The relentlessly upbeat Lansdale tried to put the best gloss on what had happened to him. He wrote to Pat Kelly in Manila, There was a lot of inside wrestling that went on, some of it emotional as could be, so part of my feeling is a big lift of spirit in dumping this load. I was trying to get in to help affairs in Vietnam before they got too bad, but was shoved hard to one side—completely out of being able to help as Diem made some clumsy moves and then Washington made some clumsy moves. Much the same thing was happening with a lot of other affairs. So, I said heck, if I’m not going to be
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