Posted on 04/23/2007 5:32:57 PM PDT by Bluestateredman
Author David Halberstam dies in crash By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago
SAN FRANCISCO - David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who chronicled the Washington press corps, the Vietnam War generation and baseball, was killed in a car crash early Monday, a coroner said. He was 73.
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Halberstam, a New Yorker, was a passenger in a car that was broadsided by another vehicle in Menlo Park, south of San Francisco, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said.
The accident occurred around 10:30 a.m., and the driver of the car carrying Halberstam identified him as the victim, Foucrault said. A call to Menlo Park police wasn't immediately returned.
"Looking at the accident and examining him at the scene indicated it's most likely internal injuries," Foucrault said.
The driver of the car carrying Halberstam is a student at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and was taken to Stanford Medical Center. Two others were injured.
Halberstam spoke Saturday at a UC Berkeley-sponsored event on the craft of journalism and what it means to turn reporting into a work of history.
He was born April 10, 1934, in New York City, the son of a surgeon father and teacher mother.
After attending Harvard University, Halberstam launched his career in 1955 at the Daily Times Leader, a small daily newspaper in Mississippi. By age 30 he had won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Vietnam War for the New York Times.
He quit daily journalism in 1967 and wrote 21 books covering such diverse topics as the Vietnam War, civil rights, the auto industry and a baseball pennant race. His 2002 best-seller, "War in a Time of Peace," was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction
If I remember correctly, he had a brother (Michael?) who was a doctor in D.C. who was killed, I think, while pursuing a burglar who ran him down with the getaway car. Anybody else remember that?
RIP.
The article says the Berkeley student was in the car WITH Halberstam. I didn't see anything about the other driver.
Halberstam did more to undermine our Vietnam War effort than just about any other journalist.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/133ccyfj.asp?pg=1
I looked real fast and thought David hasselhoff died.
Hey I have been up for 34 hoursLOL
Much more testosterone in that story than you're recalling. Dr. Halberstam was shot by the burglar, who then ran. Bleeding and mortally wounded, Halberstam got into his car, chased the jackass, and ran him down. The cops arrived and tossed the perp into the ambulance (and I assume locked the doors). Halberstam died either before the cops arrived or shortly thereafter.
But he kicked butt. RIP to both of them.
Guess I read it a little too quickly.
Might have been a hispanic surname involved, since in hindsight they didn’t name the other driver.
In all honesty, I had never heard of this guy. I saw the article, did some quick searches, and it seems he was an ultra-left war underminer. Hard to work up a lot of sympathy.
The driver of the car he was in was driven by the grad student, not the driver of the car which hit him...No id on that driver yet
Would be very interesting if an Illegal were driving the other car. Mayor Gavin ‘crackhead’ Newsom just decalred again that San Fran is a sanctuary city.
Oh, maggie, did a chill go down your spine?
You know sometimes people just die. Sometimes they die in an unfortunate, untimely and senseless death. Sometimes it’s by a disease that doesn’t care who you are or what you believe and sometimes it’s just an unfortunate accident – being at ``the wrong place at the wrong time”. And not everyone is killed in an automobile accident is killed by an illegal alien. And sometimes the people who die have a conservative point of view and sometimes they have a liberal point of view. In either case, I would think their family and friends morn their loss all the same.
Let's play LEGAL or ILLEGAL - I say ILLEGAL ...
Yes, your recollection is absolutely correct. I think it’s been over 30 years ago, right?
Reads like his work on the subject was done before we were in a War.
“”he had a brother (Michael?) who was a doctor in D.C. who was killed, I think, while pursuing a burglar who ran him down with the getaway car”
Much more testosterone in that story than you’re recalling. Dr. Halberstam was shot by the burglar, who then ran. Bleeding and mortally wounded, Halberstam got into his car, chased the jackass, and ran him down. The cops arrived and tossed the perp into the ambulance (and I assume locked the doors). Halberstam died either before the cops arrived or shortly thereafter.
But he kicked butt. RIP to both of them.”
The story was even better than that. Halberstam arrives home with wife and runs into burglar. Burglar tells Halberstam and wife to lie down. Halberstam jumps burglar and burglar shoots him. Halberstam decides to drive himself to hospital, but sees burglar and runs him down. Halberstam continues on to hospital, but drives into tree, probably due to weakened state with bullet wounds.
Police find $4M worth of stuff in burglar’s house. It had previously been thought burglar was “silver gang” rather than one person. Burglar had smelting operation in basement. Burglar was expert in various types of valuables found in upscale homes. Burglar shot Halberstam with Smith & Wesson he had stolen in burglary of an FBI agent’s home.
Burglar later escaped from prison and went to Pittsburgh, where he resumed one man crime wave burglary operations, but was eventually caught there too.
now PBS will have to double up on the Doris Kearns Goodwin.
To be honest, I’m not familiar with his earlier work, but did thoroughly enjoy The Teammates, a book talking about Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky and their relationship with Ted Williams - told from the perspective of the former two on a roadtrip to visit an ailing Williams. A really book about fascinating people who played baseball instead of the usual play-by-play accounts in book form that bore me to death.
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