In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia

In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia
Edward G. Lansdale | 1991-01-01 00:00:00 | Fordham University Press | 385 | 20th Century
Edward Geary Lansdale truly became a legend in his own time. His mission to the Philippines in the early 1950s resulted in the defeat of the communist-led Hukbalahap movement and the subsequent election of Ramon Magsaysay, arguably the most popular president that the people of the Philippines have known. In 1954, Lansdale was sent to Vietnam where he hoped to repeat the program of counterinsurgency that was so successful in the Philippines. His ideas of land redistribution, grassroots village democracy, and elimination of corruption in the South Vietnamese government and army were gradually superseded by massive air and ground operations. When Lansdale returned to the United States for duty in Washington, he never ceased to promote the advancement of deomocratic ideology as the key tool to "win the hearts and minds of the people of Asia." This book is history as Edward Lansdale saw it.

Lansdale became romanticized in The Quiet American by Graham Greene, The Ugly American by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, and Le Mal Jaune by Jean Larteguy. His biographer, Cecil Currey (Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American), considers Lansdale an all-too-human figure who was a maverick military thinker and a skeptic about conventional U.S. policy in Asia.
Reviews
Lansdale's book is one of those forgotten treasures for those studying insurgent warfare strategy. General Lansdale had an enormous fund of experience, contacts, and cultural knowledge of the Phillipines and his memoir about his role in defeating the Huk insurgency in 1950 tells us a lot about all the RIGHT things to do. Small footprint, work with and cultivate local leaders, disingage the population from the insurgents...all of this takes enormous personal communication skill and rapport along with the common sense of a beat cop. If anything, you'll learn that not everyone in the military is cut out for fighting insurgent warfare. After his success in in the Phillipines he was sent to Vietnam while the French were getting ready to pull out in 1954-1955. He details what the French had done wrong and how some of the French officers "got it" but unfortunately didn't have the support of superiors...something important to remember. Landsdale outlines the situation so that you can tell without his saying so, just when the point of no return for the French had been reached. This is not only a great book about insurgent warfare strategy but just a great read as well. No long drawn out tales of "there I was facing 50 insurgents armed with just my pocket knife" just a recitation of real events as he experienced them, including the not so exciting but essential grunt work insurgent warfare calls for. If you can find a copy...get it.
Reviews
This book is one of the best I have read so far. The first half of the book was about Lansdale in Philippine as an advisor to Phillipine's president at the time. I have been researching a lot into the period that the second half of this particular book covered. The author (Lansdale) had been very honest when he wrote this book, a must read for anyone with questions about what happpened in Vietnam in the time period from 1954 to 1960. I finally read something that had something positive about President Ngo Dinh Diem. This book tell the truth about Ngo Dinh Diem from someone who know him best because Lansdale had acted as Diem's political advisor and best friend. The book is a first hand account (sort of like a memoir) of someone who were actually there, and witnessed every ordeal that had happened. A fine book if you wanted to read something truthful. You don't have to believe me, so I will stop now so you can go ahead and read this wonderful book. By the way, have fun reading :) :) Gwynevere

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