The Fifties David Halberstam Quotes & Sayings

One reason that Americans as a people became nostalgic about the fifties more than twenty-five years later was not so much that life was better in the fifties (though in some ways it was), but because at the time it had been portrayed so idyllically on television. — David Halberstam

He hated House members who longed only to run for the Senate, and senators who longed only to run for the presidency. He was appalled by what he felt television had done to the Senate by the mid-fifties. It had become a major launching platform for presidential campaigns. He thought television had ruined the Senate as a serious body. All they do there is preen and comb their hair and run for President. It's like a presidential primary over there, — David Halberstam

In the late fifties Romney had been a forceful advocate of breaking up GM. That, he believed, would make everyone leaner and more competitive. In 1957 he went before the Kefauver Senate committee on monopolies. Before he testified he was summoned to the Ford headquarters by Henry Ford and Ernie Breech, the chairman of the company, who were nervous about what he was going to say and wanted to get some idea of his thrust. Romney explained what he wanted: the breaking up of GM and perhaps even Ford. "But that would just make the competition tougher," Ford had said. "If you broke up GM the rest of us would suffer." "That's exactly what I mean," Romney had said. "Listen, I think it's tough enough the way it is - it's a damn hard dollar," Ford had answered. — David Halberstam