Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American [Paperback]

William Colby, the late Director of Central Intelligence, rated Edward Lansdale as one of the ten greatest spies in modern history. Edward Geary Lansdale was indeed a most unusual character: regarded as a maverick by many in the U.S. Defense and State Departments, yet greatly appreciated and even loved by nationals of the countries in which he spent much of his career: the Philippines and South Vietnam. Rising to the rank of major general in the Air Force, Lansdale worked his entire career in either military intelligence, psychological warfare, or special operations, with the O.S.S., C.I.A., and DoD. Lansdale's most successful efforts were in the Phillipines in the late 40's and early 50's, helping defeat the communist insurgents (Huks) and establish democratic reforms. In "Bright Shining Lie" Neil Sheehan called Lansdale the "father of South Vietnam," and this is largely true. But despite two long assignments in country (1954-57 and 1965-68) not even the legendary Lansdale could stabilize South Vietnam, largely because senior U.S. leaders would not support his ideas. Lansdale was against the predominant U.S. "big battle" strategy, but rather believed the fight was a "people's war" which required working with villagers to help them defend themselves. This is the strategy Andrew Krepenivich espoused in "The Army and Vietnam." Lansdale believed that helping nationals fight a people's war was a form of brotherly love, inspired by the Founding Fathers' concepts of respect for the rights of individuals. He felt an important way to learn Asians' culture was to learn their folk songs (always playing along on his harmonica) and to let them know that Americans accepted them as equals. In the long anti-Vietnam period after U.S. withdrawal in 1973, Lansdale has often been unfairly maligned. This book finally gives him a fair treatment, while pointing out criticisms from both the left and the right. Lansdale is a legend, and with good reason. Few people's lives involve the amount of intrigue similar to, for example, the character Reilly, "Ace of Spies," who worked for British intelligence. To learn about the noble ideals behind American Cold War foreign policy (despite often tragic miscalculations), the fascinating life of Edward Geary Lansdale is an enlightening tale.

If one wanted to dissect the malignancy of American foreign policy in Southeast Asia in the 1950's and 60's, this book about the mysterious Edward Lansdale would be a good place to start. Lansdale was the former CIA/U.S. Air Force officer who was, some say, the model for both the Quiet American and Ugly American in novels by, respectively, Graham Green and Eugene Burdick/William Lederer.

But Lansdale was hardly an Ugly American (he was by nature a quiet man) and, in any event, identifying Lansdale with a fictional stereotype hardly does him justice. But Lansdale does get his share of justice from Cecil B. Currey, the author of EDWARD LANSDALE: the UNQUIET AMERICAN.

Currey depicts Lansdale as a sophisticated intelligence agent who developed unconventional theories about how to fight communism. Alas, while Lansdale was successful in both the Philippines and Vietnam, his theories never did receive the proper attention, or respect, from the mainstream foreign policy establishment in Washington under the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all of whom effectively ignored his advice on how to deal with the insurgency in Vietnam.

Early in his career, Lansdale was an advertising man who had a sophisticated understanding of how and why people reacted to any given product. One of his successful advertising accounts was with Levi Strauss who has seeking to go national with their blue jeans. The advertising skills Lansdale learned in the 1930's served as a good basis for the psy-war operations he developed later in his intelligence career.

When World War II broke out, and Lansdale managed to get an Army commission that gave him entrée into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency. Details of Lansdale's OSS service were murky, but it involved work on both China and the Philippines. After the war, Lansdale had the chance to switch his Army commission to that of the fledgling U.S. Air Force, and that was to be his cover for the rest of his career as a behind the scenes political agent working for both the CIA and the U.S. State Department.

That career focused on two key nations in Southeast Asia: the Philippines and Vietnam. In the 1950's Lansdale developed counter-insurgency tactics that successfully put down the HUK rebellion in the Philippines. Afterwards, Lansdale was a key player in the rise of Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay.

After Magsaysay was elected President, Lansdale was sent to Vietnam by then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to replicate his success in the Philippines. Lansdale worked closely with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem as he secured his power in the aftermath of the 1954 Geneva Convention accord on Vietnam. But Diem was a difficult leader who was not completely receptive to Lansdale's advice to win the hearts of his people (as Magsaysay did in the Philippines). As pressures from North Vietnam increased, and John F. Kennedy ascended to the Presidency, the situation in Vietnam was deteriorating, in part due to Diem's intransigence to Lansdale's recommendations.

Lansdale's efforts in Vietnam were focused on pacification of the South Vietnamese countryside, but Diem never did wholeheartedly endorse that strategy. While Lansdale remained a key adviser to Diem, he began to lose his grip on the situation in Saigon, especially with the rambunctious foreign policy establishment in Washington. The result was that Diem was assassinated, with the encouragement of JFK's advisors, and South Vietnam began to travel down a rocky road that ultimately led to its defeat in 1975. It didn't help matters that JFK himself was assassinated only weeks after Diem was murdered.

Once Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency, the American policy in Southeast Asia went off the rails. Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (never a fan of Lansdale) began the massive build-up of American troops as the U.S. took control of the war. The South Vietnamese not only lost interest in defending their nation, corruption took hold as dishonest South Vietnamese officers developed phantom troops rolls and pocketed their salaries. The black market in American goods that were sent to support U.S. troops flourished. In that sort of an environment, North Vietnam strengthened its grip on the population in South Vietnam.

Lansdale recognized this and reported it to his superiors (by this time he had formally cut his ties with the CIA and was acting as a special assistant to the U.S. ambassador in Saigon), and he never did give up his efforts towards pacification. But as the situation deteriorated, Lansdale lost touch with the key policy makers in Washington and after the 1968 Tet Offensive, Lansdale's career was for all intents and purposes was over. He ultimately returned to Washington and lived a quiet life until his death in 1987.

Currey's saga of Lansdale's frustration represents a reasonably accurate description of the collapse of the American effort in Southeast Asia. In his remaining years, Lansdale lectured frequently and stayed in occasional contact with leading figures. In 1984, Richard Nixon asked him to write down thoughts on modern warfare. Lansdale responded:

"Conventional operations are more apt to widen the problem or to be more cosmetic than a cure," Lansdale wrote to Nixon. "...Essentially, in a revolutionary `people's' war, the people of the country actually constitute the true battleground of the war. Whoever wins them wins the war. Unless a government is made up `of the people, by the people and for the people,' it is vulnerable...Native leaders have to win the war. We can't do it for them. We can advise on the selection of the best native leaders for the fight and help make their leadership effective while behaving as helpful friends."

Currey then goes on to boil down all of Lansdale's writings and speeches to eight points of essential warfare. They are too lengthy too enumerate here, but they are a very valuable summary of Lansdale's principals of unconventional warfare, and should be studied at the Army and Navy war colleges.

In the final analysis, one has to consider Lansdale a bit of an odd, even flawed personality. He had an enormously successful career as a counterinsurgency expert. But he never completely fulfilled himself, partly because he was inept at American politics. Part of his problem was that he was way out of the mainstream of the defense and foreign policy establishment at the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom, and as such, no one took him seriously. He had hoped that he would be named ambassador to the Philippines or Vietnam, but he never stood a chance at such a high ranking appointment, because the movers and shakers in Washington considered him a bit of a counterinsurgency freak in an Air Force uniform. But his clients in the Philippines and Vietnam didn't view him in that light, and the sorry conclusion has to be made that Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon made a grievous mistake in not elevating Lansdale to a much higher,policy making position in the inner sanctums of the Washington power establishment. If they had, the outcome of the Vietnam War might have been far different than the ignominious American evacuation of both Phnom Penh and Saigon in 1975 when the war in Indochina ended in a North Vietnamese victory.

Lyndon Johnson and the CIA murdered JFK on 11/22/63. Edward Lansdale was a famous and very skilled CIA operative whose speciality was assasinations, overthrowing governments and propaganda- all critical tools in the murder of John F. Kennedy.

Edward Lansdale was also close to the very powerful Allen Dulles who Kennedy had fired as head of the CIA in 1961. After the CIA murder of JFK, LBJ appointed Allen Dulles to run the Warren Commission cover up. The real power on the Warren Commission was ALLEN DULLES and JOHN J. MCCLOY and GERALD FORD (the FBI's man).

Here is a photo of Edward Lansdale, taken on the sidewalk just in front of the Texas School Book Depository. It is just a few feet WEST of the Building taken on 11/22/63. Forget the 3 tramps, the real killer in the picture is Edward Lansdale, who supervised the assassination. [...]

Here is what Fletcher Prouty had to say about Lansdale: [...]

[...] is the best web site on the internet to learn about the JFK assassination. LOTS of good info there.

As for the book itself, it is CIA propaganda designed to polished the extremely tattered reputation of Edward Lansdale. Lansdale was a very skilled and talented man, and he had no problem using those talents for evil as he no doubt did in the CIA murder of John F. Kennedy.