The Best and the Brightest — When Intelligence Becomes Institutional Blindness
What happens when the leaders most trusted to understand a crisis become insulated from the evidence that could prove them wrong?
Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.
Using The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam as our lens, this episode investigates how the Kennedy and Johnson administrations became increasingly committed to the Vietnam War despite evidence that their assumptions, measurements, and strategic models were failing.
Halberstam’s central argument is not that these officials lacked intelligence. Many were exceptionally educated…
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