Edward Lansdale in 1963

Edward Geary Lansdale (February 6, 1908–February 23, 1987) was a US Air Force officer who served in the Office of Strategic Services and the Central Intelligence Agency. He rose to the rank of Major General, was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1963, and retired in 1968. Lansdale was born in Detroit, Michigan, died in McLean, Virginia, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Download high resolution version (530x689, 85 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (530x689, 85 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... February 6 is the 37th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1908 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... February 23 is the 54th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... US,Us or us may stand for the United States of America us, the oblique case form of the English language pronoun we. ... An air force is a military organization that primarily operates in air-based war. ... The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime (but not direct) precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is one of the American foreign intelligence agencies, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Insignia of a United States Air Force Major General German Generalmajor Insignia Major General is a military rank used in many countries. ... 1963 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... This article refers to the largest city of Michigan. ... State nickname: Wolverine State or Great Lakes State Other U.S. States Capital Lansing Largest city Detroit Governor Jennifer Granholm Official languages English Area 250,941 km² (11th)  - Land 147,255 km²  - Water 103,687 km² (41. ... McLean is a common surname and may refer to: Edward Beale McLean, former publisher of the Washington Post 1916-1933. ... State nickname: Old Dominion Other U.S. States Capital Richmond Largest city Virginia Beach Governor Mark R. Warner Official languages English Area 110,862 km² (35th)  - Land 102,642 km²  - Water 8,220 km² (7. ... Arlington Cemetery Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia, is an American military cemetery established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Robert E. Lees home. ...

After working to suppress Communist insurgency in the Philippines during the early 1950s, where he worked closely and even lived with future Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay, Lansdale took on his best-known role as a shaper of US strategy in Vietnam during the buildup to the Vietnam War. He was sent to Vietnam in 1953 as an advisor to French forces against the Viet Minh, and from 1954 to 1957 was stationed in Saigon as an advisor to the US-backed government of South Vietnam. During this period he was active in training the ARVN, organizing Caodaist militias under Trinh Minh The in an attempt to bolster the ARVN, and spreading claims that North Vietnamese agents were making attacks in South Vietnam. After the widely discredited re-election of Ngo Dinh Diem in 1955, Lansdale is said to have advised Diem to revise the 98.2 percent victory he claimed down to 70 percent to make it more plausible, advice which Diem did not take. Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /w/skins-1. ... An insurgency is an armed rebellion by any irregular armed force that rises up against an established authority, government, administration or occupation. ... Millennia: 1st millennium - 2nd millennium - 3rd millennium // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the... The Vietnam War was fought from 1957 to 1975 between Soviet and Chinese-supported Vietnamese nationalist and Communist forces and an array of Western and pro-Western forces, most notably the United States. ... 1953 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... The Viet Minh (abbreviated from Việt Nam ộc Lập ồng Minh Hội, League for the Independence of Vietnam) was formed by Ho Ngoc Lam and Nguyen Hai Than in 1941 to seek independence for Vietnam from France. ... 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1957 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese: Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh) is the largest city in Vietnam and, as Saigon (Vietnamese: Sài Gòn), was the capital of South Vietnam from 1954 to 1976. ... Official language Vietnamese Capital Saigon Last President Duong Van Minh Last Prime Minister Vu Van Mau Area  - Total  - % water 173,809km² N/A Population  - Total  - Density 19,370,000 (1973 est. ... The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was a military component of the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam (commonly known as South Vietnam). ... Cao Dai Temple Cao Dai (Cao Đài) meaning high place is a religion founded in 1926 in Tay Ninh, southern Vietnam, by Ngo Van Chieu and other first disciples of Cao Dai Supreme God, who claimed to have received direct communications from God, ordering them to combine various religions, some... Trinh Minh The (1922 - May 3, 1955) was a Vietnamese nationalist and military leader during the end of the First Indochina War and the beginning of the Vietnam War. ... The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Dân Chủ Cá»™ng Hòa), also known as North Vietnam, was founded by Ho Chi Minh and was recognized by China and the USSR in 1950. ... Ngô Đình Diệm Ngô Đình Diệm (approximately pronounced Ngoh Din Yim   listen?) (January 3, 1901–November 2, 1963) was the first President of the Republic of Vietnam (1955-63). ... 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

He also mentored and trained Pham Xuan An, a reporter for Time magazine who was actually a highly-placed North Vietnamese spy.

From 1957 to 1963 Lansdale worked for the Department of Defense in Washington, serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Operations, Staff Member of the President's Committee on Military Assistance, and Assistant Secretary of Defence for Special Operations. During the early 1960s he was chiefly involved in clandestine efforts to topple the government of Cuba, including proposals to assassinate Fidel Castro. According to Daniel Ellsberg, who was at one time a subordinate to Lansdale, Lansdale claimed that he was fired by President Kennedy's Defense Secretary Robert McNamara after he declined Kennedy's offer to play a role in overthrow of the Diem regime. Three weeks later, on November 22, 1963, Lansdale was photographed (from behind) in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, shortly after Kennedy was assassinated there. From 1965 to 1968 he returned to Vietnam to work in the US Embassy. 1957 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1963 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The United States Department of Defense, abbreviated DoD or DOD and sometimes called the Defense Department, is a civilian Cabinet organization of the United States government. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the... The 1960s, or The Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... Fidel Castro Fidel Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926), has led Cuba since 1959, when, leading the 26th of July Movement, he overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, and transformed Cuba into the first Communist-led state in the Western Hemisphere. ... 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ...

Lansdale's memoir, published in 1972, was In the Midst of Wars. His biography, The Unquiet American, was written by Cecil Currey and published in 1988; the title refers to the common belief that the eponymous character in Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American was based on Lansdale. Recent interest in Lansdale was sparked, in part, by Oliver Stone alleging in his 1991 film JFK that Lansdale was the operational head of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. This theory was inspired by questions raised about Lansdale's presence in Dealey Plaza by a former employee of Lansdale, L. Fletcher Prouty, who first recognized Lansdale in a photograph taken that day by a Dallas Morning News photographer immediately after the assassination, which allegedly shows Lansdale, from behind, walking past "the three tramps" in Dealey Plaza. That the photograph actually shows Lansdale has been corroborated by one of Lansdale's colleagues in the Pentagon, Lt. General Victor H. "Brute" Krulak. Daniel Ellsberg, who consulted Oliver Stone on JFK, worked under Lansdale in Vietnam and is also of Pentagon Papers fame, claims to have told Stone not to include this part of the script, believing Lansdale to be innocent of the conspiracy theory alleged by Stone. A memoir, as a literary genre, forms a sub-class of autobiography. ... 1972 was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ... 1988 is a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Graham Greene (October 2, 1904 – April 3, 1991) was a prolific English novelist. ... The Quiet American is a novel written by Graham Greene in 1955. ... Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946 in New York City) is an Academy Award-winning American film director. ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... JFK is a 1991 film which purports to tell the history of the President of the United States John F. Kennedys assassination. ... Order: 35th President Vice President: Lyndon B. Johnson Term of office: January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963 Preceded by: Dwight D. Eisenhower Succeeded by: Lyndon B. Johnson Date of birth: May 29, 1917 Place of birth: Brookline, Massachusetts Date of death: November 22, 1963 Place of death: Dallas, Texas First... L. Fletcher Prouty (January 24, 1917 - June 5, 2001) was a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force, author, banker, and critic of US foreign policy, especially as regarded the activities of the CIA. His books include The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the... JFK is a 1991 film which purports to tell the history of the President of the United States John F. Kennedys assassination. ... The Pentagon Papers are a 7,000-page, top-secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1971. ...

External links

• Official Air Force Biography