Edward Lansdale

Template:TOC-right Edward Lansdale was a United States Air Force major general who was principally assigned to intelligence agencies; the Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War, military intelligence immediately after the war, and then to the Central Intelligence Agency.

He is best known as the key advisor to Ramon Magsaysay, initially secretary of defense and then president of the Phillipines, where the Hukbalahap insurgency was successfully ended. His there made him the model for the thinly veiled "Colonel Hillandale" character in the book, The Ugly American. The title of that book has become much misused, as the title character was a sympathetic character.

In addition, however, he was very significantly involved in U.S. policy in the Vietnam War between 1954 and 1961.

Second World War

Entering the OSS as a civilian, he became as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1943, serving in various military intelligence assignments throughout the war. In 1945, as a major, he became chief of the Intelligence Division of Headquarters Air Forces Western Pacific (AFWESPAC).

Phillipines

He extended his tour to remain in the Philippines at AFWESPAC, and later PHILRYCOM, until 1948. During this period, he helped the Philippine Army rebuild its intelligence services, was responsible for the disposition of unresolved cases of large numbers of prisoners of war involving many nationalities, conducted numerous studies to assist the U.S. and Philippines Governments in learning the effects of World War II on the Philippines, and later served as public information officer for PHILRYCOM.

He was commissioned a Captain in the regular U.S. Air Force in 1947, with the temporary rank of major. After leaving the Philippines in 1948, he served as an instructor at the Strategic Intelligence School, Lowry Air Force Base, Colorado, where he received a temporary promotion to Lieutenant Colonel in 1949.

Ramon Magsaysay had been named Phillipine Secretary of Defense, by President Elpidio Quirino, and at the urging of MG Leland Hobbs, Chief of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group to the Philippines (JUSMAG) Magsaysay accepted only with assurances he would be given a "free hand", and rapidly began to overhaul the Filipino military, making himself visible in the field and rooting out corruption.

Lansdale, in 1950, was transferred, at Quirino's request, to JUSMAG, as intelligence advisor. He met Magsaysay and the two became close friends, visiting the combat areas together and planning counterinsurgency. He was given a temporary promotion to Colonel in 1951.

Magsaysay had taken an exceptionally open approach, wearing ordinary clothes and often driving his car. For security, Lansdale convinced him to move into Lansdale's residence within the guarded JUSMAG compound; there were several assassination attempts against Magsaysay. In July 1951, JUSMAG enlarged and became the executive agent for American military assistance to the Philippines under the general guidance of the ambassador, not the United States Pacific Command or Douglas MacArthur. Policy changes in 1953 allowed American advisors, besides Lansdale and his assistant, to go onto combat missions with the Filipinos; Lansdale remained a key planner of the counterinsurgency.

Magsaysay became President, using the military both for fighting the Huk guerillas and for rural development.

Vietnam

In 1954, Lansdale was in the original CIA team to Vietnam, the Saigon Military Mission. While he did not unreservedly approve of President Ngo Dinh Diem, he did advise Diem.

While influential at first, and seen originally as the key counterinsurgency expert in the country, he gradually lost his role and was essentially out of the decision loop soon into the Kennedy Administration Kennedy himself liked Landsdale and suggested him as Ambassador to South Vietnam. To that, the State Department was so opposed that Secretary of State Dean Rusk told Kennedy that he would resign if Lansdale were appointed.

Kennedy then suggested Lansdale command Military Assistance Advisory Group Vietnam, which would have required jumping him from his brigadier general to lieutenant general rank. The Joint Chiefs of Staff objected intensely, considering him an intelligence operator, not a regular military officer

In February 1961, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, presumably with the support of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, named him as head of a new Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, with responsibility for Department of Defense covert action and work with the CIA. Going into 1962, Lansdale headed that office, but the Joint Chiefs responded by creating the Special Assistant (to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) for Counterinsurgency and Special Affairs (SACSA). SACSA was the Washington control for MACV-SOG, the military covert action organization in Vietnam.

Lansdale, in the fall of 1962, had visited Maxwell Taylor, then Ambassador to South Vietnam, and offended Taylor by directly visiting President Diem. Taylor, who returned to the Pentagon and became Chairman of the JCS, removed Lansdale from Vietnam operations and reassigned him to Cuban operations.

Latin America

While Lansdale was selected by Robert Kennedy as a key player in Operation MONGOOSE, the CIA plan to kill Fidel Castro. SACSA Brute Krulak said that the Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone, lost confidence in Lansdale, and Lansdale was ordered into retirement in May 1963, taking effect in October.