The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam Paperback – April 2, 2019

I have been a student of Edward Lansdale's career since the 1970s. My copy of his memoir, In the Midst of Wars, was not returned by a general I lent it to when I was assigned to the Small Wars Operations Research Directorate at US Southern Command in 1986. I have read Rufus Phillips book which addresses much of Lansdale's career in Vietnam and recently finished Cecil Curry's biography of Lansdale. I have applied Lansdale's precepts in my own writing on small wars and counterinsurgency as well as in my role as a practitioner.I have also read Max Boot's other work on small wars and prior to this I was mostly underwhelmed. I thought his The Savage Wars of Peace was derivative and pedestrian while his Invisible Armies was merely good popular history. So, when I picked up The Road Not Taken I hoped for something better but expected a book that would, at best, be merely OK. I was so wrong! Mr. Boot has outdone himself! He has written a truly appropriate tribute to a real American hero, one of my personal heroes, that is more than mere biography. It is the history of an era and of the role of a singular American soldier/spy in Southeast Asia. Ed Lansdale, nearly single handedly (as far as the American role was concerned) saved the Philippines from dictatorship and the chaos of civil war for a good chunk of its early independent history in the 1950s. In Vietnam, his role with a very small team was to build a state that very nearly achieved long term independence form the West and from North Vietnam. That it did not survive was not due to Lansdale's failure but rather the larger failure of American leadership.All of this, Mr Boot brings out in clear and sharp prose that is compelling reading. He captures Lansdale the man, in all his complexity, with all his strengths, weaknesses, successes, and failures. His descriptions capture the times and places and the style of this unique officer. Lansdale rarely carried a weapon but always carried a harmonica. Boot shows how Lansdale's success was built on a real empathy for the individuals and the culture of the countries he operated in. He was the epitome of the Foreign Area Officer that one of his proteges, LTG Sam Wilson, would strive to institutionalize at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, NC. (This is one of the few legacies of Lansdale that Boot misses - that Ed Lansdale is The Godfather of the Foreign Area Officer Program.)The Road Not Taken is a book for anyone interested in America's role in the Cold War, in the development of the CIA, in counterinsurgency, in the Philippines, and in the war in Vietnam. It is tantalizing in terms of what might have been. Nevertheless, Boot is careful not to suggest that the Lansdale alternatives would have proven successful. I share his skepticism of "what if history." And I am very happy he eschews it. The result is a book that suggests how policymakers and implementers are likely to have greater success in future small wars. Boot brilliantly distills this in the brief Afterward: Lansdalism for the Twenty-first Century where he posits three lessons. they are: Learn, Like, and Listen.Well done Mr. Boot!

I waited a bit to write this review because I felt I did not know enough about the Vietnam related topics outside of Lansdale's immediate reach that Boot covers in this work. I have little or no background on the Philippines in the post-WW2 era, but did not feel as if I had to do additional readings. I will take what Boot wrote on faith as his analysis of this period is both credible and thorough. But Vietnam is a much more complex situation. So I have read several books by South Vietnamese veterans and the North Vietnamese official history of the Vietnam conflict. I have only one major problem with this book - it minimizes the Vietnamese contribution to the forces that shaped events during the late 1950s and early 1960s.Perhaps the fact that the narrative is focused on an American, but most of the Vietnamese - with perhaps the exception of Diem who does come across somewhat as an eccentric who is most effective when he listens to Lansdale - appear as bit players or supporting actors. Hence the four star rating. I don't mind Boot's excursion into "what might have been" as he is entitled to a bit of "What if." For my part, I can take that type of conjecture or leave it. If I disagree, I wont give the author a one star rating as some reviewers are compelled to do.Why not subtract more than one star? In my opinion, Boot's research is impressive and his writing flows. There are not very many authors who can accomplish that.I learned a lot, questioned a lot, and decided to read more books on the topic as a result of purchasing "The Road Not Taken." By almost any standard of measurement, that makes this book an effective account of events as seen (perhaps subjectively) through the prism of one individual's experiences.

When the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Edward Lansdale was a 38-year-old advertising executive in San Francisco with a wife and two young children with no background or education in national security or defense policy. Amazingly, within twenty years he would emerge as the country’s leading expert on counter-insurgency. Author Max Boot tells this improbable tale with expert skill and with an eye toward the long view.Lansdale’s incredible story begins with his induction into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the beginning of World War II. His experience during the war was rather mundane (he compiled intelligence reports from a desk in San Francisco); it was the post-war opportunity to live and work in the Philippines that changed his life, and arguably the course of history. Lansdale immediately fell in love with the land, its people – and a young widow named Pat Kelly. According to Boot, Lansdale would, over the course of several years, establish himself as perhaps the preeminent expert in the entire US government on the Philippines. He did so by ingratiating himself with everyone, from the president to the farmer in the field. The linchpin of Lansdale’s success was empathy with the people. It would form the cornerstone of his counter-insurgency philosophy.Lansdale finagled his way back to the Philippines in late 1950, this time attached to a unit of the newly created Central Intelligence Agency. He would serve as advisor and consigliere to Ramon Magsaysay, the new minister of defense. The two would form a brotherhood in fighting the Communist Huk rebellion and create the model for effective counter-insurgency operations. “Magsaysay did pretty much everything that Lansdale wanted,” Boot writes, “not because he was a paid American agent but because he had such faith in his friend’s acumen.” Boot gushes that the defeat of the Huks represented “one of the CIA’s biggest covert-action successes ever.” Moreover, “it was achieved largely by one man’s deft manipulation of local politics rather than through costly American spending or heavy-handed American military action.”The hero of the Philippines was then dispatched to untangle an even more complicated situation: South Vietnam. Boot views Lansdale’s “two and half turbulent and tumultuous years” as head of the Saigon Military Mission as a nearly unqualified success. “Lansdale had labored indefatigably and, on the whole, successfully to construct a stable government against dramatic odds,” he writes. Few expected Ngo Dinh Diem to last two months let alone over two years. In 1956, South Vietnam “stood out as an improbably success story – a ray of sunshine amid diplomatic troubles around the globe.” Lansdale had seemingly done the impossible yet again: build a viable South Vietnamese state as an anti-communist bulwark in South East Asia.Lansdale became something of a celebrity in the process. The novel “The Ugly American” came out in the fall of 1958. The main character was clearly based, at least in part, on Lansdale, further cementing his reputation as the new Lawrence of Arabia. It also helped get him assigned to lead Operation Mongoose, the Kennedy administration’s slapstick effort to oust Fidel Castro. It would be the low point of his career. Lansdale himself noted sourly that he was treated as if he “were a modern-day Pied Piper capable of magically making governments rise and fall with a few catchy notes from his harmonica.” His fame and notoriety would increasingly alienate him from the bureaucrats at the State Department, CIA, and the military until he was retired from active duty on October 31, 1963 – just weeks before Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown and executed.Lansdale refused to go quietly into the sunset. He importuned the administration with his ideas on how best to deal with the war in South Vietnam, always emphasizing meaningful political reforms while reducing direct military action to a minimum. He found an advocate in vice president Hubert Humphrey and was eventually sent back to Saigon in 1965 with returning ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge tasked with leading all pacification efforts. It was a dream job that would quickly turn into a nightmare.Lansdale in Saigon was a man with a lofty title but no budget or authority. It reminded me of my time in Afghanistan when I worked for the Reconstruction Headquarters at Regional Command – South in Kandahar. With no money and precious little manpower resources there was little reason for anyone to listen to us. The same was true for Lansdale, who was increasingly marginalized and chided for not achieving any miracles in his role. In fairness, like Afghanistan in 2010, South Vietnam in 1965 was a basket case. “A regime that could not pick up the garbage in Saigon,” Boot writes, “was not likely to defeat an entrenched insurgency in the countryside.”Lansdale spent three years in Saigon in his second tour, which ended shortly after the Tet Offensive in 1968. With the notable exception of the constituent assembly election in 1966, Boot says that Lansdale’s mission was a total failure, although not entirely of his fault. He failed to persuade Westmoreland and other decisionmakers toward his view of counterinsurgency. “We mostly sought to destroy enemy forces,” Lansdale later noted. “The enemy sought to gain control of the people.” Boot concedes that it is impossible to know if Lansdale’s more benign approach would have worked, but concludes “His approach, successful of not, would have been more humane and less costly.”“The Road Not Taken” is a monument to Edward Lansdale. Boot notes that many people in the national security establishment, some of them quite powerful, such as defense secretary Robert McNamara, held low opinions of him, but he never really explores those critical points of view. We never hear from those who desperately wanted to sideline Lansdale, such as when he was considered for ambassador to South Vietnam in 1963, and why they held such strong positions. The book suffers because of it, I think. Overall, however, “The Road Not Taken” is a striking biography of a fascinating man. It is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the Vietnam War or counterinsurgency more broadly.

Well written book. Edward Lansdale was a visionary beyond his times; had the US Government even listened to half of what he had to day about a counter-insurgency, Vier Nam would have turned far differently. For anyone interested in COIN, this is a must read.

A long time fan of Max Boot, I couldn't wait to read his first biography. The subject, the legendary Edward Lansdale. And short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize !A former advertising man, Lansdale helped the American war effort as part of the Office of Strategic Services while officially being an officer in the U.S. Army and later the U.S. Air Force. As part of the newly created Central Intelligence Agency, he made his mark by helping Philippine war hero Raymond Magsaysay become President of that country in the early 1950's, becoming his confident and right hand man. He played an important role in defeating the Huk Communist insurgency, which led him to be considered by US authorities as a specialist in what was later to be called counter-insurgency operations. As a result, he was asked to aid the French in their struggle against the Communist Vietnamese.Lansdale was a supporter President Diem,, and worked hard to convince the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations to continue their aid to what he considered the best solution to defeating a Communist take over of Vietnam.Interestingly, whether in the Philippines or Vietnam, the CIA operative always had to go through interpreters. Although married to an American woman (Helen), he found a lover in the Philippines, and she often translated for him, while in Vietnam he also depended on others ….not really an ideal situation . Boot's use of his love letters with his Filipina, Pat, borders on voyeurism at times, and gets to be a bit annoying.Being heavily immersed in Asia. he found himself very isolated from what was happening in Washington DC, and as a result made more enemies than friends with the people in power. He was too much of an independent operator in a world where team players and yes men get ahead.Boot's very readable account takes us through his frustrations in trying to convince the US government that to wina war against a nationalist enemy, even a communist one, you have to win over the proverbial hearts and minds of people.After being forced out of government service, his life in retirement was also not very satisfying.Typical of Boot's books, at times he likes to throw in a word that might make the reader run to the dictionary, but itwas a fast read. Coming from a specialist in military affairs, on the other hand, it was really weird to see that a L-5 observation plane was a "turboprop", and that Claire Chennault's CAT airline used a "DC 9" aircraft to fly material from the south of Vietnam up into the north before the division of the country in the mid-fifties. Just not true….poor proofreading ? Perhaps. A good book, yes, but I don't think I would have given it a Pulitzer !

Well written, mixing up personal facts with the larger geo-political picture of the moment, it paints a picture of the man and his ideas as they were and as they are still relevant today. Should be required reading for senior military and diplomatic personnel.Right there with T.E. Lawrence and Amedeo Guillet, Edward Lansdale's Memory deserved to be reported in a book as good as this.

Never knew this mans story. Everyone should read it.

Very well told