Hilsman was one of the academics and intellectuals in the administration whom was later grouped by the author David Halberstam in his book as "The Best and the Brightest" for the erroneous foreign policy that they crafted and the disastrous consequences of that policy in Vietnam. Hilsman's role has been variously interpreted. Mark Moyar's 2006 book "Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965" paints Hilsman as one of the key Americans who shortsightedly and arrogantly pushed out Diệm when, Moyar says, the struggle against the communists was being won. Guenter Lewy portrays Hilsman as being "farsighted and correct" in his perspective from 1964 and on, while the scholar Howard Jones views the coup against Diệm that Hilsman acted in favor of as "a tragically misguided move."