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

by David Halberstam

In the beginning there was little illusion about the legitimacy of the government, or the state, or its chances for survival. That illusion would come gradually, later on, for a commitment is a subtle thing, with a life of its own and a rhythm of its own. It may, as in the case of South Vietnam, begin as something desperately frail, when the chances for survival are negligible. For a while, oxygen is breathed in, mouth-to-mouth, at great effort but little cost, and then the very people who have been administering the oxygen, desperate to keep the commitment alive (not because they believe in any hopeful prognosis, but because they do not want to be charged with failing to try and give first aid), look up one day and find that there is indeed a faint pulse, that the patient is more alive than dead. But at this point they are not relieved of their responsibility; instead, for the first time the commitment really begins, and now they are charged with keeping it alive. It is a responsibility, it is real. Its death would mean genuine political repercussions.