Edward Lansdale

Edward Geary Lansdale (February 6, 1908 – February 23, 1987) was a United States Air Force officer until retiring in 1963 as a major general before continuing his work with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lansdale was a pioneer in clandestine operations and psychological warfare. In the early 1950s, Lansdale played a significant role in suppressing the Hukbalahap rebellion in the Philippines. In 1954, he moved to Saigon and started the Saigon Military Mission, a covert intelligence operation that was created to sow dissension in North Vietnam. Lansdale believed the United States could win guerrilla wars by studying the enemy's psychology, an approach that notionally won the approval of the presidential administrations of both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson but largely would not be implemented due to bureaucratic opposition.

Early life Lansdale was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 6, 1908, and later raised in Los Angeles. He was the second of four sons of Sarah Frances (née Philips; 1881–1954) and Henry Lansdale (1883–1959). Lansdale attended school in Michigan, New York, and California before attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he earned his way largely by writing for newspapers and magazines. Lansdale struggled in learning foreign languages while at UCLA and told a biographer he retained almost nothing except Spanish curse words and French phrases he had memorized in kindergarten. Lansdale's difficulty in meeting the foreign language requirement for his degree and his lack of an obvious career path prompted him to drop out of UCLA several credits short of graduation. He later moved on to better-paying work in advertising in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Lansdale pursued a career in advertising. He worked for Silverwood's, a men's clothing retail firm. In his counter-insurgency efforts later on, he would apply principles and concepts that he had learned while he worked in the advertising industry.

Career

Philippines Lansdale entered the U.S. Army in 1941 and served with both the Military Intelligence Service and Office of Strategic Services during World War II, ultimately being promoted to major. He extended his tour to remain in the Philippines until 1948, helping the Philippine Army rebuild its intelligence services and resolve the cases of large numbers of prisoners of war. With most of Lansdale's prior United States Army intelligence officer experience being with US Army Air Forces units, he transferred to the US Air Force and was commissioned as a captain when it was established as an independent service in 1947. After leaving the Philippines in 1948, he served as an instructor at the Strategic Intelligence School at Lowry Air Force Base, Colorado, where he received a temporary promotion to lieutenant colonel in 1949.

In 1950, President Elpidio Quirino personally requested that Lansdale be transferred to the Joint US Military Assistance Group, Philippines, to assist the intelligence services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in combating the Hukbalahap rebellion. Lansdale was an early practitioner of psychological warfare. Adopting a tactic previously used in the Philippines by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, Lansdale spread rumors that aswangs, blood-sucking demons in Philippine folklore, were loose in the jungle. His men then captured an enemy soldier and drained the blood from his body, leaving the corpse where it could be seen and making the Hukbalahap flee the region. Lansdale also arranged for US military support to Philippine efforts in defeating the Kamlon rebellion in Sulu.

Lansdale became friends with Ramon Magsaysay, then the secretary of national defense, and with his help, Magsaysay eventually became President of the Philippines on December 30, 1953. Lansdale is said to have run Magsaysay's campaign for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the 1953 Philippine general election. Lansdale helped the Philippine Armed Forces develop psychological operations, civic actions, and the rehabilitation of Hukbalahap prisoners.

Vietnam 1950s Lansdale with CIA Director Allen Dulles and United States Air Force Chief of Staff General Nathan F. Twining and CIA Deputy Director Lieutenant General Charles P. Cabell at the Pentagon in 1955.

After the end of the left-wing Huk insurgency in the Philippines and after building support for Magsaysay's presidency, CIA director Allen Dulles instructed Lansdale to "do what you did in the Philippines [in Vietnam]. Lansdale had previously been a member of General John W. O'Daniel's mission to Indochina in 1953, acting as an advisor to French forces on special counter-guerrilla operations against the Viet Minh. From 1954 to 1957, he was stationed in Saigon as the head of the Saigon Military Mission.

Many of Lansdale's private papers and effects were destroyed in a fire at his McLean home in 1972. In 1981, Lansdale donated most of his remaining papers to Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

JFK film In Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK, the "General Y" shown as organizing the assassination of President Kennedy was unmistakably Lansdale. Historian Max Boot was highly critical of the General Y story:

Personal life Lansdale died of a heart ailment in his sleep on February 23, 1987. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was twice married and had two sons from his first marriage.

Works Books

Correspondence Memo to Wesley R. Fishel (Sep. 6, 1955). Memo to Wesley R. Fishel (Dec. 19, 1954). Letter to Wesley R. Fishel (May 1, 1961).