by Max Boot
Lansdale in early 1961 visiting the remote village of Binh Hung, defended by the Sea Swallows militia led by the “fighting priest,” Father Nguyen Loc Hoa (in glasses and dark uniform). (MSFRIC)
The leaders of North Vietnam, left to right: Vo Nguyen Giap, Truong Chinh, Le Duan, and Ho Chi Minh. The little-known Le Duan was the driving force behind the North’s war on South Vietnam. (AP)
Fidel Castro with Nikita Khrushchev. The Cuban leader’s closeness to the Soviet Union led President Kennedy to put Lansdale in charge of Operation Mongoose to overthrow his regime. (Image Works)
Gusano Libre (Free Worm), a cartoon image that the CIA concocted, at Lansdale’s instigation, as a symbol of resistance to Castro. The CIA planned to deliver Gusano Libre “pins, armbands, seals, pencils, balloons, etc.” to Cuba via helium-filled balloons. (NARA)
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was a relentless taskmaster. He told Lansdale, “Let’s get the hell on with it. The President wants some action, right now.” Lansdale’s failure to topple Castro helped to sour the Kennedys on him. (AP)
General Maxwell Taylor and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara confer with President John F. Kennedy. Lansdale did not see eye to eye with the more conventionally minded Taylor and McNamara about how to fight the Vietcong. But he did convince Kennedy to focus on the conflict early in his administration. (Image Works)
Major General Edward G. Lansdale in 1963, shortly before his retirement from the Pentagon. (Image Works)
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the patrician American ambassador who supported the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 and returned for another tour, 1965–66. Although Lodge brought Lansdale back to Vietnam, he never gave him any real power. (MSFRIC)
Ellsworth Bunker replaced Lodge in 1967 and stayed until 1973. Lansdale trusted and liked Bunker more than Lodge, but Bunker did not grant him any more authority. (MSFRIC)
Lansdale held regular parties at his house in Saigon to bring Americans and Vietnamese together. Here Nguyen Cao Ky and General William Westmoreland listen to folk singing. (HI)
Lansdale poses in 1967 with General Nguyen Duc Thang (second from left) and his family. Lansdale aide Charlie Sweet is at far left, Calvin Mehlert at far right. Lansdale hoped that the honest and effective Thang could become a Vietnamese version of Ramon Magsaysay. (RPPP)
Everything that Lansdale tried to achieve in his second tour in Vietnam, 1965–68, was ultimately inconsequential compared to the “big unit” war fought by the American military. Lansdale warned that the enemy could not be bombed into submission, but he was ignored. (Image Works)
The former RAND analyst Daniel Ellsberg worked for Lansdale in Vietnam before leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Lansdale “was the leader of the cult and I was a member of that cult,” he later said. (AP)
Senator Frank Church led an investigation into the CIA in 1975. Testifying to the Church Committee “has all the charm and fun of going to a dentist to have root canals,” Lansdale complained. (Getty)
Following Helen’s death, Pat Kelly and Edward Lansdale married on the Fourth of July, 1973, and lived happily ever after. Here they are in the kitchen of their McLean, Virginia, home in 1979. (ECLPP)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS IS a Council on Foreign Relations book. I cannot imagine a more congenial or supportive work environment, thanks to my superb bosses—Council President Richard Haass and the director of studies, James Lindsay. I have also been blessed to work alongside many other distinguished colleagues and Council members—I must mention in particular Amy Baker, Patricia Dorff, Irina Faskianos, Victoria Harlan, Janine Hill, Lisa Shields, and Iva Zoric—who continue to make the Council what it has been since its inception in 1921: a vibrant intellectual community for advancing America’s engagement with the world. I am honored to be a small part of it.*
While toiling on this book between 2013 and 2017, I have been aided by a succession of first-rate young research associates. While I did all of my own research and writing, my RAs—first Greg Roberts, then Harry Oppenheimer, and finally Sherry Cho—helped by tracking down books, contacting archives, making logistical arrangements, acquiring illustrations, preparing budgets, and performing myriad other tasks.
I am grateful for the financial, intellectual, and moral support of Roger Hertog and the Hertog Foundation, Dianne J. Sehler and the Bradley Foundation, and other supporters who prefer to remain anonymous.
I am also grateful to the archivists and librarians all over the world that my RAs and I worked with. Trang Nguyen helped me to conduct research in Vietnam; Alice Le Clezio in France; and Kathryn Blankenberg at the Hoover archives at Stanford. Henry Kissinger was kind enough to grant me permission to quote from his papers at Yale.
Special thanks to the family members of Ed and Pat Lansdale who shared with me letters and photos that have not been seen by any previous author: Pat’s grandchildren, Patricia Pelaez-Yi, Leah Pelaez-Ramos, Manny Pelaez, and Francisco Kelly; Ed’s children, Ed and Pete Lansdale, and their wives, Carol and Carolyn, respectively; and Ed’s niece Ginger Lansdale Brodie, and her husband, Robert. All of them also shared their memories during the course of extended interviews and email exchanges. I could not have written this book without their generosity and help.
Many of the people who worked with Lansdale—a full list is in the bibliography—took the time to sit down with me and share their recollections. The journalist Marc Leepson shared interviews he conducted for a book about Lansdale that was never written. The late Cecil Currey interviewed Lansdale and many of his associates, now long gone, for his own biography. I am grateful for his spadework, and have drawn on the transcripts he left behind.
Rufus Phillips, one of Lansdale’s closest friends, not only spent many hours reminiscing with me but also made himself available to answer a plethora of questions via email. Once I had a manuscript ready, he read it over carefully and pointed out ways to make it more precise. The manuscript was also read by two anonymous academic reviewers commissioned by the Council as well as by two retired generals—Sam Wilson and Victor Hugo—who worked with Lansdale. They made many suggestions that I incorporated. Finally, the novelist Karl Marlantes not only offered kind words of praise but also gave me the nudge that I needed to conduct some final tightening of the text.
It is a privilege to be represented by one of the best and most thoughtful literary agents in the business, Tina Bennett of William Morris Endeavor. I am deeply grateful for all of her help, as I am for all that my editor, Robert Weil of Norton/Liveright, has done for this book and for me personally. As far as I am concerned, Bob is the second coming of Maxwell Perkins; I cannot imagine a more skillful or supportive editor. He not only persuaded me to write this book but also consistently elevated my prose. Bob’s assistant, Marie Pantojan, has also been a pleasure to work with, as has the whole team at Norton/Liveright—Phil Marino, Anna Oler, Steve Attardo, Bill Rusin, Peter Miller, and Cordelia Calvert. All of them care deeply about books, not just about the business of publishing. David Lindroth once again drew the beautiful maps.
Finally I must thank my loved ones—especially my partner, Sue Mi Terry; my stepchildren, Alexander and Zachary; and my children, Victoria, Abigail, and William; along with my mother and stepfather, Olga and Yan Kagan; and my father and stepmother, Alexander Boot and Penelope Blackie Boot—for enriching my life and being a constant source of inspiration. Sue, in particular, has been both a perceptive critic and a staunch champion, and I have benefited immeasurably from both characteristics.
* The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. Founded in 1921, CFR carries out its mission by maintaining a diverse membership, with special programs to prom
ote interest and develop expertise in the next generation of foreign policy leaders; convening meetings at its headquarters in New York and in Washington, D.C., and other cities where senior government officials, members of Congress, global leaders, and prominent thinkers come together with CFR members to discuss and debate major international issues; supporting a Studies Program that fosters independent research, enabling CFR scholars to produce articles, reports, and books and hold roundtables that analyze foreign policy issues and make concrete policy recommendations; publishing Foreign Affairs, the preeminent journal on international affairs and U.S. foreign policy; sponsoring Independent Task Forces that produce reports with both findings and policy prescriptions on the most important foreign-policy topics; and providing up-to-date information and analysis about world events and American foreign policy on its website, www.cfr.org. The Council on Foreign Relations takes no institutional positions on policy issues and has no affiliation with the U.S. government. All views expressed in its publications and on its website are the sole responsibility of the author or authors.
NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS
(For all other abbreviations, see the bibliography)
CTRB: Charles T. R. Bohannan
EGL: Edward G. Lansdale
FRUS: Foreign Relations of the United States
HCL: Henry Cabot Lodge
HL: Helen Lansdale
NYT: New York Times
PK: Pat Kelly
PP: Pentagon Papers
RG: Record Group
RP: Rufus Phillips
SMM: Saigon Military Mission
SLO: Senior Liaison Office
WP: Washington Post
EPIGRAPH
1 George Orwell, “Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali,” available at http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/dali/english/e_dali.
PROLOGUE: The Day of the Dead
1 http://stardate.org/nightsky/riseset.
2 Hovis, Hospital, 49.
3 Ibid., 50.
4 Reporting Vietnam, 1.91.
5 McAllister, “Religions.”
6 Jacobs, Mandarin, 149.
7 FRUS 1961–1963, Vietnam, 3.628.
8 After the fall of South Vietnam, its name would be changed to Tan Son Nhat.
9 Berman, Hubert, 109.
10 Blair, Lodge, 43–44.
11 FRUS 1961–1963, Vietnam, 4.21.
12 Ibid., 3.645.
13 Ibid., 4.140–43.
14 Ibid., 4.255.
15 Ibid., 4.442–46.
16 Ahern, Ngo, 203; Tran Van Don, Endless, 98.
17 Higgins, Nightmare, 208.
18 Henry Kissinger, “Vietnam trip, 1965—diary 1/4,” HKP, box 100, file 14.
19 FRUS 1961–1963, Vietnam, 4.517.
20 Hovis, Hospital, 77–84.
21 FRUS 1961–1963, Vietnam, 4.513.
22 RP, Vietnam, 19.
23 Herr, Dispatches, 233.
24 Ahern, Ngo, 203.
25 Miller, Misalliance, 210, 282; Tran Van Don, Endless, 83.
26 Ahern, Ngo, 203.
27 Reporting Vietnam, 1.94.
28 Tran Van Don, Endless, 87.
29 Grant, Phoenix, 211.
30 MFF/TLC.
31 Hammer, Death, 298.
32 Taylor, Swords, 301.
33 McNamara, Retrospect, 85.
34 http://whitehousetapes.net/clips/1963_1104_jfk_vietnam_memoir.swf.
35 Lodge, Storm, 214.
36 Hammer, Death, 314.
37 Colby, Lost Victory, 158.
38 PP, Part IV.B.5, p. viii.
39 Colby, Honorable Men, 203; Jacobs, Mandarin, 186.
INTRODUCTION: The Misunderstood Man
1 JFKPL/VHKOH.
2 Halberstam, Brightest, 128.
3 Karnow, Vietnam, 236, 458.
4 Weiner, Ashes, 213.
5 Sheehan, Lie, 138.
6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ATbhCUZxjQ.
CHAPTER 1: In Terrific Flux
1 Great White Fleet: WP, Dec. 17, 1907 (“blue of the sky,” “top hat”); Crawford, Great White Fleet; Reckner, Great White Fleet.
2 London, Iron, 104.
3 Phil Lansdale to Gary May, April 18, 1978, HI/EGL, box 5.
4 Ginger Brodie, “Edward Philips and Sarah Adelaide Walker Family Time Line,” GBPP.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Phil Lansdale to Ed, Ben, Dave, Dec. 25, 1971, GBPP.
8 Phil Lansdale to Dave Lansdale, Oct. 11, 1987, GBPP.
9 EGL, “The Lansdale Family,” Nov. 1971, ECLPP; David Lansdale, “Some Side Lights on Henry Lansdale,” GBPP.
10 EGL, “The Lansdale Family,” Nov. 1971, ECLPP.
11 Detroit News, March 7, 1896.
12 Keep, Guide, 36.
13 EGL interview, Feb. 15, 1984, CCP.
14 EGL, “There Is My Country,” HI/EGL, box 75.
15 Dallek, Unfinished, 29; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 14.
16 EGL to family, Jan. 20, 1976, GBPP; EGL, “There Is My Country,” HI/EGL, box 75.
17 EGL interview, Feb. 15, 1984, CCP.
18 EGL, memoir draft, HI/EGL, box 76, file 265.
19 EGL, “The Lansdale Family,” Nov. 1971, ECLPP.
20 I am grateful to the Yale graduate student Michael D. Hattem, an expert in early American history, for identifying the volumes in question as American Archives.
21 Apocryphal: Morgan, “Pleasures of Paine.” EGL cited: EGL, Midst, xxi; AI/RP.
22 EGL interview, Feb. 18, 1984, CCP.
23 Phil Lansdale to David Lansdale, Jan. 4, 1988, GBPP.
24 EGL interview, Feb. 15, 1984, CCP.
25 David Lansdale interview, Nov. 11, 1985, CCP.
26 David Lansdale, unpublished memoir, Feb. 20, 1991, GBPP.
27 Ben Lansdale to Gary May, April 28, 1978, HI/EGL, box 5.
28 Lederer, Ugly American, 110.
29 Ben Lansdale to Gary May, May 5, 1978, HI/EGL, box 5.
30 Gottschalk, Christian Science, 79.
31 Henry Lansdale to David Lansdale, March 6, 1956, GBPP.
32 Butler, Religion, 296.
33 Gottschalk, Christian Science, 206.
34 EGL interview, Feb 15, 1984, CCP.
35 David Lansdale interview, Nov. 11, 1985, CCP.
36 Takaki, Strangers, 181.
37 Dallek, Unfinished, 112.
38 USAFA/EGLOH.
39 Fogelson, Fragmented, 82.
40 Hubert “Pooley” Roberts interview, July 13, 1985, CCP.
CHAPTER 2: Enfant Terrible
1 Boot, Invisible, 286.
2 Ibid., 285.
3 Los Angeles Times, June 12, 1925.
4 http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Los_Angeles_HS/Archives/History/History.htm.
5 Ben Lansdale to Gary May, April 28, 1979, HI/EGL, box 5.
6 EGL transcript, Los Angeles High School.
7 Roberts interview, July 13, 1985, CCP.
8 Roberts interview, July 13, 1985, CCP.
9 German: College Humor (reprint from The Claw), July 1930. Ratings, Hubbard: The Claw, Oct. 10, 1932.
10 The Claw, Oct. 1928.
11 Roberts interview, July 13, 1985, CCP.
12 Roberts interview, July 13, 1985, CCP.
13 California Daily Bruin, Jan. 5, 1931.
14 Ben Lansdale to Gary May, April 28, 1975, HI/EGL, box 5.
15 Dundjerski, UCLA, 59.
16 EGL transcript, UCLA Registrar’s Office.
17 Caro, Power Broker, 323.
18 Wilson, Thirties, 156–57.
19 Williams, Ambition, 91.
20 Ibid., 135.
21 Ibid., 159.
22 https://livingnewdeal.berkeley.edu/us/ny/.
23 EGL interview, Feb. 15, 1984, CCP.
24 Dorothy Bohannan interview, July 27, 1985, CCP.
25 EGL interview, Feb. 15, 1984, CCP; Currey, Lansdale, 10.
26 Helen Batcheller Lansdale death certificate, Commonwealth of Virginia, ECLPP.
27 EGL personnel file, CCP.
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28 Roberts interview, July 13, 1985, CCP.
29 John Doran interview, Nov. 11, 1985, CCP.
30 Marriage certificate, HI/EGL, box 69.
31 EGL to PK, Nov. 7, 1949, PCLPP.
32 EGL to HL, Nov. 1951, PCLPP.
33 AI/ELCL.
34 David Lansdale interview, Nov. 15, 1985, CCP.
35 Pooley Roberts interview, July 13, 1985, CCP.
36 Phil Lansdale interview, Sept. 20, 1985, CCP.
37 AI/EC.
38 David Lansdale interview, Nov. 15, 1985, CCP.
39 HL: Carolyn and Pete Lansdale, email to author, Jan. 20, 2014; Dunkirk Evening Observer, Aug. 23, 1909 (Nellie’s death), Aug. 15, 1927 (Mary Jane’s death); Centennial History, 444, 450; Dunkirk Historical Museum (town history); Pierce, Genealogy, 588; 1917 draft registration card, Ancestry.com; 1910 census, Ancestry.com.
40 Ethel’s age: Findagrave.com. Hotel cashier: Phil Lansdale to David Lansdale, Nov. 2, 1987, GBPP.
41 David Lansdale, “A Sad Period in My Young Life,” March 2000, GBPP.
42 Phil Lansdale to David Lansdale, Nov. 2, 1987, GBPP.
43 Gottschalk, Christian Science, 124.
44 New Republic, Aug. 20, 1919.
45 U.S. WPA, San Francisco (“The City”: 3; “monument”: 161; “quality”: 177; “Mediterranean”: 236; “Canton”: 220).
46 James, Treasure Island, 106–13; Starr, Endangered, ch. 13.
47 EGL interview, Feb. 15, 1984, CCP.
48 Personnel Placement Questionnaire, Dec. 12, 1941, EGL personnel file, CCP.
49 RSPP.
50 EGL, “Application for Commission,” 1947, CCP; 1940 census.
51 AI/AI.
52 EGL interview, Feb. 15, 1984, CCP.
53 Ibid.
54 Currey, Unquiet, 16, erroneously has Lansdale living in Larkspur in 1941. EGL’s military records indicate the family did not move to Marin County until 1942, first to Kentfield and then, in 1943, to Larkspur.
