One of our good friends in New York, Gordon Goldstein, has been getting a lot of ink lately because his book Lessons in Disaster, about the Vietnam War and JFK's and LBJ's National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, is said to be on President Obama's nightstand. (The book just came out in paperback... order at Amazon!)
Frank Rich featured the book in a recent NYT column entitled "Obama at the Precipice.". And the Wall St. Journal cites Lessons in Disaster in its story today, Behind Afghan War Debate, a Battle of Two Books Rages.
What a wonderful achievement for Gordon and his wife Anne Gilbert (who went to Columbia University's J-school with me). Gordie worked on the book for more than a decade and it was published last year. He and Bundy collaborated until Bundy died, in 1996, and the Bundy family withdrew its consent for the material. So Gordie had to make the tough decision to go on alone with the project, and according to a review in the NYT by Richard Holbrooke last fall, it was clearly worthwhile.
Congratulations, Gordie!
Incidentally, I interviewed Gordie for a piece I wrote for Salon.com in 2003, "Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President," when the Iraq War was going south.
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