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Boot, Max, 1968-
Subjects
Lansdale, Edward Geary, 1908-1987.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- Officials and employees -- Biography.
United States. Army -- Biography.
Intelligence officers -- United States -- Biography.
Generals -- United States -- Biography.
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- United States.
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Boot, Max, 1968-
by title:
The road not taken :...
by call number:
959.7043 L295b
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Boot, Max, 1968-
Lansdale, Edward Geary, 1908-1987.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- Officials and employees -- Biography.
United States. Army -- Biography.
Intelligence officers -- United States -- Biography.
Generals -- United States -- Biography.
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- United States.
MARC Display
The road not taken : Edward Lansdale and the American tragedy in Vietnam / Max Boot.
by
Boot, Max, 1968-
Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton, 2018.
Call #:
959
.7043
L295b
Subjects
Lansdale, Edward Geary, 1908-1987.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- Officials and employees -- Biography.
United States. Army -- Biography.
Intelligence officers -- United States -- Biography.
Generals -- United States -- Biography.
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- United States.
ISBN:
9780871409416 (hc.)
Edition:
First edition.
Description:
l, 715 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.
Bibliography:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 611-675) and index.
Contents:
Prologue: The day of the dead: Saigon, November 1-2, 1963 -- Introduction: The misunderstood man -- Ad man (1908-1945) -- Colonel Landslide (1945-1954) -- National builder (1954-1956) -- Washington warrior (1957-1963) -- Bastard child (1964-1968) -- The beaten man (1968-1987) -- Afterword: Landalism in the twenty-first century.
Summary:
"The legendary Edward Lansdale (1908-1987), a covert operative so roguish that he was said to be the model for Graham Greene's The Quiet American, remains one of the most fascinating yet deeply misunderstood figures of post-1945 American foreign policy. Skeptics have belittled him as a con man ignorant of Asian realities, but a few have hailed him as a prophetic military genius whose yin-yang strategy of hunting down guerrillas while employing a 'hearts and minds' approach to win local support provided a lasting template for U.S. foreign policy. The author fundamentally recasts both our vision of Lansdale and America's entire involvement in Vietnam. Max Boot positions Lansdale against the American twentieth century and evocatively charts Lansdale's itinerant upbringing and his transition from unorthodox California ad man to army and OSS officer. Leaving behind his wife and two young sons, Lansdale was sent to Manila in 1945. While becoming embroiled in a passionate love affair with the woman who would become his longtime mistress and later wife, he charted a way for the Filipinos to defend themselves against Communist insurgents by promoting Ramon Magsaysay, a charismatic figure who went from being a lowly congressman to the country's greatest president. Lansdale's singular success convinced the Eisenhower administration to send him to South Vietnam after the ignominious French rout at Dien Bien Phu. Assigned the impossible task of protecting the South from Communist encroachment, Lansdale was initially successful, cultivating the friendship of Ngo Dinh Diem, South Vietnam's new president. Then, increasingly sidelined by elitist generals and blue-blood diplomats, Lansdale watched helplessly as Diem was murdered in an American-supported coup just before Kennedy's own assassination. By 1965, the "hearts and minds" approach to counterinsurgency that Lansdale had so passionately advocated was no longer viable as the United States began a massive Vietnamese buildup. Never a team player, Lansdale became marginalized, watching the humiliating 1975 evacuation of Saigon at a painful remove and dying eleven years later, regarded as a "dirty tricks" specialist of a bygone era. Bringing a tragic complexity to this so-called Ugly American, [this] biography suggests that Vietnam, a conflict whose bitter legacy still haunts American foreign policy, might have been different if only Lansdale's advice had been heeded. Military historian Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations"--Provided by publisher.
Genre:
Biographies.
Holds:
0
Copy/Holding information
Location
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Call No.
Item type
Status
J. D. Shatford Memorial Public Library
Adult Biography
959.7043 L295b
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