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

by Max Boot

To Hanging Sam Williams, Lansdale wrote, “So, with a phew of relief and a considerable lift of spirits, I’m looking forward to retirement.”39 But Sam Wilson saw that, beneath his cheerful exterior, Lansdale was “upset” and “depressed” because “he felt he’d been treated unfairly for no reason.” The final indignity occurred at Lansdale’s retirement party in the Pentagon. It was held on October 31, 1963, in a meeting room connecting the suites of the secretary of defense and the deputy secretary. While various colleagues were delivering flowery toasts and speeches in honor of Lansdale, Robert McNamara walked in. And he kept on walking, striding purposefully forward, one polished wingtip after another, never looking at what was going on through his rimless spectacles, much less stopping to join in the tributes to a man who had left behind a successful advertising career to devote the last twenty-one years of his life to his country’s service.