Yellow Fever, a novel by the French journalist Jean Larteguy, came out in 1965. Its characters included an American colonel named Lionel Terryman, clearly based on Lansdale (terre means “land” in French), who is advising a Diem-like president named Dinh-Tu. Larteguy wrote of Terryman, “He could get hold of the most bigoted old scoundrel, the most inexperienced novice and, out of a gang leader, make a president of the republic; out of an odious and tyrannical old fogey, an all-powerful dictator.”
