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

A biography of Edward Lansdale, the CIA operative. Boot chronicles his rise and fall as a proponent of a visionary "hearts and minds" diplomacy in Vietnam who was ultimately overruled by the American military bureaucracy, which favored bombs and troop build-ups over winning the people's trust. "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. Examining these interpretations but also providing a veritable trove of new facts unearthed from previously classified documents, hidden letters, and interviews, [this book] 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.