hyperion, 2007 - 736 pages average customer review:based on 113 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

David Halberstam's magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book for the Vietnam War. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivalled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another dark corner in our history: the Korean War. The Coldest Winter is a successor to The Best and the Brightest, even though in historical terms it precedes it.Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter the best book he ever wrote, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America's postwar foreign policy.Up until now, the Korean War has been the black hole of modern American history.The Coldest Winter changes that. Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu, and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures -- Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order.At the heart of the book are the individual stories of the soldiers on the front lines who were left to deal with the consequences of the dangerous misjudgments and competing agendas of powerful men. We meet them, follow them, and see some of the most dreadful battles in history through their eyes. As ever, Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of people asked to bear an extraordinary burden.The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and luminescent form, and provides crucial perspective on the Vietnam War and the events of today. It was a book that Halberstam first decided to write more than thirty years ago and that took him nearly ten years to write. It stands as a lasting testament to one of the greatest journalists and historians of our time, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles.Includes an Afterword by Russell BakerTributes to David HalberstamDavid Halberstam died at the age of 73 in a car accident in California on April 23, 2007, just after completing The Coldest Winter. Legendary for his work ethic, his kindness to young writers, and his unbending moral spine, Halberstam had friends and admirers throughout journalism, many of whom spoke at his memorial service and at readings across the country for the release of The Coldest Winter. We have included testimonials given at his memorial service by two writers who made their reputations at the same newspaper where he won a Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam War reporting, The New York Times: Anna Quindlen ...David occupied a lot of space on the planet. Perhaps he felt the price he must pay for that big voice, that big reach, that big reputation, was that his generosity had to be just as large. Most of us, when we take to the road and meet admiring strangers, vow afterward to answer the note pressed into our hands or to pass along the speech we promised to the person whose daughter couldn't be there to hear it. But with the best will in the world we arrive home to deadlines, bills, kids, friends, all the demands of a busy life. We mean to be our best selves, but often we forget. David did it. He always did it. The note, the call, the book, the advice. When I mentioned this once he dug his hands deep intothe pockets of his grey flannels, set his mouth at the corners, looked down and rumbled, "Well, but it's so easy." That's nonsense. It's not easy. But it is important, and why he has been remembered with enormous affection by ordinary readers all over this country, and why each of us who live some sort of public life would do well, with all due respect to Jesus, to ask ourselves about those small encounters: what would David do? ... Read her full tributeDexter Filkins .

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A kind of masterpiece

_The Coldest Winter_ is brilliantly written, insightful, passionately argued, vivid, moving,and illuminating. It combines incisive and penetrating character portraits with gritty field-of-battle reportage.

You might or might not like it.

_The Coldest Winter_ sets out to do a particular thing, and does it superbly. That thing may not be what you're looking for, though.

There are a good many things _The Coldest Winter_ is not. Most importantly, it's not a blow-by-blow straight military history of the Korean War. There's absolutely no attempt to give even, neutral treatment to all the battles. The successful Inchon invasion gets a few pages; the horrific Unsan ambush gets a full chapter.

It also is not a neutral piece of descriptive bio-history. Halberstam has a point to make--maybe even an axe to grind. He's unsparing in his judgements, whether he's describing the vicious brutality of Stalin and Mao or the wooden-headed obtuseness of some U.S. commanders.

What it is, is a story. This is history as narrative, complete with moral. Halberstam has a tragic villain (Douglas MacArthur), a villain's henchman (General Ned Almond, MacArthur's protege), and a sinister cabal of political intriguers (the American "China Lobby"). He has, too, a hero (General Matthew Ridgeway) and a hero's sidekick (Colonel Paul Freeman). He opens with a narrative hook (the Unsan debacle) and closes with a dramatic climax (the downfall of MacArthur). The battles he chooses to describe are those that are required to move his plot along.

This is not to say that _The Coldest Winter_ is one-dimensional or simplistic. Halberstam gives MacArthur, for instance, full marks for military brilliance and dedication, even while he documents MacArthur's egomania. Truman and Acheson take their share of hits. All of his portraits are thoroughly researched and well-documented. It's all compelling, and it's pretty damn persuasive.

Still, for all its brilliance, this book is an *argument* in favor of a particular set of positions and ideas. Halberstam, as he did in _The Best and the Brightest_, is giving an explanation for why a bunch of really smart people ended up supporting policies that ultimately failed. It's a superb piece of analysis. It convinced me. Whether it will convince anyone who comes to the table with different notions is open to question.

(Aside: The applicability of this question to current politics is obvious. In one case, Halberstam gives in to the temptation to make the connection explicitly. As usual, I think his case would be stronger if he hadn't done so.)

So if you're looking for unadorned battle history, this is not the book for you. If you're looking at a balanced, non-judgemental political history, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for a complete, exhaustive general history, this is not the book for you. And if you're a passionate admirer of Douglas MacArthur, this is *definitely* not the book for you.

Still, _The Coldest Winter_ does do one thing that all readers should applaud: it pays the soldiers of "the forgotten war" the tribute they deserve. However murky the politics of Korea, young men suffered and died there. Give Halberstam full marks for remembering them--no matter what else you may believe.

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Riveting Account of the Korean War

I'm a big fan of David Halberstam, having read The Reckoning, and The Fifties before. This book is among his best, and I learned so much about the Korean War, the Chinese, and U.S. politics and the military of the 1950s. I listened to much of it on CD while commuting, and read the rest of at home in between trips.

The fact that Halberstam died last year makes it even more of a poignant "read." He compelling wrote all his books in ways that make you feel like you are right there in those times and places. I will miss him greatly.

Aneil

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Superb, Detailed Analysis of the Korean War & All the Major Personalities Involved

This book is an amazingly thorough analysis of a war which we do often have the chance to read about. Some wars, like the American Civil War, have been the subject of thousands of books; others are not nearly so well studied. The Korean War is in the latter category, but, after reading Halberstam's extraordinarily thoughtful, well-researched treatment of this subject, I, for one, feel at last that I have a far better understanding of what went on over there, starting in the year of my birth.

I have read a lot of reviews of this book and recall that Halberstam spent perhaps a decade writing it and regarded it as among his best works. Having read many of his books, I believe this one to be the finest book of his that I have read and it is truly sad that he is not around to see, hear and enjoy the well-earned praises of so many.

Each of the major personalities involved in this war is described, biographed, and analyzed thoroughly. The reader can understand far more about their disputes and conflicts in the context of their times when they arise in this superb biography of this war, if a war can have a biography like the life of a human being. The Korean War as described in this book has so many, often eerie, parallels with the later Vietnam and Iraq wars. MacArthur and Truman are well drawn and the basis for their inevitable, looming conflict is well explained with no attempts to candy-coat the failings of the legendary general.

The detail of the battles and the troop movements, plans and mistakes can only be the result of years of painstaking research and interviews with so many who survived and their often tragic stories about so many who did not. For military strategy buffs, this book should not disappoint.

All in all, this is one of the best books I have ever read to explain where we find ourselves today in the still early days of the 21st century. After reading it, and I have read a LOT of 20th Century history by any measure, I have a much better appreciation for the follies of ego, the condemnation of those ignorant of history to repeat it, and the clashes of titans and their ideologies which the Cold War produced and which go on in other forms long after the Cold War has been consigned to the history books.

I have some 350 books on my Kindle now and have my reading planned out for a long time to come (so you will be hard pressed to find a bigger Kindle-booster), but, the format on Kindle for the maps and charts in this book leaves something to be desired and I hope that succeeding generations of Kindles will cure this fuzzed out presentation of graphics which sometimes snags us early adopters. I actually also own the hard copy of this book, which pre-dates my Kindle ownership, and a comparison of the maps and charts indicates the shortcomings on the Kindle.

I would say 'run, don't walk,'to buy and read this book, but, all you have to do is hit that button, get a glass of water, and you will have it on your Kindle. Enjoy the many hours you will invest, as this book is well worth your time.

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The Coldest Winter

This is a rather complete history of the times and battles. Well written, if a bit turgid relating need historical context, and the author has definite opinions of the major characters: watch for that.

Stalemate On The 38th

David Halberstam's untimely death in 2007 puts a deeper weight on this, his last book published later that year, than it really should have to bear. "The Coldest Winter" is uneven work, both riveting and rambling.

Emboldened by a desire to emulate his hero Stalin and aggressively enlarge his communist state, North Korean strongman Kim Il Sung in June 1950 sent his army across the 38th Parallel, a somewhat arbitrary dividing line that separated North Korea from South Korea, backed by the United States. Soon the two Koreas were almost completely united under Kim's firm hand. But then the United States struck back, and the first shooting phase of the Cold War, perhaps its bloodiest in terms of sheer concentration of time, was underway.

"A shrimp is crushed in the battle of the whales," said South Korea's president, Syngman Rhee, quoting a Korean proverb. Rhee was a big part of the problem in Korea, though, as were a number of other leaders on both sides of the 38th Parallel.

Halberstam's book is more about those failures of leadership than the war itself. Most especially, it is an indictment of U.S. commander Douglas MacArthur, a revered figure of his time who Halberstam portrays as stubborn, egomaniacal, and self-distancing.

I think Halberstam makes his points very well, better than Halberstam himself apparently believed, as he keeps making them again and again, beating them into the ground like tent poles. It's not enough to say MacArthur didn't spend one night in Korea during the war; it must be repeated twice.

If he isn't rounding on MacArthur, Halberstam is holding up for ridicule some other figure of less renown, like Ned Almond, a corps commander and MacArthur's bulldog lackey who dismissed the possibility the Chinese might enter the war well after his troops were already fighting them.

That Halberstam's book is readable is without doubt. The first 40 pages, detailing the surprise Chinese assault on U.S. positions, offers the kind of first-person reportage that Halberstam did like no one else. It's a bit disappointing, if necessary, to have to pull away from that to a grander overview of the root causes behind the war. Yet Halberstam gets lost in the brambles with too much backstory.

One might expect to get to Inchon, MacArthur's tide-turning invasion against the North, by page 200 in a 650-page book. Instead, one reads there about the 1948 presidential run of Tom Dewey. He actually only devotes a couple of paragraphs to Inchon itself, and only a few pages to the dramatic rollback of North Korea which followed, there mostly to slam MacArthur for pushing on north past the 38th Parallel.

The book concludes with MacArthur's dismissal in April, 1951, two more years of Korean conflict left to run. Halberstam assures us we aren't missing much: "In the end, there would be no great victory for anyone, only some kind of mutually unsatisfactory compromise."

Yet this book seems an unsatisfactory compromise, too. Halberstam may skirt a lot of the more successful battles for the U.S. side, but what he does present in the way of soldiers' stories brings this war to one in a way no writer of his stature had done before. The gritty battles around the Twin Tunnels, for example, of beating off decimating human wave attacks by digging deep and standing firm, forced from me a reckoning of this war's uniqueness and sacrifice both painful and exhilarating.

Halberstam's feeling and ability to communicate that human element is "Coldest Winter's" greatest asset, something you have ample opportunity to notice when he's off on another geopolitical tangent.

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