IN THE MIDST OF WARS:

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R001000080001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 1, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

`AVJU))iAY Y'0'rM, T
April 19'72
or Release,@1i~,irQy;[P~g
STATOTHR
IN TIIE MIDST OF WARS:
An Ancrican's Mission
to Southeast Asia
by Edward Geary Lansdale
Harper & Row, 386 pp., $12.50
Reviewed by Jonathan Mirsky
,, With the exception of the Pentagon
Papers, Edward Geary Lansdale's
memoir could have been the most valu-
able eyewitness account of the inter-
nationalizing of the Indochinese war.
Lansdale, a "legendary figure" even in
his own book, furnished the model for
tlie Ugly American who, from 1950
through 1953, "helped" Magsaysay put
down the Iluk revolution in the Philip-
pines. He then proceeded to Vietnam
Special Committee on Indochina held
on January 29, 1954.
Why is this important? Because if
there is one word Lansdale uses re-
peatedly it is "help"-and lie uses it
personally, simulating a Lone Ranger-
like urge to offer spontaneous assist-
ance. Thus, the first clay he ever saw
Diem, ". . . the thought occurred to
inc that perhaps lie needed help.... I
voiced this to Ambassador Heath... .
Heath told me to go ahead." The in-
formal atmosphere continues when
Lansdale, upon actually meeting Diem,
immortalizes him as "the alert and
eldest of the seven dwarfs deciding
what to do about Snow White."
Further desires to serve inform Lans-
dale's concern for the "masses of
people living in North Vietnam who
would want to ... move out before the
communists took over." These unfortu-
nates, too, required "help." Splitting
his "small team" of Americans in two,
Lansdale saw to it that "One half
October [1954] including items about
property, money reform, and a three-
day holiday of workers upon takeover.
The clay following the distribution of
these leaflets, refugee registration
tripled."
he refugees-Catholics, many of
whom had collaborated with the
French-were settled in the South, in
communities that, according. to .Lans-
dale, were designed to "sandwich"
Northerners and Southerners "in a
cultural melting pot that hopefully
would give each equal opportunity."
Robert Scigliano, who at this time
was advising the CIA-infiltrated Michi-
gan State University team on how to
"help" Diem, saw more than a melting
pot:
Northerners, practically all of whom are
refugees, (have] preempted nruhy of the
choice Posts in the Diem government....
[The] Diem regime has assumed the as-
pect of a carpet bag government in its
disproportion of Northerners and Cen-
refugee work in the North."
where, between 1951 and 1956, he stuck "Major" Lucien Concin, who was to
close to Ngo Dinh Diem during Diem's play the major role the CIA had in the
first shaky years when Washington murder of Diem in 1963, is identified in
couldn't make up its mind whom to the secret CIA report included by the
tali as the American alternative to lIo Tintes and Beacon editions of the
Chi Minh. Lansdale's support insured Pentagon Papers (see SR, Jan. 1, 1972)
Diem as the final choice for Our Man as an agent "assigned to MAAG [Mili-
in Saigon. While the book's time span 'tary Assistance Advisory Group] for
is, therefore, relatively brief, the period cover purposes." The secret report
it covers in the Philippines and Viet' refers to Conehn's refugee "help" as
ram )s ,1
e
tralists ... and in its Catholicism.... The STATOTF
Southern people do not seem to share the
anticommunist vehemence of their Nortii.
ern and Central compatriots, by whonn
they are sometimes referred to as un.
reliable in the communist struggle,
[While] Priests in the refugee villages holel
110 formal government posts they are t:cn?
erally the real milers of their villages and
serve as contacts with district and pro,
vincial officials.
g
nuuie y inpoi tans. one of his "cover duties." His real job: Graham Greene, a devout Catholic,
There is only-one difficulty with lit "responsibility for developing a para- observed in 1955 after a visit to Viet'
the Midst of Wars: from the cover to military organization in the North, to nam, "It is Catholicism which has
the final page it is permeated with lies. be in position when the Vietminh took helped to ruin the government of Mr.
That Harper & Row finds it possible over ... the group was to be trained Diem, for his genuine piety has been
to foist such a package of untruths on and supported by the U.S. as patriotic exploited by his American advisers
the public-and for $12.50!-several Vietnamese." Conein's "helpful" teams until the Church is in clanger of sharing
months after the emergence of the also attempted to sabotage Hanoi's the unpopularity of the United Slates."
Pentagon Papers, and years after the largest printing establishment and Wherever one turns in Lansdale the
publication of other authoritative wreck the local bus company. At the accounts are likely to be lies. He re-
studies, exhibits contempt for a public beginning of 1955, still in Hanoi, the ports how Filipinos, old comrades
trying to understand the realities of CIA's Concin infiltrated more agents from the anti-I-Iuk wars, decided to
our engagement in Vietnam. into the North. They "became normal "help" the struggling Free South. The
The lie on the hick t d 11 L
e
J~
escrr es ans- citizens, carrying out everyday civil spontaneity of this pan-Asian gesture
dale merely as an OSS veteran who pursuits, on the surface." Aggression warms the heart-until one learns from
spent the years after World War II as a front the North, anyone? Lansdale's own secret report to Presi-
"career officer in the U.S. Air Force." Lansdale expresses particular pleas- dent Kennedy that here, too, the CIA
In the text Lansdale never offers any ure with the refugee movement to had stage-managed the whole business.
explicit evidence to the contrary. In- the South. These people "ought to be The Eastern Construction Company
deal, on page 378-the last of the text- provided with a way of making a fresh turns out to be a CIA-controlled
he states that at the very time. Diem start in the free South.... [Vietnam] "mechanism to permit the deployment
was being murdered in Saigon, "I had was going to need the vigorous par-of Filipino personnel in other Asian
been retired from the Air Force." ticipation of every citizen to make a countries for unconventional opera-
For all I know Lansdale drew his pay success of the noncommunist part of tions.... Philippine Armed Forces and
from the Air Force and, as the photo- the new nation before the proposed other governmental personnel were
graphs in his book attest, lie certainly plebiscite was held in 1956." Lansdale 'sheep-dipped' and sent abroad."
Wore its uniform. This is irrelevant. modestly claims that he "passed along" Elsewhere Lansdale makes much of
Lansdale was for years a senior opera- ideas on how to wage psychological Diem's success against the various
tive of the Central Intelligence Agency; warfare to "some nationalists." The sects, Cao Dai, Itoa I-iao, and Binh
on page 244 of the Department of De- Pentagon Papers, however, reveal that Xuyen. (At every step Diem was ad-
fcnse edition of the Pentagon Papers, the CIA "engineered a black psywar vised by Lansdale who, at one pathetic
Lansdale, two other men, and Allen strike in Hanoi: leaflets signed by the moment, even holds the weeping Chief
Dunes are 1nnroveasl ArrG W,A tt~ l _!gtj92ji~'~Cnt' 9PRAUrt AMSMfM0Ufli RWA-At4&,, de-
V/
ow to a lave of Elie ictmmh take- -`+
 IAILLx W?lII''`? STATOTHR
Approved For Release 2001/3/W-RDP80-01601 RO
i?3.] 0 0
h ,.J H E..3 i t J ~.7~
By WILLIAM J. POMERO i'
. Publication of the Pentagon Papers that has blasted a gaping hole in the credibil-
ity of a string of American aeu-ministrations has set off a secondary explosion in ti:
Philippines, where the role of the puppet Magsaysay administration in aiding the
American aggression in Vietnam has been exposed.
One of the main reports in the mer close staff assistant to Presi-
Papers is that by Brig. Gen. Ed- ' dent Magsaysay (serving as Presi-
ward G. Lansdale, in which he dential Complaints and Action
discusses in detail the actions Commissioner directly under the
taken by the CIA from before the President)" San Juan went on to
Geneva Agreement of 1954 on- a political career and is how a
ward to promote suppressive congressman from Rizal province.
Counter-guerrilla warfare in Viet- Lansdale praised the almost un-
narn and Laos and to build up tapped potential of ];astern Con-
Ngo Dinh Diem as the American struction for unconventional war-
instrument to frustrate the Agree- fare "which was its original mis
-mont. Lansdale was yell-known sion.".Ile wrote that "this cadre
before that in the Philippines, can be expanded into a wide
since, he was the.CIA agent who range c(counter-Communist acti
mastenninddd many aspects of the vities, having sufficient stature
anli-lluk suppression campaign in in the Philippines to be able to
th country and who groomed draw on a very liana segment of
Ramon Magsaysay for the press- its trained, experienced and well-
dency and ran his election cam- motivated manpower pool." After
paign. l a few years, "It now furnishes
In a number of the actions de- about MO 'trained, experienced
tailed by Lansdale in his report Filipino technicians to the Gov-
F'illipinos who were part of the ernments of Vietnam and Laos,
biagsaysay apparatus and with under the auspices of 11iAAG
whom Lansdale had worked in (MAP) and USOM (ICA) activi-
the Philippines played a leading ties."
part. Magsaysay himself as honor- MAAG are the initials for Mili-
ary president,. backed the setting tary Assistance Advisory Group,
up of an outfit initially called and MAP for Military Assistance
the Freedom Company, "a non- Program in Vietnam; USOM
profit Philippine corporation," stands for United States Opera-
which had the assignment of re- tion Mission, and ICA for Interna-
cruiting Filipinos who had parti- tional Cooperation Administration.
cipated in the anti-I-Iuk suppres The Freedom-Eastern Construe-
sion for similar service in Viet _tion outfit was also assigned the
nam and Laos. task of running a training camp
After Freedom Company was or- for anti-Communist Vietnamese
ganizc-d in November 1954, it was para-rni]it:iry units in a hidden
apparently felt that its -name did valley on the Clark Air Base re-
not sufficiently disguise its oper- servation in the Philippines.
I ?ations, so it was changed to East- In addition the Magsaysay gov-
ern Construction Company.' (The ernniont agreed to operate a psy-
CIA has created a maze of such chological warfare counter-guer
"corporations" around the world, numb school called the Security
-through which its espionage and
subversive activities are carried
on.) .
As the Lansdale report states,
"The head of Eastern Construc-
tion is Frisco 'Johnny' San Juan,
former National Coinmander, Phi-
lippines Veterans Legion, and for-
was the so-called Operation l3ro-
ti:e hccd, which came about fol-
a visit in 1954 to see Lans-
dale in Saigon by Oscar Arellano,
a F ilpino close to Magsaysay who
was then vice president for Asia
of the International Junior Ch.am-
ber of Commerce (Jaycees). Arel-
lano came away from this visit
to advocate the setting up of Ope-.
ration Brotherhood, which was
played up in the Philippines at
the time as a seal]-religious al-
truistic medical mission.
Ilowever, as Lansdale explains
it, it was "capable of consider-
able expansion in socic-economicSTATOTHR
medical operations' to support
counter-guerrilla actions," and he
rays that "Vi'ashington responded
warmly to the idea." According
to Lansdale, the Saigon Military
Mission that he then headed
would "monitor the operation
quietly in the background" and
that "it has a measure of CIA
control."
Oscar Arellano,. following the
publication of the Pentagon Paper:
issued a defensive statement
claiming that "OB has always
been a presidential program since
the administration of President
Nlagsaysay. 033's mission is the
propagation of the conviction that
all men are brothers, created by
a Supreme Divinity to whom lle
gave His image and likeness and
imbued with his spirit."
A third Filipino operation was
headed by Col. Napoleon Valeria-
no, who was given the job of
training- a Presidential Guard
Battalion for- Ngo Dint Diem,
after having done the same for
h clUnley c ii the rile of Manila. riagsaysay. Valeriano was select-
i is, as the Pentagon Papers 'Ed, says I,ansdalc, for his "fine
mentbons, \":?as secretly sponsored record against the Communist
a nd fin an.ced by the CIA. This I1uks." In the Philippines, Vale-
ta:'m ed '' nti-subversion" person- riano had commanded the most
;arm for all of Southeast Asia. brutal and notorious of all anti-
Another Filipino-linked scheme Huk units, called the "Skull Unit."
V
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r I t M;i % , r"r, A
PEWS
5ti
!:a " 9Jg.3 .)P,
Yc,u could veer out your tai-fil ?lls
pouring thiough the Pent on decu-
IYlenis, not to 1',18Jitlq;l the 400 r
official summar ? of Victnalll history
read aloud the other night, by Sen.
Gravel of Alaska.
And you can hardly l.lonle 0L1 sen-
ator for waning e ,ro,i0"l. What the
senator did net reveal, t-lo It h he
probably 1 no - s 1 what th U.S. is
lip to today in Clandcstin
and in policy debate::.
There c ve al I oy 1 1 idden in
the unciarstateci A ?= of the papers
that h \v , been released since the Su-
piem Court decision con ice this
w=peel.. Perhaps the ' es are too real
today to be fiction:, c-ed.
One .novel might be structured
around the fore iu U.S, leC:Cters
felt in Inc early 1900s about a n ation-
al commitment to beep COlY:111unisln
out. Of South Vietna 11.
Maxwell Taylor, in November
1961, informed President Kcn:icuy
that a conlrlilt rnent to protect South
Vietnam from col monism nit-:ht pull
us into an endless Inor