Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest, William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and The Winds of War by Herman Wouk, with their (to me) up-to-date picture of the outside world. The descriptions of the Kennedy administration in The Best and the Brightest made me marvel at the relaxed atmosphere of the American government, in contrast with my own—so remote, frightening, and secretive.
