American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, who gained widespread fame through his early work on the Vietnam War and his later sports journalism, has died in a car crash Monday. Halberstam, 73, was reportedly a passenger in a Toyota Camry involved in a three-vehicle accident at 10:35 a.m. PDT (1735 GMT), said the Menlo Park Police Department.

Nicole Acker, a spokeswoman for Menlo Park police, said to Bloomberg that Halberstam was in the passenger seat of a car that was sideswiped.

"He was pronounced dead at the scene," said Kristine Gamble, senior deputy coroner for San Mateo County, south of San Francisco. The car's driver, Kevin Jones, 26, is a student at the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, and was taken to Stanford Medical Center. He was also injured with Halberstam in the accident, but will recover.

"We were talking about sports and Vietnam and having kids," Jones said in an interview with Reuters from his hospital bed. "He seemed generally interested in what I had to say, just some random student chaperoning him around."

"Looking at the accident and examining him at the scene indicated it's most likely internal injuries," San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said to Xinhua. Apart from Halbertsam's driver, two others were injured in the crash.

Halbertsam was reportedly on his way to an interview at the time of the accident. The NYT said the interview was with Y.A. Tittle, the former New York Giants and Baltimore Colts quarterback. It was meant as a contribution for The Game, a planned book about the National Football League's 1958 championship between the Giants and the Colts, considered by many to have been the greatest football game ever played.

New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger said "the world has lost one of the greatest journalists. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family," he said in a statement released through company spokeswoman Catherine Mathis.