The Best and the Brightest: Kennedy-Johnson Administrations (Modern Library)

by David Halberstam

It would not be the last time Riesman was prophetic: in 1961, when the Kennedy team was already on board and there was great enthusiasm over the new theories of counterinsurgency (Rostow, his antagonist in the 1957 symposium, became one of the great propagators of antiguerrilla warfare) and Vietnam had been chosen as a testing ground, Riesman remained uneasy. In mid-1961 he had lunch with two of the more distinguished social scientists in the Kennedy government. On the subject of Vietnam the others talked about limited war with the combativeness which marked that particular era, about the possibilities of it, about the American right to practice it, about the very excitement of participating in it. All of this smacked strongly of the arrogance and hubris of the era, and Riesman became more and more upset with the tone and the direction of the conversation, until finally he stopped them and asked if they had ever been to Utah. Utah! No, they said, not Utah, but why Utah, had Riesman ever been there? No, Riesman answered, but he had read a great deal about the Church of the Latter-day Saints, and it occurred to him that his friends did not know much about America, about how deep the evangelical streak was. “You all think you can manage limited wars and that you’re dealing with an elite society which is just waiting for your leadership. It’s not that way at all,” he said. “It’s not an Eastern elite society run for Harvard and the Council on Foreign Relations.” He left them af...