Bush George - War in a time of peace: Bush, Clinton, and the generals

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DAVID HALBERSTAMS LONG-AWAITED FOLLOW-UP TO HIS #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST

WAR IN A TIME OF PEACE

Riveting, merciless... indispensable to anyone interested in that confused period between the Cold War and the Terrorist War about to begin.

John Lehman, The Wall Street Journal

[David Halberstam] has produced a book that most journalists would give their right arm to have written, a tour de force of reportorial narration very much of the Best and the Brightest genre.

Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

A sprawling tapestry of exquisite bottom-up reporting and powerful vignettes.... Now that foreign affairs have come home to the United States in the most crushing of ways, are the American people ready to read an account of foreign policy and its makers by one of the most astute writers in the trade? If they want to learn from the past decade, they should. If they want to think seriously about the future, they must.

Jane Perlez, The New York Times Book Review

A finely crafted and enjoyable account of the shared culture and personal chemistry of Americas political and military powerbrokers.

The Economist

The best war reporter of his generation, Halberstam has become one of the great synthesizers of modern American history.

Mark Bowden, The Washington Post Book World

I sat down with this galley, forcing myself to open it, because I thought I already knew everything about this all-too-recent history. Seven hours later I was closing the pages, having absolutely devoured the book as if it was the most lurid, engaging, and unbelievable work of fiction.

Liz Smith, New York Post

A brilliant study of how the fault line between Washington and the military, magnified by Vietnam, has determined recent foreign policy.

Joan Didion, New York magazine

Well-written and lucid, his narrative reveals a military that continues to be ill-coordinated to meetand sometimes opposed tothe political ends of its civilian overseers, who in turn often seem terminally confused about the rest of the world. Excellent, as is Halberstams custom, and instructive for those seeking to understand geopolitical realities.

Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Events and personalities clash in this extraordinary sequel to Halberstams classic examination of Americas road to Vietnam.... This is vintage Halberstam, combining sharp portraits of the political playersBush, Clinton, Powell, Madeleine Albright, and so many otherswith nuanced reportage of the events they shape and are shaped by.

Publishers Weekly (starred)

A work that adds to the legendary status of David Halberstam as an author and historian. As he did in The Best and the Brightest, the number one national bestseller about the Vietnam War, the Pulitzer Prizewinning Halberstam probes the bureaucracy to reveal the interplay between the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and Congress. His perceptive portraits of powerful U.S. and foreign government officials and military officers offer clues to explain not only what they did, but why they did it. Halberstams last eleven books have attained New York Times bestseller status. War in a Time of Peace might well make it an even dozen.

Alan Prince, BookPage

Grade War in a Time of Peace as a big, important and fascinating bookbig in its scope, important in its subject, fascinating in its tale-telling. Halberstam writes with great insight about the tension between military people and the civilians to whom they report.

Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

T HE N OBLEST R OMAN

T HE M AKING OF A Q UAGMIRE

O NE V ERY H OT D AY

T HE U NFINISHED O DYSSEY OF R OBERT K ENNEDY

H O

T HE B EST AND THE B RIGHTEST

T HE P OWERS T HAT B E

T HE R ECKONING

T HE B REAKS OF THE G AME

T HE A MATEURS

S UMMER OF 49

T HE N EXT C ENTURY

T HE F IFTIES

O CTOBER 1964

T HE C HILDREN

P LAYING FOR K EEPS

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Copyright 2001 by The Amateurs, Inc.

Epilogue copyright 2002 by The Amateurs, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

The Epilogue is adapted from an article that was originally published in Vanity Fair.

First Scribner ebook edition November 2015

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DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Scribner edition as follows: Halberstam, David. War in a time of peace : Bush, Clinton, and the generals / David Halberstam.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ). 1. United StatesForeign relations1989.2. United StatesPolitics and government1989.3. Bush, George, 1924.4. Clinton, Bill, 1946.5. United StatesMilitary policy. 6. Intervention (International law). 7. Vietnamese Conflict, 19611975Influence. I. Title.

E881.H34 2001

327.73dc21 2001038416

ISBN 0-7432-0212-0

ISBN 0-7432-2323-3 (Pbk)

ISBN 978-1-5011-4150-8 (eBook)

For Russell and Mimi Baker

F or a brief, glorious, almost Olympian moment it appeared that the presidency itself could serve as the campaign. Rarely had an American president seemed so sure of reelection. In the summer and fall of 1991, George Bush appeared to be politically invincible. His personal approval ratings in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War had reached 90 percent, unheard of for any sitting president, and even more remarkable for someone like Bush, a competent political insider whose charisma and capacity to inspire had in the past escaped most of his fellow citizens. Of his essential decency and competence there had been little doubt, and the skill with which he had presided over the end of the Cold War had impressed not merely the inner club that monitored foreign policy decision-making, but much of the country as well. With exceptional sensitivity, he had juggled and balanced his own political needs with the greater political needs of his newest partner in this joint endeavor, Mikhail Gorbachev. For Bush was quite aware that Gorbachevs political equation was much more fragile than his own, and he had been careful to be the more generous member of this unlikely two-man team that was negotiating the end of almost forty-five years of terrifying bipolar tensions.

One moment had seemed to symbolize the supreme confidence of the Bush people during this remarkable chain of events. It came in mid-August of 1991, when some Russian right-wingers mounted a coup against Gorbachev and Bush held firm, trying at first to support Gorbachev and, unable to reach him, then using his influence to help the embattled Boris Yeltsin. The coup had failed. A few days later, Gorbachev, restored to power in part because of the leverage of Washington, had resigned from the Communist Party. To the Bush people that attempted coup had been a reminder that with the Cold War officially ended or not, the Berlin Wall up or down, the world was still a dangerous place, which meant that the country would surely need and want an experienced leader, preferably a Republican, at the helm. Aboard Air Force One at that time, flying with his father from Washington back to the Bush familys vacation home in Maine, was George W. Bush, the presidents son. He was just coming of age as a political operative in his own right, and he was euphoric about the meaning of these latest events. Do you think the American people are going to turn to a Democrat now? he asked.