Sales have skyrocketed for famed journalist David Halberstam’s book The Best and the Brightest after it was reported that President Donald Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon is reading it and encouraging White House staffers to do the same.
What’s more, Julia Halberstam, David Halberstam’s daughter, is donating the royalties from the books sold in 2017 to investigative journalism non-profit ProPublica.
“Julia Halberstam told us she was moved to do this by reaction to a story in the New York Times reporting that White House assistant Stephen Bannon was reading the book during the presidential transition and recommending it to colleagues,” the New York City-based group reports.
News of Bannon’s interest in The Best and the Brightest broke after New York Times sports reporter Marc Tracy spotted Trump’s top adviser holding the 1972 book at Atlanta Georgia’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“Mr. Bannon was carrying a book, and when an incoming president’s guru is reading a book, you should find out what it is,” Tracy wrote in a Times article titled, “Steve Bannon’s Book Club.”
“I walked by and peeked. It was The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam’s 1972 history of the strategic errors and human foibles that birthed the disastrous American involvement in the Vietnam War.”
ProPublica, says “we agree with Bannon that the book is ‘great for seeing how little mistakes early on’ in an administration ‘can lead to big ones later.'”
“If you have not read The Best and the Brightest, or have not read it recently, we join Steve Bannon in urging you to do so. ProPublica will benefit, to be sure, but we believe anyone seeking to be an informed citizen will as well.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson
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