On assignment from the Observer, and faced with such daunting tasks as interviewing Zbigniew Brzezinski, I needed books that would explain the American political system to me as concisely as possible. In his knowledgeable analysis of how the power structure of the media related to the power structure of the nation—the newspapers were still instrumental in those days, but television was already becoming a preponderant element—Halberstam helped to form my taste for reading about American politics. Reading the book again now, I am usefully reminded that the sainthood of William Paley was questionable. Contrary to legend, it wasn’t the CBS news programmes, with Ed Murrow to the fore, that undid McCarthy; and Paley not only ensured that Murrow was kept on a taut leash, he eventually got rid of him altogether. Paley’s supposedly ethical empire turned stupid in order to expand: an edemic declension that he encouraged, having deduced, correctly, that in America his prestige would be enhanced the more power he took.
