Too Good To Be Forgotten

Michael Interviews...

David Obst
Author of To Good To Be Forgotten
October 31, 1998

Political action, protests, and scandal defined the late 1960s and early 1970s, and David Obst was right in the middle of it all. He helped break the story of the My Lai massacre, and brokered a book deal for a couple of reporters named Woodward and Bernstein.

Listen in as Michael finds out the true identity of Deep Throat, and what happens when you hang out with Abbie Hoffman at the Republican National Convention.

David Obst's book, Too Good To Be Forgotten, is available from Amazon.com.

Amazon.com Review

Anti-Vietnam War activist, journalist, and literary agent--David Obst has been there, done that and lived to write about it. This is the man who helped break the My Lai massacre story, who was deeply involved in bringing the Pentagon Papers to light, and who, as an agent, represented Watergate notables Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and John Dean. In Too Good to Be Forgotten, Obst revisits the wild and woolly '60s and '70s, mixing his own coming-of-age story into the stew of political and social upheaval that marked the times. Born in 1946, Obst is, in many ways, a classic baby-boomer--he went to school at Berkeley, where he tuned in, turned on and dropped out with the best of them before eventually becoming one of "those very adults that we used to make such great fun of."

Though much of Obst's book explores territory that has already been well chronicled in other '60s memoirs, Too Good to Be Forgotten has a few fresh surprises--notably his allegation that the infamous "Deep Throat" of Woodward and Bernstein's true-crime Watergate expose, All the President's Men, was actually a composite of several players and not one person at all (a charge Woodward denies). David Obst may fall short of being the spokesperson for his generation, but his undeniable knack for finding himself neck-deep in almost every major story from the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago to the My Lai massacre makes him a unique commentator on those troubled times.

Review

"David Obst is as crazy as the period he writes about. His stories make me both proud and ashamed to be part of his generation." -- P. J. O'Rourke

"Hooray and Hallelujah! David Obst is finally telling all of his secrets about publishing, politics, and the kind of journalism spawned by Watergate. Read this book and head for the bunker." -- Kitty Kelley

"Whether it be My Lai, Watergate, The Pentagon Papers, or any of the other tumultuous events of that era, Obst seems to be in the middle of it. To understand this period, Too Good to be Forgotten is a must read." -- Seymour M. Hersh

...Obst often adopts the tone of the ingénue--as if to recapture the wide-eyed idealism of his youth--in this sometimes amusing but frequently frustrating personal history. -- The New York Times Book Review, Alex Kuczynski

See all Editorial Reviews

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 282 pages
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; First edition. edition (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471295388
• ISBN-13: 978-0471295389