THE origins of Edward Lansdale’s next assignment could be found in the calamitous events of April 17, 1961. In the early morning hours, an armada of six cargo ships appeared off the southern coast of Cuba. They had been chartered by the CIA and filled with fourteen hundred Cuban exiles trained and armed by the CIA. (The trainers had included one of Lansdale’s old friends, the former Philippine army officer Napoleon Valeriano.) The mission of Brigade 2506 was nothing less than to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro, the strongman who had seized power on January 1, 1959, and had steadily moved
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