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

by Max Boot

In truth, Greene always denied that he modeled Pyle on Lansdale. “Pyle was a younger, more innocent, and more idealistic member of the CIA,” he wrote. “I would never have chosen Colonel Lansdale, as he then was, to represent the danger of innocence.”54 The novelist claimed that his inspiration was Leo Hochstetter, a young American economic aid official with whom he had shared a room one night while visiting Colonel Jean Leroy, the Catholic warlord. According to Greene, Hochstetter, who was assumed by the French “to belong to the CIA,” lectured him on the “long drive back to Saigon on the necessity of finding a ‘third force in Vietnam.’ ”55 Greene’s denials are buttressed by the fact that, while he worked on The Quiet