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

by Max Boot

Journalists were among his best sources of information. Shortly after arriving, he had an all-night session with the veteran reporters John M. Mecklin of Time-Life and Henry R. “Hank” Lieberman of the New York Times. The three of them, all friends from the Philippines, wound up going to Lieberman’s “favorite eating joint where he could get hot dogs (on French bread) and milk shakes.” “While eating,” Lansdale wrote, “he told me (and everyone else in the joint) what I should do to win the war.”26 Such friendly conversations allowed Lansdale to pick up behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt while also shaping media coverage. A small group of American correspondents, including not only Mecklin and Lieberman but also the husband-and-wife team of Tillman and Peggy Durdin of the New York Times, Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune, and Robert “Pepper” Martin of U.S. News & World Report, Lansdale wrote, “joined together and offered to help me out as part of the team, and we used to plan together to get the truth of things out in the world.”