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

by Max Boot

himself.9 But, recognizing his own limitations, Lansdale told his friend Rufus Phillips that he had no desire to deal with all of the ceremonial and managerial tasks of being an ambassador. With his aversion to pomp and protocol, Lansdale was later to say, “I didn’t want to be an ambassador. Jesus. . . . That’s one of the world’s worst jobs.”10 According to Phillips, Lansdale preferred that the appointment go to one of his State Department friends—Kenneth Young, who had handled Southeast Asia issues during the Eisenhower administration—in the expectation that he could work as closely with Young as he had with other ambassadors such as Raymond Spruance and Donald Heath.11 That Lansdale did not have the ambassadorship in mind for himself was clear from his recommendation, within his trip report, that “a mature American, with much the same qualifications as those given above for the selection of the next Ambassador, should be assigned to Vietnam for political operations which will start creating a Vietnamese-style foundation for more democratic government without weakening the strong leadership required to bring about the defeat of the Communists.” Rather than the “Ugly American” or the “Quiet American,” the sobriquets bestowed on him by others, Lansdale saw himself as this “mature American”: an influential, behind-the-scenes political operator assisted by a small, handpicked team of loyalists—in other words, the role he had previously played in the Philippines and South Viet...