The controversy over Lansdale’s relations with the sect leaders was not dissimilar to that involving T. E. Lawrence, a figure to whom Lansdale was now being compared. (The French had taken to calling him “Lawrence of Asia,” which in their minds was hardly a compliment, given how Lawrence had schemed to stymie their colonial designs in the Middle East.) Lawrence had been accused of buying the loyalty of Arab tribal leaders, but a British officer who worked alongside him said, “Lawrence could certainly not have done what he did without the gold, but no one else could have done it with ten times
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