The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

by Max Boot

Bill Harvey concluded that, based on what the CIA now knew, it would be feasible to incite a revolt by late 1963, a year behind Lansdale’s original schedule, “provided the Cubans could be assured . . . their revolt would be supported by U.S. intervention.”80 But there was still no sign that the Kennedy administration would make such a commitment. In planning for Phase II of Operation Mongoose, the Special Group (Augmented) ruled out options that “would commit us to deliberate military intervention,” while acknowledging that absent such intervention “we perceive no likelihood of an overthrow of the government by internal means.” “For the time being,” Maxwell Taylor wrote, “we favor a somewhat more aggressive program than the one carried out in Phase I, wherein we continue to press for intelligence, attempt to hurt the local regime as much as possible on the economic front and work further to discredit the regime locally and abroad.” “Higher authority,” meaning President Kennedy, approved these guidelines on August 20, 1962.81 As Mongoose failed to achieve a breakthrough, tempers flared and relations frayed among everyone involved. Bill Harvey was drinking more and becoming steadily more obstreperous. At meetings, Harvey would “lift his ass and fart and pare his nails with a sheath knife.” During one gathering at the Pentagon, he “took his gun from his pocket, emptied all the ammunition on the table, and began playing with the bullets in an elaborate show of boredom.” Harvey...