There was a fascinating documentary Errol Morris made called The Fog of War which has a series of interviews with Robert McNamara. He died July 6, at 93 years old, and was Defense secretary under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. You know ...
Anderson Cooper anchors Anderson Cooper 360° on CNN and is a reporter for CBS’s 60 Minutes. He is co-host of CNN's documentary series Planet in Peril, with Sanjay Gupta and Jeff Corwin.
McNamara's Lethal Illusions
Kevin Buckley was a reporter and Saigon bureau chief for Newsweek between 1968 and 1972. He is the author of Panama—The Whole Story (Simon & Schuster, 1991). He is a contributing editor of Playboy and an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
One of the great Vietnam War correspondents, former Newsweek Saigon bureau chief Kevin Buckley, on why Robert McNamara, who died Monday, was a descendant of the villain in Graham Greene's The Quiet American.
While appointing a member of the opposition party to a key post has been a common White House tactic for decades, President Obama has been on a bipartisan spree since taking office-most recently nominating Republican Rep. John McHugh as secretary of the Army. The Daily Beast takes a closer look at how bipartisan picks have fared in Washington.
Texas GOP Shuns Bush
Robert Bryce has written for numerous publications ranging from The Atlantic Monthly to The Guardian and The Nation to The American Conservative. His first book, Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron, was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2002 by Publishers Weekly. His latest book, Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence,” was published in 2008 by PublicAffairs.
George W. Bush's first 100 days back in Texas have provided at least one surprise: The state's GOP shuns him. Forty years after LBJ returned in disgrace, Robert Bryce reveals W.'s rough homecoming.
Obama's Sixties Flashback
Why David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest should serve as a cautionary tale as Obama reconsiders the Iraq war-and Iran.
Obama Must Read This Book
Peter Osnos is a senior fellow for media at The Century Foundation. Osnos is the founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs Books. He is vice chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, a former publisher at Random House, and was a correspondent and editor at the Washington Post.
You can fill the White House with a team of rivals or the best and brightest, but as McGeorge Bundy's Lessons in Disaster demonstrates, in the end only the president can decide.
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Rachel Kramer Bussel is the editor of Peep Show: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists, Bottoms Up and over 25 other erotica anthologies, and hosts and curates In The Flesh Reading Series.
Lynn Sherr is a former ABC News correspondent, author of Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words and Tall Blondes, a book about giraffes. She is also co-editor of Peter Jennings: A Reporter's Life. Her most recent book, a memoir—Outside the Box: My Unscripted Life of Love, Loss and Television News—is out in paperback.
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Tunku Varadarajan is a national affairs correspondent and writer at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a professor at NYU’s Stern Business School. (Follow him on Twitter here.)
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