Edward Lansdale

Born February 6, 1908
Dayton, Ohio
Died February 23, 1987
McLean, Virginia

U.S. intelligence agent in Vietnam

"[Lansdale was] one of the greatest spies in history. [His] accomplishments were the stuff of legends."

Former CIA Director William Colby.

Edward Lansdale was a secret agent for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who played an important role in South Vietnam during its first years of existence. During the 1950s he organized secret missions to hurt North Vietnam and strengthen South Vietnam's government. His efforts were so effective that he became known to some people as the "Father of South Vietnam." But as time passed, Lansdale's experiences in Vietnam turned sour. In 1963 he saw President Ngo Dinh Diem's (see entry) government fall in a military coup, and in later years his advice on conducting the war was ignored by American political leaders and generals.

Early life and education

Edward Geary Lansdale was born in Dayton, Ohio, on February 6, 1908. His parents were Henry and Sarah Frances (Philips) Lansdale. According to biographer Cecil Currey, "Lansdale grew up as a typical American boy of his time. He was a Boy Scout, had a paper route, worked on a bread route, fought and played with his brothers, sold the Saturday Evening Post on street corners . . . and made a B average in school."

After graduating from high school in 1926, Lansdale enrolled in the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1931 he left UCLA with a bachelor's degree and a second lieutenant of infantry ranking in the U.S. military reserves. During the remainder of the decade, Lansdale worked in the advertising industry and started a family with Helen Batcheller. They married in 1933 and eventually had two children (Batcheller died in 1972, and Lansdale married Patrocinio Yapcinco a year later).

When the United States became involved in World War II in 1941, Lansdale immediately applied to return to active military service. But when action on his application was delayed, he began to look for other ways to serve his country during the war. In 1942 he used political and military contacts to gain acceptance into the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an agency whose responsibilities included intelligence-gathering and secret spy missions against America's enemies. In 1947 this agency became the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In February 1943 Lansdale's request for a return to active service was finally granted. The Army made him a first lieutenant and assigned him to its Military Intelligence Service for "limited service." But as the war progressed, Lansdale spent most of his time working for the OSS. He transferred to the U.S. Air Force in 1947, after it became an independent branch of the U.S. armed forces, but he remained closely associated with the CIA.

Gains reputation as top American spy in Philippines

In 1950 Lansdale used his cover as an Air Force officer to undertake a CIA mission in the Philippines, where guerrillas known as Hukbalalhaps, or "Huks," wanted to overthrow the regime and institute a Communist government. But the United States fiercely opposed the Communist political philosophy. As a result, Lansdale was assigned to help defense minister Ramon Magsaysay and the Philippine government fend off the rebels and build a democratic government.

During the next few years, Lansdale launched a spectacularly successful campaign against the Huks. He worked with Magsaysay to introduce broad economic, social, and political reforms that helped the government "win the hearts and minds of the people." In addition, Lansdale employed psychological warfare techniques (actions designed to attack the mind or emotions of the enemy) that caused confusion and morale problems within the ranks of the Huks. At one point, the CIA agent even staged a series of fake vampire attacks that deeply frightened the superstitious Huks. By 1952 Lansdale's actions had helped neutralize the Huks and enabled Magsaysay to emerge as a strong and respected national leader of a blossoming democracy (Magsaysay's rule was cut short five years later when he died in a plane crash).

The CIA was so impressed with Lansdale's work in the Philippines that it decided to transfer him to South Vietnam, where another struggle against Communist rebels was just getting under way. South Vietnam had been created only a few months before by the Geneva Peace Accords, which ended French colonial rule in Vietnam. Under this treaty, Vietnam was temporarily divided into Communist-led North Vietnam and U.S.-supported South Vietnam. In addition, the agreement called for national elections to be held in 1956 so that the two sections of Vietnam could be united under one government. But South Vietnamese and American officials decided to ignore this part of the treaty because they feared that the Communists would be victorious and gain control over the entire country. This decision triggered hostilities between the two sides, which ultimately grew into the Vietnam War.

Lansdale's mission in Vietnam

Lansdale arrived in Vietnam in June 1954. Once he arrived in the capital city of Saigon, he immediately set up the Saigon Military Mission (SMM). This secret group of a dozen or so American soldiers and intelligence agents specialized in psychological warfare. Over the next several months, Lansdale and the other members of the SMM worked hard to give South Vietnam military, economic, and social advantages over North Vietnam.

One of Lansdale's key goals was to convince Vietnamese living in the North to relocate to the South. In order to accomplish this, he launched secret campaigns to frighten Northerners into leaving for the South. For example, Lansdale's agents spread rumors and counterfeit documents suggesting that North Vietnam's Communist leadership wanted to put many Vietnamese Catholics into huge prison camps. The SMM also recruited village chiefs and religious leaders to create what Stanley Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History, called "fake forecasts of doom under Communism." Finally, they distributed false information about a possible U.S. atomic bomb attack on North Vietnam.

An estimated one million Vietnamese—mostly Catholic—fled the North for the South during the mid-1950s. Many historians credit Lansdale's secret tactics as a key reason for this mass exodus. But he insisted that most people would have moved south anyway. "People just don't pull up their roots and transplant themselves because of slogans," Lansdale said in Vietnam: A History. "They honestly feared what might happen to them, and the emotion was strong enough to overcome their attachment to their land, their homes, and their ancestral graves. So the initiative was very much theirs—and we mainly made the transportation possible."

Lansdale also helped South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem strengthen his power. He trained Diem's forces in psychological warfare techniques, contributed to military strategy, and bribed local leaders to support the government. Diem respected and appreciated Lansdale for these efforts, and the two men soon became allies. As one member of the Saigon Military Mission told Cecil B. Currey in Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, "Diem trusted Lansdale about as much as he trusted any foreigner." This warm relationship with Diem reflected the agent's unusual ability to get along with Vietnamese people from every walk of life, from military officers to peasants.

As the months passed, however, Lansdale became angry about the widespread corruption, repression, and political fighting within Diem's government. The CIA agent warned Diem that if the government did not introduce reforms to correct these problems, it would lose the support of the South Vietnamese people. He expressed particular concern about Diem's habit of arresting political opponents. He told Diem that such actions "will only turn the talk into deep emotions of hatred and generate the formation of more clandestine [secret] organizations and plots to oppose you." But Diem made little effort to correct his regime's growing political and military problems. Lansdale also detailed his concerns about Diem's repressive ways to U.S. officials in Washington, but his complaints had no impact on American policies. His frustration finally became so great that he requested a new assignment in 1956.

Lansdale returns to Vietnam

From 1957 to 1963, Lansdale worked for the U.S. Defense Department as deputy director of the Office of Special Operations, a department devoted to spying and other intelligence activities. In 1961, however, President John F. Kennedy(see entry) sent Lansdale back to South Vietnam. The president shared Lansdale's belief that Diem needed to make reforms in order to win the loyalty of his nation's people. In addition, he was impressed with Lansdale's arguments that the best way to defeat the Communist threat in Vietnam was through the use of "counterinsurgency" techniques such as guerrilla-style warfare and pacification (the provision of aid and security to Vietnamese communities).

Upon returning to Saigon, Lansdale recommended increases in U.S. assistance to Diem. In January 1961, for example, he reported that "Vietnam is in a critical condition . . . requiring emergency treatment." But his efforts to breathe new life into Diem's fading regime failed. The president was murdered in a military coup in November 1963, and South Vietnam was wracked by political instability over the next several years.

Lansdale left South Vietnam after Diem's assassination, but he returned in 1965 as a special assistant to the U.S. ambassador. During that time, he repeatedly stated his beliefs that the United States could not win the Vietnam War without the support of the people or a military strategy that emphasized guerrilla warfare. But other U.S. officials ignored or criticized his recommendations, and he was unable to regain a position of real influence in Saigon. "He became an isolated and forlorn figure in his Saigon villa," wrote Glen Gendzel in The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, "and returned to the United States in 1968."

After submitting his resignation in 1968, Lansdale retired from public life. He settled in Virginia, where he died of heart disease in 1987. Today, he remains known as an important but shadowy figure in South Vietnam's early history, and as one of America's best-known intelligence agents. Lansdale was "one of the greatest spies in history," claimed former CIA Director William Colby. "[His] accomplishments were the stuff of legends."

Sources

Currey, Cecil B. Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.

Farrell, Barry. "The Ellsberg Mask." Harper's, October 1973.

Geyer, Georgie Anne. "Lansdale's Lament." Washington Monthly, June 1989.

Lansdale, Edward G. In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.

Lansdale, Edward G. "Two Steps to Get Us out of Vietnam." Look, March 4, 1969.

Fictional Treatments of Edward Lansdale

Two well-known novels of the 1950s featured major characters that were based at least in part on the life and career of Edward Lansdale. In 1955 British writer Graham Greene published The Quiet American, in which a Lansdale-like CIA agent named Alden Pyle resorts to ruthless and immoral actions to complete his mission against Communist forces in Vietnam. "In this . . . portrait," wrote Cecil Currey in Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, "[Pyle] blundered through the intrigue, treachery, and confusion of Vietnamese politics, leaving a trail of blood and suffering behind him." Today, Greene's book remains one of the most influential Vietnam War novels ever written.

A few years later a second book featuring a Lansdale-like character appeared. This book, The Ugly American, was written by Eugene Burdick, a professor of political science, and William Lederer, a former submarine captain who knew Lansdale in the Philippines. It featured the character of Colonel Edwin Barnum Hillandale, a brave American officer dedicated to keeping the Philippines out of the hands of Communist enemies. The Ugly American sold five million copies and spent more than a year on the best-seller lists.

The popularity of The Ugly American dramatically increased Lansdale's public visibility and gave him a reputation as one of the country's leading experts on guerrilla warfare, spying techniques, and Asian societies. But he resented the extra attention, especially after reporters started referring to him as "the Ugly American" in their stories. "[Lansdale] was well into his retirement before he ceased to care whether others identified him with Pyle or Hillandale," wrote Currey.