ON DUTY, 'DIRTY TRICKS' AND DEMOCRACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00499R000200080001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 10, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 10, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For ease 200T4 I 84-004990 0200080001-6
PARADE
A profile of Maj. Gen. -EdwtrrLansdale , the original "Ugly American"
is a gray, unassuming man whose validity of their arguments, at
By Stanley Karnow subdued style borders on self- least endowed him with a meas-
As he walks his poodle along effacement. Some of his friends ure of literary immortality. Wil-
the shaded street near his split- suggest that he has lost. much of Liam J. Lederer and Eugene Bur-
level Alexandria home, Ma j. Gen. his verve since his wife's death dick portrayed him in The Ugly
Edward Geary Lansdale resembles last spring, and he himself con- American as Col. Edwin Barnum
any number of retired officers cedes that her passing has left Hillendale, whose sweet harmon-
pasturing in the Washington sub- him lonely and dispirited. Except ica purportedly stimulated rural
urbs. He is still lean and erect de- for occasional evenings with old Filipinos to oppose Communism.
many Graham Greene, on the other
spite his 64 years, and, like so cronies, many. of them Asia veter-
military. pensioners, he ans like himself, he leads a rather hand, depicted him in The Quiet
finds life somewhat tame after his secluded existence. American asAlden Pyle, the naive
adventurous career. Other friends point out that he U.S. official who believed that he
But in contrast to the superan- is weary after years of battling could mobilize Vietnamese peas-
nuated colonels who reconstruct. bureaucrats who oppose his un- ants to resist the Communists by
battles at the dinner table, Lans- conventional ideas, and Lansdale instilling them with the precepts
dale's experiences were of a high himself substantiates that view of Town Hall democracy.
.order. For he was in times past a with bitter humor when he says Although the old soldier has
dynamic, influential and often that "the knives going in don't faded away, the debate lingers
controversial figure who single- seem to hurt anymore." Yet, as he on. Just as Lederer and Burdick
rnments and managed foreign gov- behind- speaks, it is clear that he. still approvingly quote their hero as
s and
ernments nments whose d
hl helped to burns with a hard flame that is saying that "if you use the right
shepe U.S. policy and practice at nearly religious in fervor. His reli- key, you can maneuver any per-he exlains, is not formal. It critical junctures . in recent his- his faith that the United States son or nation any way you want,"
tory. is have successful! It ed so Lansdale's disciples still con-
In the Philippines during the could y p y tend that the United States could
early 1950s, for example, Lansdale world policeman by propagating have attained its objectives in Vi-
Virtually directed directed the camp its political philosophy. et:nam by developing psychologi-
aign
against the Communist-led Hu 5 At the core of Lansdale's doc- trine is the conviction that Corn- ocal than warfare those employed more by the
his capacity as special adviser munist guerrillas can be defeated Communists. This ploy viewed to Ramon Magsaysay, then that view, wth which
country's defense secretary. In in brushfire wars by "winning the became popular during the Ken-
Saigon not long after, he effec- hearts and minds" of people. In nedy Administration, is best artic-
tively kept South Vietnamese Vietnam, according to this thesis, ulated in the articles of Lansdale's
President Ngo Dinh Diem in of- the United States should have close friend, Robert Shaplen, the
fice by conspiring to crush his do- exported American democratic New Yorker correspondent in Sai-
mestic foes while . persuading principles along with guns, mon- gon, who has long asserted that
Washington to support him.. ey, machinery and food. "We the United States and its South Vi-
Later, as the Vietnam war esca- couldn't afford toy be just against etnamese proteges could have
the Communists," Lansdale has beat the Communists by
lated,Lansdale was instrumental in
convincing President Eisenhower written. We had to be for some- preempting the revolution. And
and Kennedy that the United thing'" just as Graham Greene indirectly
States and its Vietnamese clients Lansdale's proposals often pro- reproved Lansdale by declaring
could defeat the Vietcong by rely- voked the fury of Establishment that Vietnamese "don't want our
ing on counterinsurgency techni- strategists, some powerful white skins around telling them want," so his pre
ent goes. Some of these techniques, enough
He has also been del ded cl what critics claim that he never ac-
as disclosed in the secret Penta- as a dreamer whose perception of
f
on Papers, have revealed him to. reality was; at best, blurred. At Stanley Karnow is the formes
e c public irabiy less savory than the sme time, though, he in- Washington Post Asian' corre-
the public mage of him as an ide- spired a coterie of disciples who spondent and the author of Mao
alist.
regarded him as Hearty infallible. and China: From Revolution to
Little of the 6ff%PAleVW 2IQ81N2Lfi4r 4991R 002000> odor.
characterized Laristiate s career is _, ,,,,,
acvc,a. rcawa abv ... -_ v
apparentinhispresent rrianner.He brated novels that, whatever the Cpntil1UCd
 Approved For' (ease 2001/12/04: CIA-RPP84-00499 00200080001-6
tually understood Asians. Frances
FitzGerald, author of the current
bestseller on Vietnam, Fire in the
take, describes Lansdale as a man
Of "artless sincerity. . . . who
never thought in terms of systems
or larger social forces" at work in
contemporary Asia. He was, in
Miss FitzGerald's analysis, an en-
thusiast rather than a theorist
"who believed that Communism
in Asia would crumble before
men of goodwill with some con-
cern for 'the little guy' and the
proper counterinsurgency skills."
It is no coincidence that Lans- sands of Filipinos," he later
dale often sounds like a mission- wrote: "i cared about them as in-
ary. He began his professional life dividuals and they responded
as a San Francisco advertising with friendship. It was that natural
man determined to convert the and that simple."' -
local citizenry into buying such Out of that initial brush with
merchandise as.Nescafe and Ital- the Philippines, Lansdale slowly
ian Swiss Colony wine. Born and evolved what would eventually
raised in Detroit, where his father become his lifetime theme-the
had been an automobile company need for psychological warfare as .
executive, he had migrated to the the antidote to Communist revo
West Coast to attend the Univer- Iution. He studied Mao Tse-tung's
sity of California at Los Angeles, theories and, back in Washington
and there he remained. When in 1950, he lectured at the Penta-
World War II broke out, Lansdale non on unconventional methods
was commissioned as an officer in of waging war. Soon afterward,
the Office of Strategic Services
a
,
he was given the chance to put his
I spent a recent morning chat-
, g precursor of the Central Intelli- riraci (es into practice. He was
sing with Lansdale. We sipped gence Agency. But, oddly enough p p " coffee and chain-smoked in his in the light of his later career, a ordered to go back to the Philip-
study, a large room cluttered with was not sent overseas to handle pines as a member of the U.S.
books on Asian affairs, its walls the kind of daring jobs assigned Military Advisory Group detailed
adorned with photographs of him to OSS operatives. to help the Philippine govern-
in the Philippines, Vietnam and Instead, he sat out most of the ment to cope with its growing
other faraway places. one of the war in California performing be- that Huk i he e was imm. ersed in Lansdale remodel-
photographs
photographs featured Lansdale nign tasks like gathering- maps a immhe
n
and a Vietnamese who once held ing his Washington house when
a high rank in Saigon and now and coordinating intelligence. his orders arrived. He dropped
runs a restaurant in Paris, and it Only after the fighting had ended everything and departed, feeling,
occurred to me as }scanned the was he transferred to the Philip- . as he puts it now, that it was like
icture how many careers had pines, the archipelago that had "playing hooky to go to war."
been ruined by the war. But as once been America's proud Pa- Back in the Philippines, Lans-
d +k war talk- cific possession. There, in the dale was struck by the fact that
Lansdale discusse .
ing softly and modestly, his atti- years that followed, he would American and Philippine officials
hides eluded sharp definition. make his name almost a house- who briefed him on n theelxextent of {
Indeed, it seemed to me, his hold-word. the men-
views might fit almost anywhere Rather than return to the adver- tioned its political and social, un-
in the spectrum of opinion on tising business when peace came, der innings but focused almost
Vietnam. His denunciations of the Lansdale chose to join the newly- exc{usively on the military situa-
U.S. bombings of North Vietnam created U.S. Air Force as a cap- tion. Still using the imagery of an
would please radicals, and his tain. He also elected to stay in the advertising man two decades aft-
expressions of hatred for the Philippines as an intelligence offi- erward, Lansdale would remem-
Communists would delight con- cer. During that period, the erward, they were like sto re keep-
servatives. I had no quarrel with Communist-led Huk insurgency ers "countin the goods on
his forecast that "after a horrible was beginning, and Lansdale was sinstead of pondering ways
casualty list and destruction, we'll designated to report to the U.S. shelves h et the customers coming in
end up with the compromise so- government on rebel activities. agar
lution we could have had ten He traveled through the barrios of What the crisis required, in his
years ago." The compromise in central Luzon, were the Huks estimation, was a supersalesman.
Saigon, he predicted, would take were particularly strong, talking He found him in the Philippine
the form of a coalition govern- with peasants and trying to dis- dsRamon Mag-
ment whose Vietcong members suade them from suprortinp the defense efer saysay. secretary,
energetic, disorgan-
would eventually gain the upper insurgents. He also listened to ized iconoclast who spent more
hand and turn the country into a their problems, learning from the time charging around the country
Communist state. But as we dis- experience that bureaucratic cor- than at his desk, Magsaysay was a
cussed what-might-have-been, I ruption, rural tenancy and other character in need of an author.
doubted the plausibility of his be- social injustices provided fertile Lansdale was ready to write his
lief that the outcome could have ground for the Communists. This t.
been different. "We should have ingrained in hire the conviction, script.
constructed a political base for which he still holds, that Cornmu- Calling him by his nickname,
South Vietnam," he said,empha- nism must be fought mainly as a "Monching," Lansdale invited
se in-
sizing as he has consistently over political virus. Magsaside theysay to American share his mill h hou com-
the years, that "we could have His early years among the amia- ry -
helped the v s to + d le i ft w~him as well with pound. They would talk late into
something H -~I ?e 4 tt4a'tr' P81q*4QA99#@00WW08'06?l gsaysay airing
something that gave meaning to with people were primordial. "My his views in haphazard fashion spi1u~
thpirctru;Qle." work had taken me among thou- 0 O
 pry ,V_,9K ' owS~eo %?J f yoCC `P ~ Ii00499RQ1 dM6[A6funds. One,
that Lansdale coulftp s cM "Operation Brotherhood,
"sort them out" in order to select Lansdale denies it, some sources comprised -doctors and nurses.
or discard courses of action. Ac- claim that he also served as a fun- The other, known as Freedom
cording to Lansdale, they also net for U.S. money passed on to Company, was composed of Fili-
revealed their "innermost Magsaysay. Whatever the truth, pinos who had tought against the
thoughts" to each other in their his role in the election was impor- Huks and could counsel anti-
quest to bring "peace and justice tant. After Magsaysay's victory,the Communist Vietnamese in their
to the Philippine people." They Indian ambassador in Manila sug- struggle. The activities of Lans-
agreed on the necessity to reform gested that he change his name dale's team were kept secret until
the corrupt, lethargic Philippine to "Lanslide." Characteristically, their disclosure in the Pentagon
army, and they worked on plans Lansdale cherishes the inscription papers two years ago.
for social reform. Lansdale per- on a gift given him by Philippine Functioning under Conein's
suaded Magsaysay as well to cre- friends. It reads: "To .the sales- command, several members of
ate a psychological warfare divi- man e x t r a o r d i nary of the Mission were sent into North
sion innocuously named the Civil democracy." Vietnam before the Communist
Affairs Office, and he introduced takeover to handle an assortment
an assortment of gimmicks de- of undercover jobs. They spread
signed to discourage the Huks. rumors calculated to trigger re-
One psytivar operation played Following Magsaysay's installa- sentment against the Communists
on the superstitious dread in the tion in office, Lansdale's job in the and, among other things, they
Philippine countryside of the as- Philippines was done, and he was paralyzed transportation in Hanoi
uang, a mythical vampire. A psy- ready for a new assignment. No by contaminating the local bus
war. squad eniered an area, and less a figure than Secretary of. company's oil supply.
planted rumors that an asuang State John Foster Dulles told him According to informed sources,
lived on a hill where the Commu- personally that his job in Vietnam e
nists were based. Two nights lat- would be to assist the Vietnamese thencoura were ging t also housands instrumental in
l in
er, after giving the. rumors time to in "counterguerrilla training. en our grog h u flee from the
circulate among Huk sympathiz- But by the time Lansdale arrived North c
South Vietnam. One
ers, the psywar squad laid an in Saigon in the spring of 1954, former U.S. . official who has
ambush for the rebels. When a the situation had changed. The served in Vietnam has indignantly
Huk ppatrol passed, the ambush- Communist Vietminh had de- : described this operation as "im-
ers silently snatched the last man, feated the French, and the Geneva moral" because, he contends, it
punctured his neck, vampire- Conference was about to partition brought into the South nearly a
fashion with two holes, hung his the country. Lansdale conse- million Northern refu ees who
body until the blood drained out, quently inherited two somewhat g
different tasks--one covert and were to become the fiercest advo-
any on the other the other simply shady. The cov- Cates of the war that later ex-
trrai l. As put the corpse superstitious b as back
Filipinos, Filipinos, the insurgents fled from ert job was to head a team known ended. Lansdale, in contrast,
believes that the refugees were
With region. as the Saigon Military Mission, saved from Communism-and
th Lansdale's help, Magsay- which specialized in what secret saved
the operation was therefore
say also promoted land reform agents call "dirty tricks. The less thatifid.
programs that, although short- secret assignment was to advise In further violation of the Ge-
prompted appealed to peasants and Ngo Dinh Diem, who had just ar- nova further
regiment, the Lansdale
prompted many of them to deny rived in Saigon from retirement in team s mu weapons a into
support for the Huks. The Huks a New Jersey seminary, as chief of Vietnam for use b themselves, meanwhile, were the. wobbly South Vietnamese by paramilitary
government. groups, some of which were dele-
suffering from inept leadership. g ated to stay in the North to har-
They spit into factions and, be- American military activities in gated
the Communist rt ) to h
Vietnam were restricted under ry
trayed by one of their chiefs, al- the terms of the Geneva Agree- 1955, according to a classified
lowed part of their Politburo to be ment. Lansdale's Saigon Milita report among the Pentagon Pap
captured. By 1952, their move- Mission was therefore illegal an ers, Lansdale agents hid two and a meat had largely evaporated. A for that reason, clandestine. Lans- half tons of carbines, pistols,
year cater, Magsaysay was elected dale himself posed as Assistant. ammunition and radios along the
president of the Philippines- Red River in the northern region
again with Lansdale's assistance. Air Attache at the U.S. Embassy, of Tonkin for use by Hao uril-
Communicating with Washington
In the semi-fictitious account through the CiA. His staff in- las who were staged in the Philip-
by Lederer and Burdick, Lansdale pines and sent ashore from U.S:
alias Hillendale drove around the cluded Lucien Conein, a tough Navy vessels near Haiphong.
Philippine boondocks on a red former soldier in the French For-
. Many of the ships employed o to
motorcycle, playing his harmon- egn Legion who had parachuted Carry refugees south carried ille-
ica and exhorting the citizens to into Vietnam as an OSS operative gal weapons on their trips north.
vote for Magsaysay. In his own during World War II. He was also Reflecting on its operation after
'memoirs, Lansdale says only that assisted by the U.S. Information the Communists officially in-
he concentrated on writing a plan Agency director. And, in addition stalled their regime in Hanoi in
to safe uard th "'~ to of er military subordinates tth~e~ n dale team re-
d* 20-0 66 08UO -6s
g ,,tt84g F8 le '11 W4c; (AnRDR64 st9
elections and, fore the ball fib"
ing itself, advised civic groups on helped by two groups of Filipinos
continued.
 Approved For -ease 2001/12/04: CIA-RDP84-0049900200080001-6
ported that "it had taken a tre- Collins told me firmly that
inendous amount of hard work to I was out of order, that he
beat the Geneva deadline, to lo- was the personal represent-
caie, select, exfiltrate, train, infil- ative of the President of the
trate, equip the men ... and have United States, that as repre-
therrt in place, ready for action sentative he had set the
required against the enemy." It priorities, and that there was
would have been a hard task to no need whatsoever to dis-
complete openly, the report add- cuss them. Did I under-
ed, but "this had to be kept secret stand? I stood up and said,
from the Vietminh, the Interna- "Yes sir, I understand. I
tional Commission with its suspi- guess there's nobody here
cious French and Poles and indi- as personal representative of
a ns, and even friendly Vietnam- the people of the United
case." The fate of the guerrillas in- Stars. The American people
filtrated into the North has never would want us to discuss
been publicly disclosed. In all these priorities. So, I hereby
probability they were captured by appoint myself as their rep-
the Communists. resentative - and we're
In Saigon, meanwhile, Lansdale
undertook to prop up Ngo Dinh walking out on you.,. I
Diem, who was then under fire walked out of the meeting.
from diverse local sects, the In any other episode of this
Communists, remnant French kind, the junior* officer would
and some members of the Ameri- have been on the next airplane
can Mission. Diem was a strange, home to await reassignment to
ascetic bachelor who either irri-
tated or captivated people. Lans- He went to Collins' home while
dale,though he could manage him the ambassador was having his
as he had Magsaysay, and he postprandial siesta, pulled up a
started out on the lob the day chair next to the bed, and talked
I)iem arrived in Saigon. Observ- steadily about the vital problem of
ing that Diem had whizzed from saving Vietnam from the Commu-
the airport to his palace behind a. nists Significantly, Collins chided,
motorcycle escort, Lansdale im- him for describing Vietnam as "vi-
mediately sent him a memo point- tal," explaining that such other
ing out that he should have driven problems as the nuclear confron-
slowly or even walked in order to tation between the United States
"provide a focus for the affection and the Soviet Union were far
that the people so obviously had more important. Later discussions
been waiting to bestow on him." convinced Lansdale, as he puts it
Diem was impressed with the ad- .now, that.he and Collins lived in
vice and, even though they had to "two wholly separate worlds."
speak through an interpreter, Looking back, it may be that Col-
l..ansdale recollects that "our as- fins' view was more realistic. For
sociation gradually developed Lansdale could have been suffer-
into a friendship of considerable ing from what Gen. George C.
being ousted by Gen. Nguyen
Van Hinh, the flamboyant chief of
the Vietnamese armed forces. For
motives that are still fuzzy, Hinh
had disclosed to Lansdale the
exact date of his planned move to
overthrow Diem. Acting quickly,
Lansdale arranged for Hinh's staff
to be invited to'Manila on what
was depicted in advance as a gay
tour of the Philippine capital's
notorious nightclubs. Lansdale
kept the would-be dissidents in
Manila for a week, thereby de-
priving Hinh of his principal adju-
tants for the coup. Hinh has since
become a senior officer, in the
French military establishment,
and Lansdale still wonders
whether his project to topple
Diem was serious.
Until the fall of 1955, Diem was
theoretically prime minister to the
dissolute Emperor Bao Dai. But
on October 6, Diem announced a
referendum to choose between
himself and Bao Dai as chief of
state. Ever the psywar expert,
Lansdale advised Diem to take out
some "subliminal insurance" by
having the ballots colored in ways
that would influence the vote.
Diem's ballots were printed in
cheerful red, the color Asians in-
tetpret to mean good luck, while
Bao- Dai's ballots were a bilious
shade of green, which signifies a
cuckold to Vietnamese. The color
insurance was reinforced by a
substantial amount of military
muscle, and Diem ended up with
98 per cent of the votes. Lahs-
dale's assignment was finished, as
it had been with Magsaysay's
election, and he returned to a
desk job in Washington.
c.leppth, trust and candor." Lans- Marshall once diagnosed as "lo- The Pentagon job, which con-
dale was soon spending nearly all calitis."
his time in the palace, counseling The ma or threat to Diem at that sisted of supervising
on the smallest details. l tion of intelligence for for the the e De De-
time came from assorted factions fense Department, was only a
Lansdale's intimacy with Diem seeking to grab his power. These
"Light- . sideline for Lansdale. His real in-
troubled Gen. J. Lawton factions included rostittion and terest was still counterinsurgency,
Wing Joe" Collins who had ar- which controlled prostitution
rived in Saigon as U.S. ambassa- narcotics in Saigon, and religious and, like an evangelist, he wan-
rived
in November 1954. Collins groups like the Cao Dai and the dered around Washington trying
made it clear from the beginning Hoa Hao. Each had a private army. Few listened. the brass to his views.
that he would be the boss. But Collins advised Diem to compro- days of massive "Those e were the
and the
Lansdale made it equally clear mise, but Lansdale urged him to cl a menace," Lansdale m retaliation
re-
that he considered Collins unin- fight. Lansdale's counsel won out. calls, nuclear
"and here I was .talking
formed, and theyimmediately col- Diem fought and defeated his about a ided at the first meeting of the foes-and the covert Saigon Mill-
about nickel and dime stuff."
American mission. As Lansdale tary Mission commanded by I.ans- But toward the close of the late
~.,,... ke nt tho J_ Li.. _st-- ? senhower administration, in late
4..~i, th
e
Meeting to offer a"c suplLvbf Earlier 'iI '1a6s`d le''Miss o--- - ~ "rva~w w
oinmendations, whereupon Col- had cleverly saved Diem from nam on a temporary mission that
.ins rut him short. Lansdale writes: ,,,,?; m? (3Ct
 would afterward 9' ill`jRcfrtR9 &9QFr'N%a 'PN&0499 OgW@80?@~Ament pre-
the United States. Now a briga- Lansdale recommended that the vented him from accepting an in-
dier general, he was assigned to U.S. team be staffed with "a hard ' vitation to study the Israeli army's
sum up the Vietnam situation at core of experienced Americans counterinsurgency program, and
the end of Ike's tenure. Anyone who know and really like Asians, he was barred from inspecting
else would have produced a rou-? dedicated people who are willing French efforts in Algeria. He was
tine report. Lansdale, however, to risk their lives for the ideals of. Permitted to go to Latin America,
displayed his characteristic ear- freedom, and who Will try to in- but 'only on condition that he
nestness. He toured the Vietnam- fluence and guide the Vietnamese spend no more than five days in
ese 'countryside by helicopter, toward U.S. policy objectives with any one country: When I asked him
paying surprise visits to remote the warm friendship and affection why the President did not overrule.
areas, and he spent a good deal of which our close alliance de- these limitations, Lansdale replied:
time catching up on political de- serves." In other words, as David sourly: "Kennedy went along
velapments in Saigon. He was Halberstam would later note, with the bureaucrats."
alarmed by what he saw. Lansdale was recommending But Latin America did offer him
Diem, who had just survived an Lansdale. some scope, however narrow.
abortive coup d'etat staged by The.Lansdale report somehow Lansdale repeatedly visited there,
some of his best officers, was reached Wait Rostow, one of usually as the guest of local gov-
almost completely isolated from Kennedy's aides, and he urged ernments, to consult on insur-
his people. Distrustful. of nearly the President to read it. Kennedy gency problems. In Bolivia, for
everyone, especially since the reluctantly complied. When he example, he taught the army to
attempted coup against him, he had finished, he said to Rostow: build schools in villages and
had grown increasingly reliant for "Walt, this is going to be the transport fresh water to rural
advice on his brother Nhu, an worst one yet." . areas in order to win "hearts and
egotistical psuedo-intellectual. Soon afterward, a call from the minds." His reputation appar-
Diem was hardly on speaking White House awakened Lansdale ently spread, for he was dining
terms with the U.S. -ambassador, on a Sunday morning. it was a one evening in an officers' club in
Elbridge Durbrow, and Durbrow* hasty summons to a special Caracas when four Venezuelan
barely spoke to the chief of the breakfast session with the Presi- student terrorists tossed a gren-
U.S. military advisory group, Gen. dent. Lansdale rushed over, and, ade into the building. Lansdale
"Hanging Sam" Williams, who as he entered the room, Kennedy was unharmed, but his pride was
had earned his nickname as welcomed him, pointing to Secre- wounded not long afterward
commandant of the Nuremberg tary of State Dean Rusk and say- when, traveling elsewhere in
jail in which the Nazi war crimi- ing: "Has the Secretary here Latin America, he received word
nals were executed. mentioned that I wanted you to that he was about to be retired
Returning to Washington two be ambassador to Vietnam?" . from the Air Force. The "bureau-
days before President Kennedy's Lansdale's astonishment at the crats" finally got him, he says:
inauguration in January 1961, moment was later compounded "They figured I was having too
Lansdale delivered a long and by the fact that he never heard an- . much fun."
gloomy report on Vietnam. De- other word on the matter. Some
spite his friendship for Diem,he sources say that his appointment
candidly criticized the Vietnam-
ese leader, arguing prophetically
that his Saigon government
would tumble unless its base
could be "broadened" to include
anti-Communist nationalists.
Lansdale also derided the U.S.
mission in Saigon, contending
among other things that its civil-
ian diplomats were unequipped
to deal with the problem, and that
its military men, concentrated in
the .capital, knew little about the
countryside. Under this setup,
he warned, the growing Vietcong
force could not be stopped.
His prescription was typically
Lansdale. Other U.S. officials, like
Maxwell Taylor, would propose
was blocked by Rusk, others by
the Pentagon. But he was asked to
produce another report for
Maxwell Taylor, Kennedy's mili-
tary adviser. In it he reiterated in
detail proposals for a larger coun-
terinsurgency force not only- for
Vietnam but for Thailand and Laos
as well. He also recommended
that greater use be made of his
CIA-financed Philippine cohorts
and of Civil Air Transport, a Tai-
wan-based commercial airline
owned by the CIA, whose aircraft
were used for covert operations.
Lansdale's ideas impressed
Kennedy, who rapidly began
sponsoring the Green Berets and
other Special Forces units to cope
with revolutionary 'warfare. But
Lansdale scarcely profited from
the new fad. On the contrary, he
was shunted aside by the many
Approved For Relea~r~~rt~?~i r(~_~~c99~e~a to strengthen
s
As one of his friends recalls,
Lansdale was "the most miserable
man in town" following his retire-
ment in late 1963. The best he
could do was work for Food
for Peace, where he lobbied to
have surplus U.S. grain sent
abroad distributed selectively to
foreign political parties, trade
unions and other groups sympa-
thetic to American policy. He was
still waging psywar, even from a
distance. He remembers sitting
up late one night with Sen.
George McGovern, who had
headed food for Peace under the
Kennedy administration, arguing
that U.S. wheat ought to be de-
ployed strategically. "We're too
concerned with men's bellies and
not enough with their minds," he
told McGovern. "We're do-
gooders in giving away food, but
even is r a
cant irlupd
 Approved For
lig0iC11$~iQ,QC~I'~~i4gL namese, he
our political principles." accidentally last spring at the fu- claims, and he might have in time
finally, after two sedentary neral of a mutual friend: assisted them to reconstruct their
years, Lansdale was offered a country's political structure. He
fresh chance to perform in Asia. blames the U.S. juggernaut for
President Johnson had appointed "stifling Vietnamese initiative" by
Henry Cabot Lodge to a new tour Back in Saigon in the mid- taking over the management of
=s ambassador in Saigon.Advised 19, Lansdale tried to serve as a the war. He also attributes his
by a former CIA man on his staff, channel to the Vietnamese politi- own lack of accomplishment to
Vice President Humphrey urged cal and military figures who were the American diplomatic and mili-
Lodge to take Lansdale along. hesitant to speak frankly to U.S. tary bureaucracy that pervaded
1 here was also some suggestion officials. By design, he turned his Saigon and the South Vietnamese
at the time that the late Senator villa into a sort of clubroom that hinterlands. His prime enemy in
Tom Dodd, who blamed Lodge would attract casual visits by Viet- the bureaucracy, Lansdale says,
for the assassination of Diem, namese, and to a certain extent was Philip Habib, then Lodge's
threatened to block his confirma- he was successful. A frequent deputy and now American ambas-
tion by the Senate Foreign Rela- guest was Nguyen Cao Ky, then sador to South Korea. Habib, who
tions Committee unless Lansdale prime minister. Another was Gen. sought to keep the U.S. link to
could join the team. Thus Lans- Nguyen Duc Thang, who headed the Vietnamese government,
the Vietnamese pacification pro- effectively undermined Lans-
U usts, ram and who, on one occasion, dale's role as a channel. "He was
assistant and, and, Lodge's
he from all accoounts, consulted Lansdale on his marital- against everything I was for, and
tie was overjoyed. problems. But if these and other for everything was a ainst,"
ut in the middle of 1%5, as the
huge U.S. military machine was Vietnamese officials genuinely Lansdale now recalls bitterly.
beginning to roll into Vietnam, admired Lansdale, they also per- Since his departure from Viet-
t.ansdale and the band of coun- ceived that he had been overtaken nam four years ago, Lansdale has
terinsurgent specialists he had by events. The war had gone be- mostly rusticated. He occasionally
recruited somehow seemed an- yond the guerrilla stage, and was lectures and writes articles, and
achronistic. One former U.S. offi- now a confrontation between two he recently published an auto-
i.:ial who attended a Washington large organizations, one Cornmu- biography. He also sends letters
meeting with them recollects that nisi and the other American. The to newspapers that show that he
they looked like the Lavender "dedicated people who know and can still be provocative. Ina letter
I fill mob, sent over from Central like Asians," as Lansdale had por- to The Washington Post in May
Casting." Moreover, the official trayed his ideal aides,were out of 1971, for example, he repeated
recalls, they were involved in fashion. The Vietnamese knew his lifelong thesis that the United
contriving somewhat "silly" this all too well."Mr. Lansdale is a States had a responsibility to aid
schemes, such as revising Viet- wonderful man," one Saigon offi- the South Vietnamese in an elec-
namese folk songs to contain se- ciai told me in 1966, "but when tion they were then preparingg.
caret messages or devising meth- our ministry needs money we see The Post responded with an edi-
ods by which peasants could alert your AID people." tonal sarcastically calling his
friendly troops to the presence of So the Lansdale group was re- "faith in the efficacy and wisdom
Vietcong in their villages. One duced to playing a minor role. of American manipulation of
notion was to have peasants hang Among its projects, for example, South Vietnamese politics ... in-
their laundry in a certain way to was a proposal to have the South teresting, not to say touching".
signal the enemy presence. Vietnamese government issue a The exchange, as it turned out,
the Lansdale group, about a postage stamp displaying the flags was academic, since Thieu after-
dozen men, comprised the kind of the different nations contribut- ward ran as the only candidate
of "dedicated" Americans he had ing to the war effort. Its members and, of course, won all the votes.
urged Kennedy to enlist. It in- also deliberated on whether the Yet Lansdale stubbornly refuses
eluded Lucien Conein, who had Saigon regime could decently to abandon his original concept
commanded the saboteurs in refer to the "fatherland," a term for Vietnam. It could have all
North Vietnam in 1954, and Hank frequently employed by the been different, he insists, had the
MM/3iller, a veteran propagandist for -Communists. Lansdale himself United States at the outset of its
the U.S. cause in Asia. And was credited with having per- involvement avoided a big
among its other members was suaded the South Vietnamese buildup and instead focused on
Daniel Ellsberg, the studious leaders to refer to their objective constructing a viable political
young man woo would afterward as a "social revolution" 'in order foundation for the South Viet-
Purloin the Pentagon Papers. to counter the Communists. And, namese while helping them to
Lllsberg was then a counterin- of course, there were the folk infuse a meaning into their strug-
surgency buff, and although Lans- songs that, it was believed, would gle. The newspaper headlines are
dale deplores his later theft of sway the peasants into supporting proclaimin another kind of out-
secet documents, he now re- th Saigon government. One of come to the conflict, however.
members him with affection for Lansdale's ma or Vietnamese re- And Ed Lansdale is far from Viet-
his "brash candor" and his "facil- cruits was a celebrated guitarist. nam as, walking his dog along the
ity for absorbir Mak M1 ' : RUt-V49 t~1 ~1 ~~a treet, he con-
is reluctant to about Lans a e ietnam our, Lans a e now e- a usade.
these days but he concedes that lieves that he could have helped
!.-nifiranfly_ He was constantly in
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