## Page 1

176-10030-10085

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JFK Assassination System

Date:

515/2016

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AGENCY:

RECORD NUMBER :

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176-10030-10085

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS

Document Information

ORIGINATOR:

FROM:

TO :

TITLE:

CITIZEN

ORAL HISTORY WITH EDWARD LANSDALE BY DENNIS O'BRIEN

DATE: 07/11/1970

PAGES:

123

SUBJECTS:

BAY OF PIGS

DOCUMENT TYPE:

TRANSCRIPT

CLASSIFICATION: Not Marked

RESTRICTIONS: Open in Full

CURRENT STATUS :

Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW:

06/05/1998

OPENING CRITERIA:

COMMENTS:

Pages 3-21 and 28-34 talk about the Bay of Pigs. Pages 96 and 98 have been sanitized.

---

## Page 2

SANITiLED IR.99.411%00

Oral History Interview

EDWARD

5a2n

with

Lansdad

July 11, 1970

Alexandria, Virginia

By Dennis J. O'Brien

For the John F. Kennedy Library

O'BRIEN:

I think a logical place to begin in anything

like this is just simply with the question;

when did you first meet President Kennedy,

or Senator Kennedy, if you met him before

he was

President?

LANSDALE: I don't recall meeting him before he was

I talieves

Presidento. The first meeting, was I-belteve

the first Saturday following the inauguration,

whatever date that was. I was called into a

meeting in the white House by (Robert S.

McNamara. It was a meeting, on actually, on

a report that I had written for (Dwight D.

Eisenhower® It was sort of an I'm not sure.

---

## Page 3

-2-

ase

that It was, NSC (National Security Council)

meeting but it was comparable to that with

the personnel that were attending. There were

several Secretaries: Defense, State, and his -

National Security people were there.

Could

0 'Brien:

"with McNamara and ERoswell Leg

Guil', wembers of the incoming administra-

tion, before they actually assumed office?

LANSDALE: Just before, that is, a day or so before. I'd

been in Vietnam for a brief visit and got back

just before the inaugural, maybe two or three

days, and at that time both McNamara and

Gilpatric were in Defense getting briefed for

their new jobs. I met them at that time.

The outgoing Deputy Secretary of Defense asked

me to start working with Gilpatric, and so I

got

Gilpatric rather than McNamarao

[James H.

O' BRIEN:

This is, Douglas.

LANSDALE: Douglas, Jim Douglaso (James H. Douglas

O' BRIEN:

How is Douglas to work with, while you're with

him?. Is he a pretty sympathetic person?

LANSDALE:

Yes, very much so, very much soo He was the

one, actually, who wrote the orders and back-

---

## Page 4

OY BRIEN:

• LANSDALE:

-3-

stopped my visit to Vietnam, and back-

stopped it principally so that I could take

a 100k at some of the political factors as

well as economic, military, and psychologicall

and everything else. This, frankly, took a

consi.:

.. wanding on his part

¿hat because my views weren't always

copular in other parts of the governmento

I gathered that there was some opposition to

my going out, and he insisted on it..

I'd like to come back to that. I wonder if

we could go on to talk about one of the major

problems, which is Cuba. When is the first

time that you hear about the Bay of Pigs

invasion,

not the Bay of Pigs, but the plansto

1600

Sometime in the fall of sixty I think that

I heard of it about the first time that it

was brought up to the inter policy group of

the Eisenhower administration. I was the

Deputy, Ássistant to the Sécretary of Defense,

at the time, for Special Operations and used

to accompany the Deputy Secretary, who was a

member of the inter policy group, to most of

---

## Page 5

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

the meetings that ti:

wüd. When Allen Dulles

(AlIen W. Dulles

st raised the notion to

the senate grou

I was present at the meeting

as an Assist::.

What is the hinking about it at that time?

What kind of operation is

basically a guerjala operation at this point?

Inton, it was. Initially, it was very differ.

ent than the way it turned out. It was based

on a premise that many people in Cuba were very

Fide

unhappy with the Castro administration and the

way it was turning away from the initial

revolutionary objectives and the capture of the

revolutionary movement by the Communist Party,

which surprised many of the supporters of

Castro as a guerilla and as & revolutionary

action. Sof the thought was to back a number

of, Cubans who either had been supporters of

Castro or were very unhappy, were still resident

in Cuba, and to cause some overturn at the time.

The change of plan towards the Bay of Pigs

гланатти

hing evolved fairly, ragtlely and apparentl

tor

there was a planning group and CIA (Central

antist.

?

---

## Page 6

-5-

Intelligence Agency) who were working on this

initial plan who started thinking in military

invasion

terms. I suspect that they were

doing that because some of the Cuban military.

and mizitary typesi, that is, very militant,

-

k:

.-

were coming. out of

cuba as reiugees, and they suddenly saw a

windfall of man power and started thinking in

other terms of use of them. But? this change

was, the changed plan towards the Bay of Pigs

the way it was golig.,

thing, was well under way in the inner circle.

and

thinking of CIA by December of '60, very defi-

nitely so.

O' BRIEN:

Who were some of the inner circle people at

do you recall?

this point, pier satanger, of engen

OBRIEN: I

LANSDALE:

Let's seed win, on golly.d

LANSDÄgne Richard MoJ Bessell was!

Dick Bissell

Richard-M. Bisselly

was the overall chief of

the group.

O 'BRIEN:

Tracy Barnes, was he in it at that time?

•but

LANSDALE: Iracy was an assistant to him, ^ How far

detailed

or anything.. O

Iracy, went in the aotual planning, I have my

doubts that he was.

O'BRIEN:

How about Broe, William Brue

---

## Page 7

-6-

LANSDALE: He was one of a planning group who were

tie.

planning the operation, but he wasn't, a chief,

and I can't recall the guy's name offhand.

O 'BRIEN:

Oh well, maybe when you get the transcript back;

NSALE: Maybe SOn OBRIEN:

you can.

How about from some of the other

it these, ine. in " in days?

places

ü C.) Mann, I

LANSDALE:

ies; but initially it was all CIA. They

borrowed some military personnel to help with

carly ons

the planning, eartien, but they were people

who had been attached to CIA for temporary

duty on other matters, and they hadn't come

in initially for this specific planning. In

December, when the planning had obviously

started coming in with a beach landing and so

on, the way it turned out, I urged at that

point to get military planning in on the

thing. I was worrying about it. "as a matter

of fact, Allen Dulles brought his planners

to a policy meeting, a policy group meeting,

and they were explaining the concept and my

questioning was such that Allen Dulles pleaded

with me not to spoil the plan at an early

---

## Page 8

• O! BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-7-

stage. I remember General (Lyman L.)

Lemnitzer was sitting in

.

the meetingi

He was, chairman of the JCS Joint Chiefs of

Staff at the time, and he backed up my urging

them to get some r'!!tary planning in on thato.

After th

w.uilt among our

poi

-sie of that, and then the Jes set up.

a special section to plan along with the

(Central-Intelligence) Agency on that. And who

the hell headed that?

This is yet in the

Eisenhower administration.

This is all back in 1960. This was still in

the early planning stagedo This was before

training or anything like that was put forward.

When the JCS got into the act, I asked to be

disassociated with the project. I was

• rather

lookred

critical of the concept, and it was just too

clunsy and overt? and a poor planned doline

don't theys

Alot of people have knowledge of this, by the

end of the Eisenhower administrations droughout government

I don't know how widespread it was.

There

were key executives that were knowledgeable,

there was a small group in the JCS that was

---

## Page 9

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

knowledgeable, and there was a planning group

at CIA, but I don't think it went beyond that.

I don't know how far it was known, but I

thought it was rather closely held.

You don't knry whether the presidential candi-

dates

at all, do you?

wey were. There

was a very definited

no, wait a minuted the candidates, no, I don't

think they were. As a matter of fal thit was

still in a rather nebulous stage led shifting

over in eare Novembero I think somebody

told me, if.I recall correctly, that the concept

was in the form.of a memo in CIA about August,

so this would be well after the candidates

had been nominated and so on. I imagine that

1t was held two or three people in the cLA

at the time. At least, the rest of us certainly

didn't know it. I forget exactly when I first

heard it, but it would be possibly October,

but it might have even been November. by the

time I heard about it. As I say, I heard.

about it when it was surfaced with the inner.

circle of our administration executives.

---

## Page 10

-9

O'BRIEN:

Well, I suppose you had some conversations

with Dulles and with Bissell and some of

these people about it.

LANSDALE:

Yes.

O'BRIEN: What's their feeling?

You already discussed

wiiting you to sort of

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

hoid your criticism..

•

Well, Bissell definitely felt the same wayo

Bissell was a very hard-working, intenseperson,

almost high-strung type of individual. He

became rather impatient with my questioning

of the changed concept when it took place. I thought

fastsally, is they had the correct personnel?

and they had a correct reading of dissent

inside of Cuba, that was a fair chance to do

something. My only concera at the time was?;

did. the CIA have the Americans who could work

with such a situation? I just didn't know

yes,

of any, but I was assured that there were such

Americanso but I'm not certain that there were.

Did you question the kind of intelligence that

was coming out about Cuba and the expected

reaction of Cubans to an invasion/ and the

---

## Page 11

-10-

reaction to Castro in general?

¡ LANSDALE:

•Just in very general terms. !:I didn't have

enough concrete and specific information

myself that was separate from theirs. Most

of the intelligence take at the time, avail-

able inside the U.S. government, was pretty

colored with this dissatisfaction and state-

ments of 1t. so? I had no real way of

determining the accuracy or inaccuracy of it.

Some of the adjectives used in describing this

in briefings to us alerted me a little bit.

It Just sounded, too much, iled a sales job on

a viewpoint. I'd question that, whether that

was an accurate thing, so. this is about as far

as I went

•O'BRIEN:

How does a guy like Douglas react? Do you

recall?

LANSDALE:

Well, he approved of the plan, so he and the

others at the policy level approved of going

ahead with itland developing it. I was his

advisor on this thing? that was my stars job),

and I told him to be certain to get the JCS

to give it a real hard scrutiny and to come

---

## Page 12

-11-

O'BRIEN:

up with details of whether it could succeed

or not.

That was my last advisory role with

him. I was taken off advising on the project

after that, actually by my own request because

I was apparently causing too much trouble and

-cks of progress.

the reaction of the Joint Chiefs, people

like Lemnitzer, towards this? Is there an

institutional rivalry or bureaucratic rivalry

here in their minds?

LANSDALE:

Somewhat, somewhato It was a little bit as

though, well, somebody's going to be playing

Boy Scouts, so this isn't really rivalry.

They had. a difficult time taking this really.

sard hussy. Later, I know, when the Jas got

11 on the actual planning of this, they became

much more serious on it because they had a

share of it.

O'BRIEN:

Well, do you get involved in the informing

of McNamara and Gilpatric about this? Do you

get any way of sensing what their reactions

are on first being informed?

LANSDALE: No. They had apparently known by the time I

---

## Page 13

-12-

and

met them, i didn't Bet in on thats the one

person who william vil

a view of their reactions

would probably be

Bill Bundy, fillian

Bundy) who I know at the time was discussing

this with them.-

O' BRIEN:

Did you have

..: bundy and

his f

-iät that point?

LANSDALE: Yeso

This was a little out of Bundy's field.

He was always trying to figure out what the

chances were, the percentages of win or losSo

a.bit

He was,lowy and I hadn't known the final plan

on this thing, and Bundy did, and he asked me

what I thought. I told him,

well,if the Jc

maybe stade

guarantees something, you can take it 10 percent

lower than that and go along with ito I'm not

sure that they know a clandestine operation,

but they'd sure know a military landing, whether

it would succeed or not. Given some of the -

unknowns in this thing, jayde by 10 percent

and go along with the figure." well, apparently

they had given it a high chance of success,

the JCS had, because Bundy said, "Well, you mean

It's going to succeed then?"

I said, "well, I

---

## Page 14

-13-

So

don't know.

1I gathered that he felt it would

succeed.

O' BRIEN:

Wel, then you are pretty much put of touchat in bite to

with it until it actually comes off

didn't get in, any of the changes in the

plans there at all?

LANSDALE:

No. I left at around the first of December,

september something--it wr

'60. I really didn't follow it from then ond

DORS

O 'BRIEN:

it anyone come to you from the Agency or

From Statel or Tro the hite House, as far

as that goes, and atterapt to seek an indepen

dent judgement on your parts your background and all on succes

LANSDALE: No.

O 'BRIEN:

How about the noise level on this?. Obviously

you're out of it, but is there much talk

about it that is sort of filtering down

In Defense fid the people that are around you

that really have no need to know and direct

involvement?

LANSDALE:

I wasn't aware.of it. There might have been,

but I have no knowledge of that.

O'BRIEN:

When the thing?

the operation actually begins

and the landing has taken place, do you come

---

## Page 15

-14-

into it again at that point at any time?

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

No.

You do become involved in Cuban affairs at a

later time.

LANSDALE: Later, yes.

O'BRIEN:

When fiju:

..• you have any-

the

waüg the (Maxwell) Taylor

committeet which makes the injuiry about it?

LANSDALE: I met with them once, and they weren't interested

with the Bay of PigsO. They were interested

air the

in the decision making process, of making d of

policy, and asked me if I had any ideas on

how better the President could be served in

the policy decisions and arriving at them.

The thing was, right at that moment, McNamara

had previously asked me for the same thing?

and I had come up with a proposal for him

which he put to. Kennedy. I just told them?

Weta. I had some ideas but i had given them

to somebody else, and I was skeptical of the

boss anyhowd and this was on putting together

task forces.

The Kennedy administration had

eliminated a bureaucratic boon doggling thing

---

## Page 16

-15-

O' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

Land, what the hell was that called?

OCB? [Operations Coordinating BoardJo

Yes, the OCBo I pointed out that the one

good thing about it was that the principals

met for lunchyand I said. the rest of it's for the birds,

But to not man in "". " at who are talking

to ?

i tau are held responsible by

him for managing men, money, and material and

so on, who can understand the problem well

enough around the lunch table to have one

secretary of deputy secretary, or under secretary

I and so on, was

say,

well, we'll take care of that, -fa

2 Than

good way of doing businesso and with the

president's own national security man sitting

in on it, going back and telling him this is

going to happen for these reasons, why, it

was a good control inechanism. *

So essentially

all I told the Taylor people and told

McNamara in my paper was that this function had

been eliminated, along with cutting out alot of

dead wood, and there was some live wood

"How

about restoring the live wood? This essentially

was what my proposition was with the task force

---

## Page 17

-16-

of getting the people most concerned with

something? who could operate for the

president, and having them get together and

help form the policy, get the president's

approval, and they were the same ones who

immediately.

• sut to create another big

ineaucratie thing. "And of course, after they

first tried this, it rapidly started becoming

a big bureaucratic thing. The task forces

that were later set up were just big staffs

sitting; in different buildings. It was

almost like OCB again, not quite; but it got

out of hand. Anytime you

rEg? to change. the

government around, it seems to come right back

_Yous? BREN: Yes we have atendency of doin

in form again and close ranks on fy But that

thato LANSOÀ

was allit did with the Taylor group. Inciden-

tally; in that inquiry into the Cuban bit was

the first time that I met (Robert FS) Bobby

Kennedy. For some reason or other, I didn't

connect him personally

Na with the pictures of

him and so on, on IgYg and I wondered what the

youngster was doing sitting in the meeting

---

## Page 18

-17-

talking so much.

O'BRIEN: Was he pretty tough

LANSDALE:

Well; he wasn't tough.. He was the most infter-

ested of anyone in the room there of what I

would say on things and plague me with many

questions.

O'BRIEN:

How were his questions?

Was he fairly naive

about the problems?

LANSDALE:

Nod, this was on probicms questions of how the

government would operate at a decision level,

and they weren't naive at all. He had a very

good understanding. He was very much concerned

about his brothersgetting good service in the

way of information and full details i siterna-

tives and so on, on a policy decision..

O'BRIEN:

Well, if you, you know, in that poriod right

after the Bay of Pigs--of

course you had a lot

of contacts and friendships in other places

LANSDALE: Yes. O'BRIEN:

outside the Pentagon.1

does

What kind of an impact

neid the Bay of pigs have, let's say over in

the Agoncy and State Department, and in Defonso,

and in the White House?

---

## Page 19

-18-

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

It was a traumatic experience at top levels throughout

of the government.

I think it affected

President. Kennedy more than any other single

thing. It was almost a taboo subjectolf you

were going in to do business and to get an

approv::.

jonathing " cover even hinted

S..

such

., wüban affair. It was

nan

istonsefully sore subject among all of these

people. I felt that almost all of the key

executives in the administration must have

arcant about it at night of something, and

during the daytime working hours they just

didn't even want to, contemplate it. And yet

they were honest enough people that they knew

they had to face up and look at it and would do

s0, but it was an oxtremely emotional subject

with them, very much so.

Well, in terms

of the Agency, there's a number

of programs and, of course, involvements in

operations that they have. Do you see any

shift in these, any attempt on the part of the

Defense Department to move into some of these

areas which they felt were traditionally theirs

---

## Page 20

-19-

LANSDALE:

rather than the Agency. I guess what I'm

trying to say is, can you see any decline in

the asthat influence

the Agency it decisions?

Yes, I think so.

I'm not certain that it was

well

the military as such. It might have been the

t::

and

n?..: Ke McNamara personallyn

ids encouragement of some of the military who

were somewhat interested but wouldn't really

have expressed the interest unless they were

diroctly asked and there always had been some

feeling of unease. I think would bo the best

word to describe it/-among the military about

type of

any clandestine, operations. They felt that

once it got over into guerrilla type of operations

or anything that would involve a military subject,

that it would be far better to let the military

establishment of the U.S. handle it."

But that

would be sort of a dinner-coctail party type of

a gambit on their part, rather than sitting and .

planning and so on of "We must grab some of

that

this," Even though among themselves they talked

that way. They didn't express it in terms of

their attendence at policy councils or even in

---

## Page 21

-20-

talks with people like the secretary of Defense

os the civilian, executive side of Defense. "on

this, I think that McNamara himself probably

well,

started thinking initially that this was a

military operation and just to be more efficient

and effective, the military should take over

such things. I imagine that he talked that way

to some of the military poodle that vese seeing

him from the JOS, and the Chiefs, and from the

intelligence community, the military intelligence

community. I know that DIA [Defense Intelligence

Agencyl got its great start under McNamara, and.

I feol almost certain, I've got a strong hunch,

that the Bay of Pigs and the misreading of the

temper of the people in Cuba gave McNamara

great impetus in setting that up initially.

9 so. it

actually, wasn't a military ambition

to set up a rival intelligence agency to haha

CIA, though there had been tremendous rivalry

between the military service intelligence

agencies and the CIA and had been right along.

from the initiation of CIA originally. But this

was sort of a business rivalry, and it wast

---

## Page 22

-21-

sort of dealing with them, of categories of

work, and where the boundary lines of who did

what on the thingo and this is where their

jealousies and emotions and everything would

come up over almost nitpicking of boundary lines

of who would do what. It wasn't a thing of

we'll do it all, and you go out of business that

looling hadn't come up but intele after the.

Bay of Pigs, the DIA and its creation, a lot of

the people in that who were civilian employees,

Defense Department employees, had an idea, "We

can do a better job than CIA," and in a much.

wider fiold than the service intelligence agencies

have done.

O 'BRIEN:

Are there enough skilled and competent people

around, in the universities and the military,

to staff all the intelligence agencies: the NSA

(National Socurity Agency), DIA, GIA, and organs-

rations? Are there enough people, or are these

Let this point;

operations just simply too bigin

LANSDALE:

Mated They might be too big. & the need to

know things is a very elastic bit....I'm certain

that the chief executive of the United States,

---

## Page 23

-22-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

in whose name these

works are accomplished,

would have no idea that he would ever desire

to know some of the things that they're working

on very hard you discover whole buildings

and all sorts of equipment busill

accumulating

facts

11205

ould say,

I can't

suites. ever needing to know some

cs that'" ete yet he would hesitate, siven the

world today and the technological advances and

everything, it's very hard to say what you need

to know and what you don't. Given this sort of

a gray shading of the end objectives on this

thing, it's very difficult to say whether yours

got too bigan establishment or not.

Do you ever take. this question up, or is this

question over raised in the administration by the

civilian people in DOD [Department of Defense]

or the White House, with you?

Not with me.

No. My theme on overseas operations

was reiterated enough so that it was known by

a number of poople, and I always felt that it wagalways

more efficient and effective to have a very

small group working and to choose them with very

---

## Page 24

-23-

O 'BRIEN:

LANS DALE:

great selectivity and go for a handful. of

highly qualified people rather than a large

group of Americans charging overseas someplace:

This

went for intelligence as well as diplomatic -

and other economic work, and so on. I used to

^

point out the embassies--for example, behina

the Iron Curtain--that would get destinated by

7 → being TNT'd and so ono in Eastern Europe,

for exemple, it would happend that would wind up

with an ambassador and two or three people

loft in an embassy, and their work would increase

in quality, and their representing U.S. interests

would seem

to improve tremendously when that

would happen.

Does the fact that you got this reputation,

mainly out, the writings of guys like lEugene]

Burdick

and Graham Greene, does this affect you

in any way in your relations with the bureau-

cracy?

Yes.

It made life rather difficult. With

flat

much of the work, I had to do in washington,

I came back from a lot of operations abroad

and went up into policy-forming lovels in

---

## Page 25

-24=

Washington almost immediately, and into facing

people who were very sensitive on my presence

abroad initially. Since I didn't just stick

in a regular military category but would get

over into their own subject matter, this made

them very uncomfortable, and I can understand

it while it happened, but it was carried to

too great an emotional length. At times I

would suggest certain individuals be sent to

look into a situation in a given

1 country and

would arrange their transportation and so ono

and I would get backing throughout the U.s.

government for this thing and have an individual

approved by the secretary of State

as well as

Defense and up at the White House and so on,

but would set up

a means of communicating

back so that we would get reports back. There

would be times when these individuals would

show up in a

country, and the first time they

sent a message to me, the ambassador would

ask them kindly to leave the country, to get

out of there, just because of my name. I was?

wasn

apparently

^

the enemy

to some. of these

---

## Page 26

-25-

people. lone of my assistants was traveling

between Thailand and Saigon, and there was a

coup going on in Saigon at the timeant his

plane, which was Air France, put down--commercial

flight--in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia, and the

military attache very kindly picked up

this

guy and several other Americans from the

plane and found a place for them to stay

until they could get another flight out of

Phnom Penh. He asked this lad of mine where

he'd worked, and he said, "In the Pentagon)"--

he was a

• civilian employee--and he mentioned

that he worked for me, and the attaché got

all excited, called the ambassador, and he

was given two hours to come out of the country:

•(Laughter] All he was doing was looking for

place to sleep at nighto so it became very.

emotional and very silly, and detrimental to

the U.s.

41 for example, once in Indonesia, in

meeting our folks around the embassy in

Djakarta, I had spotted an assistant army

attache, who was the one American, along with

one of the economic mission guys--there were

---

## Page 27

-26-

two Americans" who were not only best known

by the Indonesians but were respected, and

there was an affection theres and I lato, told

the ambassador at the time, afterwards, make

real use of these pooples the Indonesians

believe them, and there's some antipathy towards

the U.S., but they make an exception

Éo the se

trooand they're just invaluable but the army

man was extremely close to the general staff

of the Indonesian army. I went on some visits

to members at their homes of the Indonesian Goneral

staff, and this lad who was tall and blond -

a Nordic, tope, if you will--would go in, and

the small brown Indonesians (would

Zand their

ramilie, welcome aim like.

a long lost uncle

or brother or something. The children would

run up and jump in his arms and climb all over

him, and he was Uncle

"something to them.

Hso later, when the Soviets start moving in

SAMe lourface-to-air misstel missilo sites into

Indonesia and the U.S. needed to know what.

sort of antiaircraft armaments weregoing in

our embassy couldn't get the answers to ite

---

## Page 28

-27-

O'BRIEN:

LANS DALE:

I suggested that we get the State, Defense

sponsorship and send this one fellow who

vase

a lieutenant colonel over and just let him

stay a week or so. He'd go right in and

talk to his old friends, and they 'à probably

tell him what the Soviets were up to. He

arrived thered the Indonesian general stars

took him out and showed him these

sitatoo and.

asked him what he thought of them and so on

the first day he was there. That night he

got back, arid

'wrote out a radio message

and

asked the ambassador to send it to me, at

which point our ambassador told him to leave

the countryo

LHowärd P.]

Now, this was

_Jones?

That was Jones, yeso

And he said, "Woll.

Lot me put that in the messagod" go I just

asked the Department of state, to

Please 10t

Jones know that you're sponsoring this guy,

too,. sind there might be some more things that

he finds out that you need to know as much

as

do.

so they told Jones just to sit back

---

## Page 29

O 'BRIEN:

LANS DALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-28-

and let him do that.

We have some wonderful Americans, and this

was what I vas taying to do? wes

to find out

which Americans have not only our interests

at heart but were enough interested in foreign

Co::

wich to re ::-. yu understand and have

jeally would be serving the best

interestsof other countries in things. I'd

far rather see one man get in on something

like that than send a whole team in with all

sorts of things

and sort of aggravate a

ratter

situation, than do something rather simple.

Almost

sensitivity training . . o

PArSDALD: Incidentally, along these lines,

I've got a good story for your account.

Great.

About the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis,

McNamara cime back from a meeting at the

White House one day and asked me to provide

the means for President Kennedy to talk to

the Cuban people or Igle How the hell did I

know how

to do that? He told me that ho

wanted to do it

within the next twenty-four

---

## Page 30

-29-

hours. Well, it didn't happen. I suspected

that it would take longer than that; I don't

know how you intrude on a IL'astation's

broadcasting and get the people in the

couniry to go inmediatelyito their I la sets

and watch a program. I called scientists

in from all over the U.S., who were electronic

whizzes on this type of a subject, and our

intelligence people and everybody else I

could think of to get some information

together

a real crash basis. CIA couldn't

give me details, on

technical details,

Ton any

of the Isla stations in Havannah

and elsewhere.

Mone of the Defenso civilian scientists--and I

it w'ao air

can't think of his name offhand; East European

name--left the room and came back ten minutes

later and provided all the technical infor-

mation, to the great amazement of everybody

there. And I said, Where the hell did you

got that?' and he said, "Well, I went out to

the corridor in the Pentagon (where we were

having the maeting, unt in one of the phone

booths there, and I called a friend of mine

---

## Page 31

- 30-

down in Havana who operates a IIVIstation

and asked him. He gave me all

no one and

I just wrote it down." So this is the way

9

we got the information for it.

The intrusion

of the IIVI space never took place, but we

got the means together and some airborne rive

transmitters. It

was

developed finally by the

that it lie

Navy, and the project--Ine asked it to put on

a sort of sled so that it could be picked up

and changed over from one aircraft to another,

or used elsewhere

later when we started the

IIV "broadcasts in Vietnam, this Navy equip-

ment that was initially intended to let

President Kennedy talk to the Cubans, was the

in'ls, I guso that was,

broadcast equipment that was used from the

Lov

air--flying in the aircraft--in Saigon, downe

to initiato Ill broadcaste in saigon in

?

1965.

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

Why didn't it come off?

out

It took us too.long to figure, ways of getting

in on the theme and finding a channel and

finding a way of getting people

that do that.

---

## Page 32

-31-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

0' BRIEN:

LANS DALE:

It took us then, twelve days to do it, and the

time for them to do it had passed over, and

the Russians

stood down in the interim,

so the

need had passed.

Well how do you come back into. ...

well,

maybe, perhaps we ought. to pursue this whole

business of counterinsurgency first. It sort

of becomes the thing with the Kennedy admin-

istration, doesn't it?

Yes.

How do you see that?

I was in the Marine

fillies

Corps in the late 50ts, and there was a good

^

deal of guerrilla and counterguerrilla training

that was going on, and it becomes a part of

the new administration. Who are the

principtoe

proponents of this, outside of yourself? 1Do

you have any conversations, say, with Bobby--

well, you don't really see Bobby until after

AprilO But do you have any conversations with

the president, let's say, meeting with him. .

No, no, I didn'to I don't know who talked to him

about this. When he came in office, this was

already one of his themeso where he picked

---

## Page 33

-32-

that up originally, I don't know.

I was

rather surprised--he seemed to have seen

copies of lectures and other things that

hart

I,ve given on the subject.

who had

passed those to him and who had talked to

him about it;

I just don't know.

^

•0 BRIEN:

Let's say, let's take a person like Max Taylor.

Do you have anything

in the way of conversations

with

Max Taylor in the late. fifties?

LANSDALE:

No..

O'BRIEN:

How about the rest of the Joint Chiefs?

LANSDALE:

No. Taylor was opposed to this type of thinge

He did quite a considerable switch, see? He

was about the last person I would have ever

picked to have headed up something the way

Kennedy asked him to do it o

O BRIEN:

That's what I was wondering about, Taylor's

sole in this whole thing.

He is opposedo

LANSDALE:

well, he was the one that, in the very early

---

## Page 34

-33-

formation of the Special Forces in the Army.--

he was Chief of Staff of the Army at the time?--

and took one look at these American troops in

green berets and said, "Take that God damn silly

headgear off," or "Take that--that's it."

No

geeen berets, and he

ted-the

ally not tough on of

the thing: He wasn't too happy with a special

unit of that nature. But at the time, it was

He went along with the concept that

it was only a wartime outfit;

_that somebody

would have to go and jump in and work with.

squerrillas. "

Again, this is a rivalry type of

a thing, so. there wouldn't be another Oss lOffice

of strategie services) there be a CIA or

something doing it, but this, afterdali, is part

of the modern military function, so let's make

it military. So he went that far on the thing.

I would

But that was a concept--#you, have a regular

force fighting battle, and someplace lack of. the

enemy lines, you'd want to blow up bridges and

---

## Page 35

?

-34-

gather information and

so on to support

your tactical force

so wela why not have

somebody in working and fomenting trouble

back there for the enemy, but connected with

the forces?"

Now the concept of peoples

tare not is puened;, de've seen,

war-.

them in Vietnam.

and elsewhere!" Heally wasn"t something that:

he or others understood at all, that almost

would tie

all of us

speak see guerrillator counter-guer-

rilla, and that people like special forces

might well, having learned guerilla operations,

would then be qualified to start coping with

then?

and

would understand the importance of

political basis for operations and political

goals and behavior and the psychological part

of the operations o

This really wasn't in

any of their thinking because, as witnessed in

Korea, we went and sort of had a small world

War II in Korea. And in Vietnam later, we went

in;

Lagain with Taylor as the ambassador, but

---

## Page 36

-35-

having quite a bit of an advisory role with

a military commanders out there, and influence

with them,

was fighting another korea in vietnam

more or less. There

is some changes in tactics?

but was more use of helicopters just for verti-

cal envelopment satik

ere ther

just instead of

start

moving guys along the ground to with

the thing.

O'BRIEN: Why don't they come to an understanding? barking)

LANSDALE I'm sure that's going to make-a good-broadcast

for you, Fa-good-tape.?.

O BRIEN: A diversion at-least.

LANSDALE: I'm completely. baffled by that. I just don't

know.

O'BRIEN:

Don't they read?

LANSDALE: They speak the words, and particularly when they

were talking with President Kennedy, they picked.

up the words and enthusiasm. and responded, but

would show by what they did that they didn't

understand what they were saying. It's

some

thing that, of course, I have been trying to

---

## Page 37

?

O BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-36-

do something about all along.

I've never

91

• understood what it was!

I've always

felt that I was too inarticulate or hadn't

found a way of doing. things for myself, but

there have been so many other exponents of

this thing--not just Americans, but of many

countries, who have written rather good books

on the subject and on parts of it, that you a

by now

surely think, that we Americans would produce

top leaderswith some understanding of

some-

Ivo Neyent

thing that Mao fTsettung) and Giap and others

have gotta, every page down though the rank

and file to understand.

[counterinsurgency]

well, in the formation of the CIngroup--it was

designed; as I understand it, primarily as a

kind of educational group for top-level admin-

istration people--when do you first come into

that group?

I was never really, part of that group.

I was

working with

a smaller group of executives, of

which Taylor was a part.

---

## Page 38

- 37-

O ' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

This is Mongoose, isn't it?

xes. This was a fational security group of

top executives close to the president, with

the

undersecretary of State, and the deputy

secretary of pefense, and so on, and the

national security advisoro and Taylor sat

in on those meetings after he got his CI

group going. But f in forming the CI group

intatially. Taylor was starting to do some

studies for Kennedy, and Kennedy had asked me'to

help him. So I put my staff in the Pentagon

at Taylor's disposal.

Initially, in Kennedy's

presence, I offered to put together a study

for Taylor on resources in the United States

and among our alliesfor such things--not allies

as much

as friends of the United. States in many

countries--and this was done with done CIA and

some of the military services and the intelli-

gence part of State. They had a little working

group, and we had severalsessions in my office

---

## Page 39

- 38-

O 'BRIEN:

,?'"

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

and put together some rough first papers

for Taylor to start his thinking for the

president. Then when Taylor

Then when taylor elmed his group,

I wasn't invited in on it, and I didn't attend.

Sure. ?:

•got any insight...

winü it, right after the formation

of that group, and early--it was 'in May or June--.

they dispatched some teams to go around Latin

America to survey the ability of various nations

to respond

to Castro-type guerrilla activity.

Yes, yes.

Did you get involved in the planning of that

at all.or any of the fallout of that?

Just peripherally on both. I forget the details

on that.

I had been worrying about places like

columbia and several other Latin American

countries close to

the Panama Canal and had

urged that this be looked into, on some of the

specific things that were being done there. I so had

encouraged that the colombians start civic action

---

## Page 40

- 39 =

in dealing with some of the dissident

areas and so on. All' I had done was, not plan-

ning as much as coming in with sort of a

shopping list of what people might look for,

and individuals in these countries they might

O 'BRIEN:

talk to to get information on what was happening.

well, axedyou in colambia in the Kennedy

administration at all as ...

LANSDALE:

No. No, the most I did was--I went to Venezuela

an auring the Kennedy administration, and BoLivia.

No, by that time folks were highly sensitive

about my showing up in foreign countries--

that is, Americans, not foreigners--and I really

wasn't permitted, or I was stopped really at

policy levels from going back into Vietnam or

the phillippines? or anyplace in Asia. I begged

to be permitted to go down and take a look in

Latin America,and Gilpatric was the one that told me

the decision had bean lvadde..

BEGIN SIDE II TAPE I

Outside of Venezucla,

O BRIEN:

Did you get to any other counties?

---

## Page 41

-40-

LANSDALE: Wall, Bolivia.. In Bolivia, I was interested

in particularly the Bolivian Air Force's

work of setting up a public school system

over in the eastern slopes of the Andes--

down in the jungles and in the very sparse

settlements. They were really the one

governmental group that could get around

places. They were very enthusiastically setting

up one-room school houses down there and flying .

in teachers and bringing some education in there,

which I thought was a great project, andencouraging

Ф Thien,

them.AYhile I was in Bolivia, I gotinvolved

with the resettlement of indians from the

Altiplano over onto the eastern slopes into

some new communities, in which the whole Bolivian

government was involved and the U.s. Economic

Mission was working with them; and the

Bolivian military was supporting it with trucks

and with, people going in. But this was a very

exciting,agricultural-community-type.or a

project of moving people out where they'd have

an oconomic chance at life, and also a chance

to own land. It was changing the social

---

## Page 42

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-41-

VEry

structure considerably for the lowest class

in Bolivia, and with the armed forces doing

it. This, again, was the vory first visit.

In Venezuela, I had come up with some

ways of safeguarding our own interests in

Venezulla which ere not only o1l production,

but

welfave steel mills down there and a

number of thing?!

but I did this as much for

the Venezuelan Defense Ministry as I did for:

the United States at the time. They were

concerned.

What are your relations with the people

involved in the school in Panama which spreads

Iot of this pillite gospel of civic action

among the military? Are your relations with

those people pretty good?

It was. They had picked up a lot of my

material from earlier times, in the form

and menes that.

of sentent lectures, I had written on these

subjects. When they set up the school, I?

talked with them on the program of instruction

that they were going to stie give. The first

adoption of any of these principles was in

---

## Page 43

O'BRIEN:

?!!

LANS DALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

• O'BRIEN:

IANSDALE:

- 42-

Guatemala, and it worked very well thore for

a time.

The Latin Anericans became quite

enthusiastic, though again jealousies come in.

They thought the Guatemalans were boasting

too much about it. So,

when I was told that

problem, I saia, Weil, get them to emulate and

try and beat them and get a healthy rivalry

going,

which is what happened actually.

I suspect (Fulton] Freeman is there as ambass-

ador in colambia when you're there--no, Freeman

was in Colambia.

Jos, ho was in colambia.

I can't think of the guy who was in Venezusha

that was unbassador.

tha,

he was from Arizona and was a journalist.

Not [Mauric M.J Bernbaum. LANSDALE: No.

Well, how is he to deal

with, and do you got

a chancé to see [Romulo] Betancourt or anj

of the political leaders?

Jos, I saw political leaders there. I had

five days in Venezuela, and I think I got

two hours' sleop all the time. I was there. I

[C. Allan Stewe:t]

round our ambassador therenat the time very

and ming ato to wink with e

open-minded I wrote a report, coming back

---

## Page 44

-43-

From venezugla arterward, and submitted item

by the time I got to Washington. It went up

to President Kennedy

as well as Dean Rusk,

and some of Rusk's staff immediately wired the

ambassadoroand it was one of these!

"You don't

want to buy this, do you," and they said I'd

come out with a report on Venezula, and here

were the main points of my recommendations and

some findings. "He was just there

five days.

He couldn't possible have found out enough

to come to these conclusions; isn't that

right?" Bless his heart, the ambassador came

back and said, in effect, "I'm amazed that he

found out that much, and the recommendations

are sound, and we'd discussed this before he

left, and we're working with them already.":

You don't have to be in a place long.

For example,, we had a pavely large American

community down there who themselves were

practically government U.S. Steel and all

our big oil companies and so on. There was

very little relationship between the American

---

## Page 45

- 44-

O 'BRIEN:

business community and the U.S. EmbassIo

I had urged that they meet maybe once a week

or once

a month--the

1 American executives and

the Ambassador and several members of his

staffjand have lunch together rather frequently

and discuss mutual problems because the u.s.

firms down there had very large security

starts? Chey were very close to the polico

typo. of forces, the constabulary down therela

and that the embassy would be very well informed.

from this, as well as passing some af this

information back to these peoplejand everybody

would gain by it. Well, this doesn't take

very long to. ..

• In talking to the vice

president

Steel operations down there,

you'd and say, "One thing you would change is you

had the power--what would it be?" and ho'd

tell you something like this, you shows so?

Wãy It was rathor easy to cono up with this that

thing..

Did you find them fairly Inowledgeable and

enlightened about some of the things that you

were very ::.0

---

## Page 46

-45-

LANSDALE:

O' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

Very much so, very much sope

Like rural economic development, and agricul-

tural developmento -

Particularly, the oil companies, and I was

surprised. Standard (lil Company of-Now Jerses)

showed me what it was doing because the rigs

out in Lake Maracaibo were getting blown up,?

and their pipelines were getting blown up;

by saboteurs.coming in who were really expert.

I found out. later

that they were affiliated

with communists in colambia and had come on

overy. they were really experts at explosives,

and they weren't the student type of revolu-

tionaries and so on, who also were present

in Venezuela. "

But? in seeing what they were

doing; it went far beyond a company paternalism

A Ticy

type of a thing for employees, that started

crodit systems with. farm groups and housing

projects font gopo living in the vicinits

of their emplogoosu not that employeos so

much, who also gained

. a great deal out of this.

And then .U.S. Steel, in pushing its developments

---

## Page 47

-46-

[Interruption] →

way down to the south. . .

" Ho-probably

wouldnt do it,-he'a chow the wire-in-two

here:

O 'BRIAN:

- Oh my God. - It!s a wonder he-hasn't-electri

cuted himself? (Laughter]-

LANS DALE:

_Yeah. - It!s not yours, it's some of-mine.-

O BRIEN: Well; I'm not worried about that. Wires;

these-sort-of-wires can-be replaced.- I'm

not sure about yours.

LANSDALE: Worse than-rats.

O"BRIEN:

-you

-Well, he'g a spirited animal end to can't

help-admiring that.

LANSDALE:

-Yeah. I Well, one of the stories on Kennedy

I'd like to put in was:

On my reports

from Vietnam in the very early days of-just

before he was inaugurated, and he read it

^

apparently right after the inaugural--one of

the reports was a little side piece that I:

did on a village in South Vietnam inhabited

by some Chinese refugees that President

(Agu Dinal Diem bad located down in the midst

of a communist-held territory, and I was very .

---

## Page 48

..i:

-47.-

impressed by them and just.

as an example of

what humans will do in such a situation, I'd

written it up and turned in a separate report

on it." And about the a. ... It was still

January, '61, about ten days after the inaugural,

my telephone in the Pentagon rangrand this

voico that sounded like espalias Kennody's

told me it was President Kennedy talking, and

he had read this report of mine and wanted me

to have it published in the Saturday Evening

at the tune

Post. I was wondering which joker in the .

Pentagon Troustnor, was imitating this

Harvard, Massachusetts accent and was putting

on, and I said, "Yes, yos, Jos." I then

had my secretary check over at the White

House, and sure enough, it had been President

Konrody, so I had to thon do ahead I'a

promised to do it, one siguring out I didn't

know how to get something in the Saturday

Evening Post, but quickly found out how, and

they published this thing afterwards as a

report that the President wanted published in

their magazine.

---

## Page 49

0 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

- 48.-

Well-that. You had taken,

"I course,

Jou'd had that interest in Vietnam and Laos.

You talked to a lot of people, as I under-

stand, about laos and Vietnam and the incoming

administration.

Did you have any intent or

• p'oupose in mind outside of just explaining

the way that it was?

That was principally my intent. The first

meeting I had with McNamara, all he wanted to

do was, have me tell him about Vietnan, and this

was essentially what most of the incoming

administrative officials,-when they'd talk

to-=

to me

Iwould want me to explain what was

happening and what

the situation was. This

essentially was how and why I felt on these

subjects, but my thesis right along on this

wag

to help the people in the countries to

to

help themselves rather than, go in and do

things for then. It was mostly on the nuts

and bolts

"Ot now you go about doing this, and

the individuals you'd pick to do it, and how

you'd select them, and please let's have

highest quality and fewer people doing these

---

## Page 50

-49-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE : •

things.

Well, you have some successes and failures

in--I guess

mostly failures in the last of

the Eisenhower administrationg I'm thinking

in terms of Laos, Laos is the immediatè

problem in 196l'. How do you respond to some

of these people who are in policy-making

sositions at that time? I'd like to get

your feeling for them

-people Like Walther®

Robertson, in the state department, morte

Raborteon and (5. Graham) Parsons; John Irwin

in the Defense; and on, the Agency side, people

like Desmond Fitzgerald. How do they see . .

You have named a group of people, all of whom

are friends of mine, and we were very friendly,

and I had worked with a number of them for

anough years so that we more or loss under-

stood each other and could take shortcuts in

conversation as de. all or those you

and-talkod with me expressed

similar beliefs to mine, so it was very easy in

talking to them, and there were others. in

the

---

## Page 51

-50-

O'BRIEN:

"LANSDALE:

Eisenhower administration. Now this wasn't

true throughout the administration at all,

but there was a considerable group of people

who were in various executive slots just

down the second and third level who had been

through the . . . o Interruption]

Well, Laos, as I understand it, is, with the impact of the

does in some ways tear up the economy of the

country. Now,

how do you look on the training

of the Isotian army in late 1960--86159, 160--

some of the activities of the Agency in Laos

as well as the army and through the PEO

[Programs Evaluation Officel office and things

that

like this? Is this the kind of thing you

envision in terms of--I hate to use the torm

"nation building"--helping a country to help

Itself, in helping people to help themselves?

Yes, as long as in the modern world the leaders

of the country will think in terms of as large

a military establishment as they can afford

in a country. And they do this without any

advice from anybody. This is just a natural,

---

## Page 52

-51-

self-preservation type of an impulse.on thair

part. Then my

thought is: They will be doing

this. Then let's make the military establish-

ment serve the country in a much bigger way

than merely toting guns around and guarding

borders. It's usually the organization that

is nationwide, and there might not be any

other organization that's nationwide in the

country, such as agricultures even the

administrative structure that usually comes

fic

under

department of ministry of the Interior

won't really have the manpower, the communi-

cations, and so forth, that the military forces

do. "so, given that, why not then get the

military to start doing constructive things

around and making full use of the manpower

that you have anyhow.

Have. them be good

military men as the

very first requisite of

then

this, but, given that

and a jail 1 there's still energy

and personnel, invölved in that who have a lot

of man-hours left over that could do other

thingso 276

essentiallyn this is what I was

trying to get the American advisory missions

---

## Page 53

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-52-

to do--not only the military advisory missions,

but when other egencies would get in and be

working on these things, to themselves become

interested in the military doing such things,

and aiding and abetting, including economich

projects and educational work and so on. *

Woll, in this Laötian deterioration that takes

place, you inod the competing people there--

_ Nosavan-

Phoumi [Vongbichiti and Souvannah Phouma ani

all--how do you read that in 1960 just prior

to the administration coming in? Do your

How do you see phoumi; how do you see

Souvannan Phouma, as people? First of all;

have you met them at any time?.I

Yes, yes, yes, I didn't know them well at all.

I'a not them at

usually at formal gatherings

of one kind or another. The main thing that

I saw in Laos in the way of political stability

actually stemmed out of the king of laosiothis:

was the only unifying political force that

existed there in the minds of all of the various.

Lao leaders whom I'd met. So when the others

started splitting and opposing one another, I

---

## Page 54

-53-

had atroady felt that our best bet was to

turn to the king and force him to--or; not

force, but to encourage himito taking the

leadership role that would be the one thing

acceptable to all these leaders.

Instead of

that, we were starting to become parts ine

= partisan

ourselves there and playing off one guy against

another, and Americans aren't good at that

game.

We have many Americans who think they

to our nature o

aro, but this, I think, is a little too foreign to our natured

and we fell in love with the factions and

and so forth,

people.

almost unconscious of the fact that

we were doing that. The paratroop leader

there

O 'BRIEN:

Kong Le?

LANSDALE:..Yes, toats who kicked over a revolt, had spent the

night before his coup with a group of American

friends, and there wasn't a damn one of them

that know that he was going to have a coup in

the norning. This type of a thing! I just -

found inconceivable. People get nervous and

sort of absent-minded about what's happening

at the time when they're planning an action

---

## Page 55

-54-

O 'BRIEN:

LAN DSALE:

like that the next morning, and somebody there

among the Americans should have been sensitive

onough to have said, "Well, aren't you feeling

well' for something, routinars and had gotten

some feeling on it. But, this sort of getting

in bed with people, out, and saying, els

a good fellow, and "he's my friend,"

and excusing

everything is a common blindness, and this had

worried me in Laos quite a bit.

Well, I get the impression from reading of

this period that there

really is some lack.

of coordination in the various efforts that

are there;" shotherhords, the ambassador is

not completely privy to what the Agency is

doing, and the Agency is not completely privy

to what DOD is doing through the PEO office.

Do you get

that feeling? Maybe in regard

(Juhin F.]

to the Parsons-Irwin-Reilly mission that

goes out there, do you get any feeling over that

at all?

Yes, I'm trying to recall. •

We hit a

crisis at that point, and the group that went

out--Parsons was on home leave, and we had a

---

## Page 56

-55-

meeting in the Pentagon in the secretary of

Defengés office, and there were a mob of

people there - There were) I can't.

quite recall now what prompted the meeting,

but there was a crisis of some sort in Laos.

And the ICS gave a briefing, that's right, as

part of the thing, and it was on the Pathet Lao

positioning, and they suddenly discovered that

there were passes over the mountains that

had some importance to the Ho Chi Minh trail,

and this great discovery was being lectured

on at this meeting.

at

the time, the

secretary of Defense--I paditi

think, I wonder,

,Ir.

that might have been (Thomas.l Gates fir) at

the time-

might have been, but whoever it!

waS.-

asked if I had a comment to make, and I said,

"Take a look at that map that the JOs was

showing us of Pathet Lao and the other situa-

tions on the thing"' and I said, "it should

tell everybody here just one thing. You've

got an ambassador who on home leave here d

ho doesn't belong here;the belongs out in

Vientiana right this momento eid tho rest of

---

## Page 57

-56-

0 ' BRIEN:

LANS DALE:

O'BRIEN:

you who are asking questions ought to have

people out there with him who would tell you

immediately and take a first-hand lo0k."

And this an -

I remember. Irwin

was picked

right on the spot to go immediately, and, said

to me

on the side, "You and your big moutho

yousinow! (Laughter)

Well, did you get involved in any of the

meetings on Laos-after. the Kennedy adminis-

tration comes in, and

some of the jockeying

that goes around?

Some of them, yes. I can't quite recall

which meetings they were at the time. I was

in on some of the questions of the support of

Mess, 7

Marose

the guerrilla forces.

Well, how did you see in tarms of a strategy

for the area? Inorols a, as I read it, there

seems to be some various strategies, proposed:

one is a, you inan going down the full road

behind Phoumi and supporting Phoumi, and

another is the panhandle strategy--I've never

been able to quite understand what the pan-

handle strategy was--that tourow, rings

---

## Page 58

Ti:!

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

-57-

a bell..

Emm;-yesh-well; him, my memory isn't too

good on this thing. There was some talk

at the time

I there's high country across

theBolovens Plateau and so forth down in the

south, and there was talk at the time, of

that being the dominant area, and what we

should dowas to make use. of that and the

high ground in Vietnam and so on, across

into Thailand, and ensure that that state stayed

in noncommunist hands.

Well, there's also suggested in the Laotian

crisis as early as 1961, the use of strategic

bombing on supply routes, and evon, as I

and

understand it, to Hanoi, as early as that,

interdictingn

Martiating some of the supply lines, as

well as the suggestion that subsequently in

1962 does become a reality

-— the dropping

Of the SEATO ISoutheast AslatOrBanization)

plan five, as I understand ita

How did you

I00d about the Laotian crisis at that point,

in terms of

a strategy or a direction it which

should work?

---

## Page 59

-58-

LANSDALE:

72!

Well, I had wanted the Laotians to defend

ows~

thoir country, and I was all for the work

with the hasists and so on of doing it.

Once it left that and started involving us

Vietnamese or us, on bombing or anything

olse, I felt that the cost öf saving

some

real estate would be too high to ever engage

and other worko

ins and on the bombing, I felt that as long

as you had all of the, communication with the

people means in the hands of communist leaders

such as in North Vietnam and then Hanoi where

this was pushing, that anything overt such

as aerial bombing that would then permit them

to use that as a unifying force psychologically

with the people would be dead wrong."

I used

to remind them of what [Winston] Churchill had

done with the German bombing of Britain, and

just on radio with the peopled and here were

leaders with complete access to radio and

working with the people, and it would have a

reverse effect. as far as trying to stop the

ambitions and aims and so forth of the North

wares

Vietnamese, who after all, the guys organizing

^

---

## Page 60

O 'BRIEN:

LAN SDALE:

-59-

the Pathet Lao and pushing on into the area.

HI felt that more could be done with the

armed forces of Laos themselves in making

them more able to stand up for themselves

and defend their country. But if it couldn't,

I couldn't see an intervention of any sort

in there. Morally, we'd have been on a moral

ground then to turn around and start using

some international moral pressure, through the

press and so forth, to sort of shame the. North

Vietnamese out of their attempts.. I'm a

great believer in exposing things to bring

such pressure.

Well, how do you see the relationship of Vietnam.

and Laos at that point, or do you?

Oh, Jes. The passes and the HqChi Minh trail

in bringing things down was one of the key

things on this. But again, thore was even

talk at the time of taking Vietnemese troops

In there, and secretls, and using them up

to try and stop that, and I was opposed to

that lo! didn't want to see intervention 1ike

that from the outside.

---

## Page 61

- 60-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

Well, when does

some of the

covert activity,

interms of the use of some of the Mintashards

jards-in interdicting those supply lines in

Laos you knot, from Vietnam, start? Is that

going on in the late Eisenhower aiministration;

or does it begin in the Kennedy administration?

I think it was the Kennedy administrationg

there had been a little of it or there had

been talk of it, in the Eisenhower administration.

There had been: thoughts along that line by

the top Vietnamese leaders 279557-1562e61

remembex President Diom's brother, went doi

his older brother;

Iwent into Laos pre about

'55 or maybe '56, and had come up with a scheme

^

very similar to that at the time. He had

talked about the

mountain people of Laos

being alin to the mountain people of

and wouldn't it be good to get some of our

mountain people in with them, and together

they could be trained.

Yes, well, you're in Vietnam in the middle

'Of the fifties, and then you go back in 1960

in the late Eisenhower administration. What's

---

## Page 62

- 61-

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

changed, or has anything?

Oh, a great deal. Excuse me.

(Interruption]

What changes. do you find?

Well, the main change was in a growing isola-

tion from reality of the constituency of the

President of Vietnamo a repression of, you

might say, a loyal opposition of a noncommunist

opposition to

them in political termso a There wue

professionally some among the military that

we taking the Vietnamese military apart from

their people more than it had been when I had

left, because I had gotten them working very

the priple on

closely with

a numbex of peepion projectso

and a growing isolation of the American

embassy. in particulary but including some of

the American agencies, from the Vietnamese

officialdom, and taking a very strange form

of concentrating on gossip essentially--gossip

as much as fact--about. oh, what-the-hells-

the ward-I'm-tryins to=think-of,-o misdeeds

---

## Page 63

!.!'

- 62-

Victiamise

and so forth by, public officials or

people connected with the regime in Vietnam.o

so that the information-gathering process

of the United States there was devoting an

exorbitant amount of time on sort of nitpicking

on the people that were in power.

The

rela-

tionships, such as the ambassador with the

president of the country,

•the ambassador

would go into details of malféasance, in office

and so forth, or mishandling of funds by the

Vietnamese on an internal matter, and the

president would have to correct him and say,

"you con't have all the facts,

and the ambass-

ador would say,

jes, I do;too.

This to me

was very poor. I felt that we had some

who

Americans that were close enough to the top

officials of the Vietnamese(who weren't

present in the country always), who should

be brought there and told, "Look, we under-

stand these guys are doing something wrong.

---

## Page 64

-63-

Can you go in and get them to start doing

things right, as a friend of theirs?" father

than going and trying to scold them and

something and getting the back up of people,

and they'a figure, "well, these damn nosey

Americans only got half the facts, and

since they don't understand us that well,

the hell with them. We aren't going to

do what they wanto"' I just felt that we

weren't playing a very wise ballgame there

at the time, on the American side.

LI also

• felt that Diem was paying too much attention

to similar types of his own people, his

intolligence people, who tore is up telling

him what the Americans were doing too damn

much, or were bringing in alarming news about

his own subjects--and particularly political

oppositionists--and I suspect, manufacturing

cases against them so that they could take

actionsgand he, in turn, was getting too much

---

## Page 65

Ni!

-64-

secondhand from people, and this tended to

isolate him more,

, Since his main intelli-

gence officer was his brother, INgo Dinhl Nauy

who was an ambitious person, too. I felt that

it was a poor arrangement on the Vietnamese

side.

I personally urged Diem at the time

to get in touch with some of his opposition,

Ta at which point he asked me where I had

been at certain times of the day during my

visit thereo and I said, I was talking to

your opposition; and I'm not going to tell

you who it was ör where I was, but just the

mere fact that you know that shows that you

were having me trailed aroundgar

= you know

I'm a friend of your country's,and I'm

trying to help all of you succeed here, and

you happen

to be the elected leader, and you

jolly well better start reflecting what your

people desireo ad if you a

• spend your time

and money and efforts and so forth watching

---

## Page 66

-65-

• BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

?:!

a guy like me. I'm sure you're doing. a lot

more for someone else you really suspecto

and--

How would he react to something like this?

Listen, I was told by a number of people

that I was about the only one that really.

ever talked to him in this manner, and he

would listeng and

at the time, one of the

people most critical of him was his vice-.

president, and I went over and saw the vices

president, whose name was [Nguyen Ngoc] Tho,

and Tho immediately started telling me that

the president had spies all over'his office

and in his

staffoand as he was telling me

this, one of the clerks was serving us tea,

and I said, "Is this guy one of the president's

spies?"

and he said, "probably, I think so."

(Laughter). Maybe he'll go back and report

to. him,

this one. I said,

"When was the last time

you two talked to each other?"

Well, it had

---

## Page 67

-64-

secondhand from people, and this tended to

isolate him more,

, since his main intelli

gence officer was his brother, lügo Dinhl Nau,

who was

an ambitious person, too. I felt that

it was a poor arrangement on the Vietnamese

÷9

side.

I personally urged Diem at the time

to get in touch with some of his opposition

and at which point he asked me where I had

been at certain times of the day during my

visit thereo and I said,"

I was talking to

your opposition, and I'm not

going to tell

you who it wa's of where I was, but just the

mere fact that you know that shows that you

were having me trailed aroundgard you know

I'm a friend of your country's, and I'm

trying to help all of you succeed here, and

you happen to be the elected leader, and you

jolly well better start reflecting what your

people desireo are

If you a spend your time

and money and efforts and so forth watching

---

## Page 68

• BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-65-

a guy like me; I'm

sure. you're doing. a lot

more for someone else you really suspecto

aña=

How would he

react to something like this?

Listen, I was tola by a number of people

that I was about the only one that really:

ever talked to him in this manner, and he

would listend and at the time, one of the

people most critical of him was his vice-

president, and I went over and saw the vice

president, whose name was INguyen Ngodl tha,

and Tho immediately started telling me that

the president had spies all over his office

and in his staffoand as he was telling me

this, one of the clerks was serving us tea

and I said, "Is this guy one of the president's

spies?"

and he said, "probably, I think so."

[Laughter]. Maybe he'll go back and report

to him,

this one. I said

"When was the last time

you two talked to each other?" well, it had

---

## Page 69

- 66-

werT.

been monthso so I, back to Diem, and I jumped

him@ I said, You've got a vice-president

who you've made responsible for all the

economic development of the country, and I

know that you consider that very importanto

you haven't talked to him for a long time,

and I forced him to tel1 me when kand done

it lastos°.

I saia, "well, pick up the telephone

and call him over here your first free

time,

and you sit down and have a long talk with

himo

So he did ito He picked up. the phone,

and I got the two of them together againg

He was really out of toucho

He promised me

at the time to get in touch with some of the his

political oppositiong he swore up and

down

"well

'he wasn't oppressing anyones and I said, you

don't know what your own police are doing,

and•I gave him the list of names of

people who were in prison!, who had been arrested

at midnight and pulled out of their homes and

---

## Page 70

stars

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-67-

so ono and he promised. to look into their

cases immediately and do something about

ito And I said,

"I've gotten this from.

people who, in the opposition to you, but I

whether

2:26

don't know je you vergotten any reports.

He said he'd never heard of these cases,

and I think he was telling the truth. He

had no reason to dissemble with me at all

on these things.

well, why is this? Is it the development of

it the

an independent bureaucracy, or is

tiere al

degree of U.S. influence

intelligence

, New.

• 0

There was probably some.

on, let's

say, the

1

I think by

that time the Vietnamese intelligence was

way beyond any control by U.S. intelligence,

who initially had been helping it, and Diem's

bother thu was really -really had the bit in

his teeth and was his own man. And I suspect,

initially, he was really trying to serve his

---

## Page 71

-68-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

brother, and he was doing it by trying to

get the goods on everybody working for his

brother throughout, the government and anybody

opposed to his brothero and

the intelligence

people, picking it up, discovered that if

they brought in bad news about some guy that

the brother didn't like, he'd pay them and

believe it. So I'm sure that there was

a lot of manufactured evidence in the

intelligence take that was coming ind are

I don't think the Americans were screening

any of that type of information because it

went right into the palace, and there was a

big room behind the president's office that

had many files and was the main personnely

dossier type of file place.

Well, you're critical of the MAAG Military

Assistance Advisory Groupl operation there.

fittico?

what's wrong with it, in the late

Well.. I felt that MAG under "hanging" San

fittin

(Samuel I.] Williams in the late

50'5 was

---

## Page 72

-69-

an/unusually well-run American military

operation. There were some unusual things

being done that made it so. One of them

was one of the best ideas I've ever bumped

into. "General

Williams brought over the

chief of staff of the Vietnamese army

whenever the American advisors, who at that

time were out in the countryside, but ede

at fairly high levels, and were running

training camps more than advising on opera-

tions of anything!--But when they would come

in once a month for a weekend in Saigon,

Williams would get the Vietnamese Chief of

Staff to come in and talk to them.. The

Vietnamese Chief of Staff at that time was

General (Tran Van] Don. Don was quite

diplomatic, but had a way of being candid in

his remarks and not having them hurt too much

hates and

when they were told. He would leave out

150

on, but he would tell these Americans what

---

## Page 73

Q'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-70 -

their Vietnamese counterparts in the Viet-

namese army and so forth thought of them, and

their work, and their advice, and the reactions

throughout the armed forces to them This

was the one part of the monthly gatherings

with Americans around that everybody would

stop dozing off or thinking of something else

and would sit up and pay attention because

they were the subject of the talk, of course.

This was

a very healthy thing. •

see where.

yes, I can foet it I would beo.

• because even though it was tough diplo

matically, the most sordid truth wate

hardest fact would come out in, there

And then Williams himself had been in

the

Vietnam a long enough time by then--I forget

now long; it may be three years at the time.

four years--so that when he moved around the

Vietnamese army, it wasn't only just the top

staff officers and commanders who would be

I marti

with him, but I noticed in a

visit, there--I

---

## Page 74

-71-

think it was '59--that sergeants and junior

lieutenants and so on would come up and talk

to himg and I'd moved in close enough to

eavesdrop on some of the conversations, and

these were personal problems, family problems,

and financial problems and so forth that

individuals hadgand this was a very unusual.

relationship.for an American to have.

And

since the American was also running our

freughout,

advisory effort too, I just figured that this

constant feeding and contact with the echelons

of Vietnamese military that were down below.

r.

the big wheels was again a

very healthy

influence that was constantly at work with

him. so that he would know very well what

was going on in places.

Some of these problems--

personal problems--would actually involve the

military work that was going forward, people

griping that something was wrong and so ond

and they were doing this out of a friendship?

---

## Page 75

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-72-

and hesvas not to tell on their bosses

anything, but usually personal worries, and

concern that wastage or

something going

wrong would effect them. Later they moved

in an educator--a military educator--(Paul D.]

Harkins, and. • •o

Well, [Lt. Gen. Lionel C.] McGarr comes in

there before that, doesn't he?

McGarr. It was McGarr, yes, You're right.

It was before Harkins. McGart. And McGarr.

built. up a staff to work on counter insurgency

and probably put together the best staff

that

studies on counter-insurgency than any

American military men have ever done.

Is that right?

He got American military men who had been

guerrilla leaders in the Philippines, for

example, in World War II; and in Burma and 50

onyand in Europe, and sritched most of his.

work over into compiling "How to Do it"

manuals, but I've never seen the finished

---

## Page 76

-73-

products. I saw them

working on it at the

time, and all I know is they had tremendous

stacks of papers with the results of their

typed-out work and were putting it together.

Hand the interpretation of this tas apparently a

to start increasing staff and American military

personnel to handle whatever whatever was

coming up out of this whole process. The

feeling was was that there should be closer

American supervision of what was happening

out in Bunder hich meant poett you'a put

out in fuzzes

down your Americans at lower echelons and

then get a separate reporting system on back,

feeding in the research process of the Americans

initially more than anything else.

It wasn't

for control; it was just for information that

would go into fielas of studyone this alid

to a proliferation of an

military presence

that was intended sort of for the education

of Americans, I think more than anything else

but of course didn't work out that way. You

---

## Page 77

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-74-

put some red-blooded American boys in uniform

out someplace, and they're going to start doing

other things as well. In collecting information,

they couldn't help but tell a guy, well, nif

you didn't do it this way and did it the other

way, it would work better, and so on. It's was

a very human thing that started workingo ahe

as this happened we started building up our

advisory effort more and more.

well, in the meantime, while this is going on,

the insurgency's building up, isn't it?

Yes.

Just what is the condition of the country-

side that's different from when you're there

in the middle fifties sots and when you go

back in a 1960?

operations

Oh, there were guerrillany an enemy, which

there hadn't been in the period from Geneva

on up to the time I left in the end of '560

You could drive roads at night and so forth

---

## Page 78

-75-

and not be worrying about guerrillas. There

were isolated incidents of violence, but.

they were very minor--it would be about

with fre

what you'd expect in any country, crime

rate

goingo the fact that former vieth guerrillas

were the guys pulling the trigger didn't

matter too much as far as the overall crime

rate went.

It was in a nature of minor

that

terrorism, was going on.

By my next visits

fiftics

later in the

there were areas of

guerrilla bands at work, with roads that were

unsafe and so on, in areas that were unsafe?

^

with great problems of police posts being

attacked and with their families being wiped.

out in small massacre type of things, though

the type and degree

of violence had increased

a great deal. "

By the end of '60--when I got

there i christmas of '60--there were fair -

size enemy, Vietcong units operating and

dominating areast it had escalated considerably.

by then.

---

## Page 79

-76-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O BRIEN:

Is this terrorism campaign on the local

officials as serious as some of the people

have written? about ita

on, yes.

Do you ever get andy feeling about the

number of people?

I've heard all kinds

of estimates.

No, I've got (Stephen.T.] Hosmer's study

there on that, and I haven't read it yet.

I just got that from him. I imagine he's

got a figure in there. The last figure

around.

I remember on it was in about '66 mobout

forty thouse.

140,000 or something : •

Forty thousand.

That many?

Yes. These were officials

these were officiale not theis families

or anything. But these were village officials

and district officials and sort of federal

government

officials.

well, what do you

see happening as a result of this

the ability of

in terms of

^Diem to just simply govern in those

years?

IS

he valued govern deteriorating?

---

## Page 80

-77-

LANSDALE:

Yes:

In some ways it was. Initiallykhe

was unwilling to delegate any authority

at all "and ne

and he had the tendency to try and

do everything himself. If the problem

came up in agriculture, he would be the

guy to do all the paper work and the deciding

rather than his Minister of Agriculture and

so on. He had gotten over that to a very

large extent latero so he had learned to be

more the administrator and executive later

on,as far as putting some authority in the

hands of others.

But at the same time, he

also

seemed to have lost some of his critical

faculty, os

some of the things that were going

wrong.: of not being able to see it. He was

getting around the country and visiting)but.

not as much anymore because of the security

problems. He had been shot at several. times,

so that he had a larger and larger security

guard around him all the time, which meant

that when he went in and talked to people,

---

## Page 81

-78-

they were very much aware of plain clothes

policemen, secret service types, all around

him, and others;that were screening out

peopled so that the dialogue between the

president and the people became thinner and

thinner, and less and less meaningful.

So

while he was. on paper becoming a better

executive, he was, in terms of being the

national leader, was being less effective all

^

the time because he had no means of measuring

what was true and what wasn't?,

what was

worth doing and wasn't, and what

it work

and what

wasn't? It was a considerable

impairment of his critical faculty.

This

was one of the reasons I was urging him to

start dialogues with his political opposition

2

even if it started at opposite poles and led

to tremendous emotional clashes that there

would be

some means for dialogue to take

place that would have been useful to him.

particularly if he had invited them into a

---

## Page 82

-79-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

meal or something, and had some way of

A attenins the most enotional irritations

out of

that would take place, just how the people.

keig

seened polite at the timerso the content

would kite

of what they, had to say would be something

that he: wasn't gettingelsewise.

Yes, well, as I understand it, the VoCy (Viet

Cong] make a great deal of headway in those

years on the basis of the land system.

That was

one of them.

Well

what. . :.. As I understand it, there's

some rub. between the U.S. in this regard

and Diem about putting through some land

reform which would cure some of the rural

cultural problems that the French had sort

of.

created, as I understand, from you know

the Vietnamese moving into the country. . .@

Yes, yes..

well, how do you see that? Are you pushing him

for this sort of thingsat that paint?

Yes. Actually, we have some very sound land

---

## Page 83

-80 -

reform measures on the books and had issued

decrees on them that were good. As usual.

the diffigulty lo, when you get a piece of

legislation or something,is then implementing

it correctly, and I was pushing him mostly on

implementing his measures. "Now the land

reform worked that Diem approved and used

as the basis for his decrees came from wolf Ladejinsky,

and wolf, wash when he lest U.s. employment.

Was actually employed by Diem as his advisor on

the subject, and wolf was getting over and

having breakfast with Diem quite a bit.

Wolf is a very articulate, personable type

of a guy, and there was a great deal of.

affectionate friendship between the two meno

So that wolf, who is a champion of reforms

and of helping the man on the land, had full

access to this guy and had a way of doing

things.

"And I felt that the main thing that

needed doing was demonstrating to President

Diem, who was sympathetic towards this, of where

---

## Page 84

-81-

things weren't going right and changing some

the inner workings of the

"thing, instead

of just falting him on intent. And his

intent was very sound, very good. I think

he was ignorant of some of these things

going: wrong.

I felt that we should have

borne down on the matters

in which he was

ignorant and tried to get some changes there

and make these things work, because certainly

landlords and others were circumventing

the law of the land that Diem thought was

operating or when he circumvented it, he

was doing it for

_good reasons of his own,

which was again open to education by somebody

of himo but he was moving in people whom he .

could trust--who were refugees--into farm

communities and distributing land to them

for security reasons and political reasons

and so on, and then dictating what they

would grow and so onbcause he'd just figure.

Well, in the national

economy, we need this

---

## Page 85

-82-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

type of fiber grown or this type of crop or

something; and the land will produce it up

there, and so they should do that.

•so? he

sort of

was

only circumventing the lawnfor the

greater good, in his own mind,

his own

extent.

This centralization brings about a reaction,

though, doesn't it?

Yes.

TAPE II SIDE I

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

You asked about the falling out between

Ladejinsky and Dien. I know there was

just

something of that nature, but

what it

consisted

of, or why, I don't know. I

remember that the American ambassador .

AIt, would have been (Elbridgel Durbrow?

... Durbrow

was mindful of the fact that

Idejansky was having breakfast with Diem

and was close to him, and, in a rather general

had asked Ladejinsky

way to bring up thoughts of corruption in

---

## Page 86

-83-

the government and subjects beyond anything

like land reform. And I suspect that

Lodejinsky had started getting very political

i his talkyas a result of this, with Dier.

and that Diem had resented

it.

But beyond

this, there was a very deep affection between

the two. When I was there in '59 or ' 60,

tidejinsky had wanted to go someplace, and

•I forget where it was.

•.. • I know one

of the places was Indonesia, but there was

another country he wanted to go to,and

Diem

hadn't wanted him to go and hersuggested

that he attend a conference--I think in

Latin American a

finally, they had agreed

between the two of them, and Ladejinsky had

Ate has

gone on to do these other things that, taken

sort of a sabbatical leave to do that. #But

this was

a very personal thing between two

men, and it was two friends? rather than a

president and his consultant working. I

know Ildejinsky is very sentimental about

---

## Page 87

O 'BRIEN:

-84-

Diem as a man, and I know that Diem recipro-

cated this very much. There was a point.

where the rational thought would end, and

the feelings of affection and so forth

would come over, and say,"

Well, even if that

is true and everything, I still like the

I

guy, and want to help him, and so ond and

this existed between the two. sol they

might have differed on some things and perhaps

on carrying out land reform exactly the way. that

wolf wanted, but the two men kept seeing

each other all the time, and he had ample

opportunity to work on that.

that's

Retic the suggestion sis made sometimes is

that the vietnamese military has not been

trained for the kind of war and the kind

of insurgency that they did encounter in

1960-61/- they had not been properly trained

for that before.. Is there any validity

in this at all?

---

## Page 88

-85-

sunco

LANSDALE:

Oh JessA.

They were being trained actually to

meet the challenge that the Vietnamese and

American top officials. foresaw, and they were

thinking thet: this--and incidentally, the

French General (Paull Ely before he left was

thinking the same way--just in terms of

conti,gency planningo they saw a lot of artil-

lery. and armor being given the North Vietnamese.

army. So, bossy given that information, they

saw any attack or military trouble in Vietnam

as consisting of divisions of North Vietnamese

with a lot of artillery and armor coming

across the border. So they built up an army

to meet the foreseeable thing that was happening

that they thought might happén. " Instead of

this, of course, it

was more of the same old

story againsaid there were many of the officers

in the Vietnamese armed forces who had formerly

been guerrillas themselves, who had formerly

Minh g

had been Viet men in the old days of fighting

the French, who had broken with the fommunists

and wanted no part of the formunists and were

very sincere, patriotic pationalists. But

---

## Page 89

since they had had

this former affiliation

and had taken their basic military training

with the enemy, so to speak, they never quite

had the same stature among their fellow

officers in the Vietnamese arms, for example,

as graduates of the Vietnamese Military

Academy and the others coming right out of

high school and so on. Iso as a result, the

officers corps who were knowledgeable

43652

of how to counter what was happening were

kept

fittie

at fairly junjoy grados, and in the late isone

the highest any of them got that I ever knew

about was rank of Majoro and they had to take

orders from Colonels and so forth who had

served under the French in very much the

same type of a conventional military organi-

zation as the Americans had put up and were

advocating. And these

junior types who wanted

to do different things were simply too junior

to do it and were unable to convince anyone

of the need.

The initial meeting of the

threat.

was thought to be a police problem then en

army problem, and there was a lot of work

---

## Page 90

-87-

on trying to equip and train the national

police to cope with ito and we Americans.

did that through our economic mission and

through, Michigan State University had a

group helping on administration there. They

recruited some very good police officials from

the U.S. who were quite used to dealing with

urban crime problems in the U.S. "well, you.

can't take a man who is very good at precinct

work in Detroit, Michigan, or Burminghan, Alabama

or something, and move hin'out to en Asian

country where his problem islivnat do you do

when a company of guerrillas comes in and

ambushes youripolice station? A completely

foreign type of a thingo so that we had

police advisors

that were insisting on all

policemen being armed with nothing more

than, say,a 38-caliber revolver, with the

policemen saying, n

"woat, but people are

shooting at us with rifles, and we need rifles

or something like that to shoot back at them,

or how about sub-machine guns or some --we

need isze fire power." Well, it was foreign

---

## Page 91

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-88-

to them.

So there was a mixup on a number of

things on this coping with the insurgency

that was growing not only the

conventional

formation of the Vietnamese army but of a

conventional urban police formation of the

police. And yet, throughout the systems there,

there were many individuals

who knew better,

and who knew how to cope with it, and who

were continually begging, "Give us a chance

to dó it some other way."

Well, in terms of these people we were talking

about a little earlier--the late Eisenhower

peoplo, like Fitzgerala, and Irwin, and Parsons--

Do they conceive of the kind of insurget point,

that's developing in South Vietnam,

Or are

they . :.o

Fairly well. Fairly well. They were more

aware of, or had more understanding of, the

needs than did some of the folks that were

coming in sort of brand new to the problem

or who had been steeped in a far more

conventional approach to the problem, as

were

some of our military leaders at the time.

But,

as I remerled earlier, these were personal

---

## Page 92

-89-

friends of mine, and when I'd talk to them and

tell them my views, there was always sympathy

for them, so I might have mistaken that for

understanding and so ond and even that was

sare enough so that I felt that. (Interruption) y

O'BRIEN: : How long: is the manuscript?

LANSDALE: Ho ho. I went through first, the publishers

wanted no to tell all; anotherwords, just

write as much as I could for later editingo

tidy

=

and said this is the way people do it.

SO

I wound up with really three of reallf long

books, and since I was writing one not too

long book, why I wound up with a tremendously

them

long manuscript.

urged then, that I coula

we could

cut it down to two books, and publish it as

two different things, and the subject matter

would have permitted me. They still want

just one book, so I am now going back with

editor's notes and with my own notes and trying

cleo

to.

Id, started off initially with a

cut-and-paste job, but I discovered I couldn't

do that and retain the proper narrative and

Panies on ine things it I wound up having

---

## Page 93

.-90-

to rewrite almost of all of it, and recast it,

and retell it in a somewhat different form.

with

I'm about half-way through, that, but it'll bo

a fair-size book even so.

O 'BRIEN:

Wet that's good mainly on the Philippines

and the early period in Vietnam?

LANSDALE: Umhmm.

O'BRIEN: Good, you know that's really .

LANSDALE: Well, there's meaty one big period in vietnam

that isn't known too well, and most historians

have passed over it, and the ones.

who haven't

have been championing a cause, and their work

is quite suspect: Some of the French were

sort of agents cos provocateurs at the time.

and they are more of less justifying what

they did?

and leaving out important parts of

it.

O'ERIEN:

How about the French journalist [Jean) Lacouture?

What do you think of his work? Is it Lacouture

that's done the thing on Ho [Chi Minh)?

yes,

LAN SDALE:

Kook, I'm trying to remember. I think that's

who it was.

well, most of the French writings

about Ho and some of the explanations in

---

## Page 94

- 91-

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

official documents of the French, trying

to explain him end 30 on, by friends, I lound

vary interesting end I had no way of judging

really on it?

there was a tremendous sympathy

and so forth being expressed, and then a very

strong attempt. to work out an accomodation

with him afterwards, vith hit, by the French.

And again, a highly emotional sensitivity to

any inter'erance it what they were trying to

do, and they saw almost anything as interference.

I sof what is written by them, I read mindrul

of their sensitivities. at the time and what

they're trying to prevent anybody ever believing

that would be opposite at all, or something

different at leasty and it was just amazing.

The French press was screaming that I was

starting World War III in Vietnam in 155 ..

Mind if I get this on tape--well, it is

on tape, I'm sorryo I didn't realize it was

going.

simply because I think there was a feeling

by the French colonialists in Indochina, of not

wanting to give up the Frenda presence there u

---

## Page 95

- 92-

and it's a human, understendable type of a

thing. They had been there and associated

there, and some of them had spent their entire

lives there, and here they were having to

give up something g

"Swiss journalist once

explained. it to me:

It was like a man giving

up his mistress and seeing some

guy in a

big car driving by in the streetgand even

hero.

though he'a given listup, ho'a just say, wel,

he hates that guy cause he got the mistress

allegedly with material means such as an

automobile and maybe a fur coat and so

on, and he

isn't the man that the former guy was. " so

some of this feeling was very prevalent thereo

and for some reason.or othor,. I happened to

suddenly bocome the focal point of it, through

my name or something, an othe so that they

went to great lenghts of charging me with all

sorts of things that I was doing: I was out)

seLtErces

buying up the loyalties of set coursas with

?

millions of dollars, and things that would be

hard to prove that I wasn't, mind you, except

hed to say, "Look, I didn't have a million

dollars to buy anything with.". And they'd

---

## Page 96

-93-.

O 'BRIEN:

say, "Well, the U.S. government did, and you

were a secret agent for them, and so

on..

It

was very hard to disprove some of theirtalk

and say, "Well, that just isn't so.'

Except

once in a while they!a get really wild and

claim I was down--I walked in on a briefing,

sor oxample with French officers telling nut how

sono Auerican visitors from Washington, re

at that very moment I was

strying to buy off

a sect leader, and very naively, with a

suitcase full of monejoria I didn't know

but the

guy was going to ambush me and take

all the money and not do whatever I was going

to plan to do. And at that moment, I just

asked him, I said, Well, please keep on with

your briefingloI want to know wherther the

" It was

guy killed me or not. "Crazy. Now these

were very responsible French officials

talking that way;

and

the fact that I'd be miles away from the scene

some of these things never stopped the damn

circulation of these stories. I don't know

how you ever stop that stuff.

Rech; well how about people like Bernard Fall

and Patty Hung

and their writings? Are they .

.•6

[p.r.] Honey

---

## Page 97

- 94-.

LANSDALE: Well, they're very sound, very sound. Fall's

background, as was Honey's, was out of

intelligence or information collection units.

sne, their different countries. Fall's initial

writings were all out of a French army historical.

sectio'and I had to tell hir one time Ina read

some

of his work originally by the original

author.

But, it was a detailed military

history of operations that he'd delved intoo

end I don't know, I doubt that it was intentional

plagarism on his part. He was probably rushing

through, getting a book published for acadenic

credits

and so on. And Honey!

the same way

with British intelligence, who were quite

active in Indochina during the French days.

and erything;

But it was

"some of the stories and happenings ^

were just ilmost incredible. Theu.r

Some

of the French journalists were politically

partisan. They had connections, with the

Compunist Party or sympathies with them of

some sort. And Ho had been one of the

founders of the French Communist Party, so that

there was always a cultural or comradeship

feeling of some sort theres

and

when the

---

## Page 98

- 95-

Americans started showing up on the scene,

there was

avery paternalistic feeling of e

"Well, these are our people, these Vietnamese o

Khmer for tao, d and you keep your

cotton-picking fingers off of them" type of

a thing that went to very great lengths?-

Volatile emotions erupting on this type of a

thing. " I remember one of the journalists,

<John Beret, published a newspaper in Saigon

and wrote a lot of the early propaganda for

individuals in the trends argo, end had sort.

adventurer types among them. He then went to

Prohm Penh, where he started a weekly newspaper

and started also writing speeches for [Norodom ]

Sihanouko and the next thing I knew, Sihanouk

was accusing me of plotting to murder him or

assassinate himo

2a I hadn't ben feen noar

2.vEN

Cambodia, and I hadn't, thought of Sihanouk

when this happened. The governor of Siem Real

who had been very close to Sihanouk before--

and Siem Reap is where Angkor Wak and the

historical ruins are--suddenly died

2 and the

story started

seeping out a little bit with

Sihanouk charging that this governor, whose

---

## Page 99

EW!!

- 96.-

name was Da, Chilucy and I were in a conspiracy

to murder him and take over the government of

Cambodia. And it didn't do any good that I had

never met i: Chhwind never had any dealings

with him, and Cambodia was way outside my

bailiwicky but this is the story that's gone

on and on and on.

0 ' BRIEN:

Well, there was a little bit of truth to that,

wasn't there?a some involvement of CIA: ...

LANSDALE:

1Foahe Well, ho

was a national leader and

actually had formed the political groupings

initially that supported Sihanouk and gave

him his political powers he was the organizer;

he was the chier political lieutenant of

Sihanouk. And then apparently, he felt

that

sihanouk was going sour, and he wanted to get

the government back into reflecting more the

will of the poople.. How far he got, I don't

nowo but this was really something. that

was foreign to mo at the time. I

I got sent

back into Cambodia afterwards, from Washington,

with

o various military assistance groups, or

economic groups es presidential commissions!

---

## Page 100

-97-

and so ond end each time they'd have Prohm

just

Wali, yof hd

Penh on the thing, I'ansay.,.

"Ward better

check the embassy there." Back would come

word that, do, sihenouk was afraid that if

were a menber of the party, I would be

going in to murder him.. I actually went in

one time; and the chiel of police of prohm

Penh net our party--along'with the foreigr

minister and so on--at plane, when ve came

downg and the Chief of Police walked right

next to me, and he said, "I'm your liason

man fromnwro" and I said, "You're keeping

an eye on me, I knowy it's allright.

I'm

not going to murder your boss; I have no

idea of doing that. " (Laughter) That is

strange.

"And then Sihanout made a movio--

about '65, '66--in which he played the

Commander

"7, Roger Naval Intelligence tolzine

a great American spy, who happened to have

my name, and was a role played by some prince frenchud

mars who was visiting thered and I was out to

overthrow the kingdom but, of course, our bor

hero thranted the ugly American and won the

girl, wio was the daughter of the Brazilian

---

## Page 101

- 98-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

ambassador or something. Some French gal

played the role:. I've been trying to get

a print of that or some way of seeing that

movie I'd love to see it, you know. It

sounds great and. . . : . [Laughter]

leah, I hadn't heard about that. Well, that

does hit on

something, though, in regard to

Southeast Asia.: As I understand, in that

Dap Chhu incident, that there was an Agency

involvement with him, through a guy by the

name of.

Mats y

and the Agency does seem

to have a kind of free hand in some of these

fision

Southeast, nationso ad

I'm thinking of the

LALIEN L.J

A Pope

situation in Indonesia as well. Can you

seo any breed put on them as a result of

the change of administrations? how do you

react to this sort of activity?

Well, most of the things that they did that

had political consequences of any major size

at. a222

"and certainly a thing with DeÜhuon

wider

and also the Pope thing are only, taken by the

Agency after approval up at topsided so as far

---

## Page 102

-99-

as brakes are concerned, they're had them from

the beginning. However, the objectives and

agains

the intent are approved, and not, the means of

doing it--the nuts and bolts--which are

supposedly overseen by an ambassador.

And

when we get down to the level of a country

where these things are happening, then I

think muel depends on the individualso, the

ambassador and the station chief, and how

they get along, and again, mostly on the..

Well, no, it isn't either; it's a fifty-fifty

proposition. We have ambassadors who don't

want tö know or to are opposed, all such things,

and it an order comes down to do it, they very

unwillingly tell the guy to go ahead, but

watch it now, not too far.

HA station chief,

then, with orders to do some things, will have.

told the ambassador he jett going to thise but

getting

ho starts, in things, and he figures, that is ho

goes back and tells the ambassador what's

happening, that he's not going to get any.

understanding and will probably get an order

prohibiting him

"and doing somethingo and, won't

---

## Page 103

-100-

:0'BRIEN:

290e.

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

be able to explain,

Well, if I stop doing

this, then this other thing won't work, and

Washington wants us to have this happen.

just

The ambassador willnsay, No, I don't see it

")

that way. Don't do it.

So I'm sure there are

things thatars happening that aren't told for

this--for operational reasonso and again, it's

a judgement of an individual on that thing.

It's not a policy type of a thing from the

Agency.

Yes? Do you find any --in the time that

you're there in the middle fifties as well

as when you go back in 160, '61, and later

involvement in Vietnam--do you find differences

between the embassies, between the U.S. embassy

in, particularly, Pnohm Penh and Saigon?

I didn't notice that.. It might have existed,

and I wouldn't have even known that.

Well, there's

some feeling among people

during

involved with Cambodien relations

& that time,

as I understand it, that somehow there's an

involvement on the part of the south Vietnamese

in some of the groups like the .

---

## Page 104

-101-

LANS DALE:

Visic I remarder

Oh, jech., both the South Vietnamese and the

were playing around with groups inside

Cambodia, or with exile groups that wanted

to go back in Cambodia, end so ong and I'ma

not certain that the Americans from either

Thailand or South Vietnam were fully aware

of what all was going on. And I'm not

certain that the Americans or the Cambodian

government people inside Cambodia knew what

was going on, and were tending to exaggerate

some of this. Things get blown up out of all

proportion in this. But!

just the fact that

there was antipathy and it would take this

form of expression, among others that were

going on. ..

I don't know which people

would rather

ABo in and take over and run

Cambodia! the Thai"

g or the south vietnamese

it's about a toss up which one

down more

on the Khius than the other. "And Diem

used to follow the predictions of the royal

fortune,teller in Pnohm Penh to Sihanouk.

Apparently, they were spending a lot of

intelligence money to find out, you know, what's

---

## Page 105

-102-

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE :

happened in each öthers sessions and what

he was

telling the guy. Then how useful

this was, mind you; I don't mow.

Well, do you tina. "

--again, in passing on to

the

task forco Fand the formation of that

Vietnam task. force in the early part of

the Kennedy administration--do you find the

sensitivity on the part of the people, the

political appointees, to what's going on

in South Vietnam? Are you able to explain

what you're telling me right now about

South Vietnam to these people? •

ão only partially.

only partially. They were as bemused by

the mechanics of getting decisions in Washing-

ton asthey were with the problem that they were.

employing the mechanics to solve. It was all

sort of new to them, and they wanted to do a

good job, but in order to do it, they were

you see,

suddenly working with these instruments, that

were foreign to them here. I think that the

principles in the administration were not

entirely aware of thespeople they were dealing

with in Washington.

I recall, at the time, sein surerises

"i Rusk was violently opposed in the department

---

## Page 106

-103-

over where he was by some peoples and I

noticed at times that he wasn't aware that

he was turning around and asking a guy whos

minutes before Rusk had come in to him,vas

tie directice et called dime,

among bis comrades, just,

= "This stupid jerk,"

and so on, which I felt was disloyal-behind

the guy's back, you know. I was always

urging them to speak up in front of people

and

so on, and they wouldn't do it. And the

same damn thing was true, againsti some

of the

military against McNamara, for example.

Well, the McNamaraY and the Rusk, and their

unders, and deputin

it, aid sc En,

types of people, and

assistant

secretaries, were trying to cope with

instinctinly

poople that they, felt were-instinctively?

opposing and foot-dragging and so on, and

trying to get that workingoso that to get

them working on a given problem was really

the thing that they were concerned withyene

9 you'd suddenly say, "Well, we're going to

talk about Leos, or Vietnam, or Israel or

somethinggYes, Yes, Yes. What have you got

this papore you indie And they were

---

## Page 107

-104-

He this guy a

watching see, "Well, ste just Ile really

done

this homework" met

"Is he goini to

and-i-s-i-t-gonna come. up

with something or not?" rather than what is

the real problem here, and how would I solve

it if I weren't sitting in this room in this

particular group, and so on. So there was a. •

"so then, working on this type of a thing which

I saw very much in the task force on Vietnam,--

Gilpatric, I know, was shocked at the reactions

of some of the foreign service people that

came in at, rank of ambassador and so on, that

were

sort of the staff assistants on the

assistant secretary and undersecretary level.

at. righto

They would

start a meeting-in faot, I was

asked to be sort of.

-I forget what the title

wast-executive officer or something of 1t, and

they

asked me to chair the meetings. Well, I'd

no sooner open it. then these guys would be

passionately explaining way I souldn't be

sitting in the chair of the meeting, see?

LANSDALE: I think it shocked some of the Kennedy

administration people. It suddenly revealed a

---

## Page 108

-105-

reud and so ong and I hadn't said it, and I

personally didn't care that much, you knaufo

I'd say, "Have you got all the hate out of

your system now? Let's go on with the

meeting, see." fris, of course, would activate

it more, but I would sey, "Well look, we really

do have some problems here we've got to get

to, and if you want, I'll meet you afterwards

and we den have lunch or sonething, and you

can spoil my lunch by telling me what a

heel I am or something. But we've got work

to do, "" so then, Gilpatric or somebogy vould.

tell me afterwards, "Do you think we better

take you off?" "Well, yeah.

If it's going

§ gat

siott, the work done, it's better to

take

mo off. It's no fun for me to sit up and

chair something under conditions like this,

90

O'BRIEN: Tech were you ever approached with the job

as ambassador to Vietnam?

yes.

YeS.

LANSDALE: Yeah:- Year

O'BRIEN:

Who was pushing that?

---

## Page 109

- 106.-

file s

LANSDALE: I don't know. I heard about it

this first

Saturday after the inaugural--I think that's

it. It was very early in the administration.

McNamara asked me to come down to the linite

House and meet him there, and I

thought it

was to brief him on something. 1nd I was

working ön a number of intelligence matters.

In Defense at the time and I showed up, and

he asked me to just wait outside, and they

were meeting in the cabinet roomy and as I

said, it was essentially an NSC group. Hand

after a bit, they asked me to come on, end

they had me sit opposite the president.

And ho looked at me, and he said, "Did Dean

(Rusk] tall Jou, I want you to be ambassador

to Vietnam?" I said, "No, he didn't mention

that, " Well, ho hadn't at ally eid ghore was

a Long, painful silence, and I figured, Well,

Cads maybe he's asking me II I want to be ar

would I accept the job.

So I finally said,

"Well, it would be a great honor,

and that was

Îast I ever heard of it. But, I heard

ans urual a

all sorts of rumors that, cy :33 for

Washingtong andestr

aiterwards that Dean Rusk

---

## Page 110

-107-

WaS

very much opposed to it, and opposed on

the ground that I was a military men and they

didn'twant military people in on the situation.

0' BRIEN:

jesh. Yaso.

LAN SDALE:

And then later I had met one of Rusk's staff

officers at the time, and he was telling me

that Rusk was figuring, fix: he could get

me a job some other place or a promotion or

something to get me out of the way at the time?

sert of

Iapparently a bad becomsna target for a lot of

.

gossip and rumorspat the time. "But arter that

then, they asked me--Kennedy asked me pretty

Pintrassador

point blank--about, Durbrow, and I said, "Well,

after what you just asked me and so forth, I'm

a little hesitant, but you're the President and

you need the truthy so I'll just tell you right

now, I think he's a very ill mande

his judgo-

ment's impaired by his physical conditionshe's

a fine professional foreign service officer. and

could be used some place, but don't keep him on

In Vietnan anymore. Ho's BlokE, ho's on his

back a lot of the time, and you need someone

very alert, war a woever it isg and pull bim

---

## Page 111

-108-

out." And they got--Rusk and everything, you

know 'you're ofs your subject, boy." But I

said, "Well, Durby's an old friend of mine,

and I like the gure and I saw a lot of him

when I was in Vietnen on this brief visito and

I think it's a shame that the guy's kept on

there lecause he was quite ill, in bad shape."

A and Durby never forgave me för ith it got

right back to him that I had sacked him and

so on Lecause ho was withdrawn after that but

this certainly didn't hurt his career at 811,

in any way, sit even though state put him on

a make work job aiter thate but he held the

rank of ambassador wnich is as high as you

can get in the foreign service. And he was

1228,50 506125 was:

0 ' BRIEN:

Well, how does [Frederick E.] Nolting come into

this

LANSDALE: Well, Nolting came in, as-ties apparently, as the

foreign parvices rebuttal to my going on outdof there

I remember both McNamara and Gilpatric asked

me about him, and I didn't know him. I said,

"Well, I'd just go on what I have heard from

---

## Page 112

-109-

other foreign service officers who respect

him very much." So finally, Nolting was--

& meeting was

arranged with Nolting, and

I liked him very much when I talked with, hing

He asked me if I would give him some briefings

on Vietnam, which I did do. And when I wound

up the

end of that, I was asked again by

McNamara, who said he was going to tell

KennedJ and I said, "Well, this looks like

a very good man, and I think it's a sound

appointment. "Я

I didn't want to be ambassador.

Jesus. During the Eisenhower administration,.

to a

they wanted to make me ambassador

the

Philippines, and I begged them not to.. I

think that's one of the world's worst

jobs.

You're stuck where you can't do what your

Job is supposed to be, and I knew they were

going to put me in places where I'd be up

against Cormunist political leaders of some

sort, working the other side. And of course,

you aren't in that position, but allegedly

you area a you're going to have people running.

caroles around you, i, roulenon at and couldn't

lift a little finger to stop them.

Aid this

---

## Page 113

- 110-

LANSDALE:

isn't my idea of a good spot to be in.

You

just get belabored over that.

Well, did Nolting ever

try to get you back to

Vietnam, in an advisory position?.

I think so. There were a number of attempts

by the Vietnamese themselves, and unfortunately,

some of them werecouched in terms of wanting

me to come out as ambassador, by the Vietnamesed

but Nolting and I had very friendly relations,

and I think he had proposed that I come on

out several times. But these things would

usually only come to me sort of second or

99

third hando and one time apparently President

Kennedy had said something to the JCS because

suddenly my relations with the Chiefs went

down to Leis than zexo and sub-zero, and I

finally asked General (Curtis E.] Lemay of

the Air Force, because I'm an Air Force officer,

what the trouble was. And he said, "You and

your ambitions to have four stars." I saia,

"What's this

again?" Apparently Kennedy had

said something to the Chiefs of, what would

thay think of my being given four stars and

being put in charge of operations in Vietnam?

---

## Page 114

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-111-

And I didn't know about it, and they took it

that

I was pushing myself for it. I said

again,

‚that isn't, 'a want to do."

So this

• Girived

was about the time that--no, maybe William

Westmorelend westy was coming in about then?

it was around that time.

Well, the task force really forms up the instructions

for Nolting, doesn't ith...

Yes.

• for the next few years. Just what kind

recommencations come out of that task

force?

Well, I was only in on the very original one,

which was to undertake some things such as

changing the specific types of things to

meet a situation inthere. One of them was,

we would get a political section that would

work out better relations with the Vietnamese

government, a political section in our embassy,

and that the foreign service would go and

search through, their own personnel for people

with some real political sarry to get into

guide, rather than control or belabor or have

confrontations with the Vietnamesa government

---

## Page 115

-112-

to carry out essentially political reforms,

and getting some of the just criticism of

the opposition considered in the governing

body. "

Another thing was on the police, of

getting police training done

so that they

could cope with meeting enemy units, rather

then doing urban police work. In this, I

was begging them to ât least get to a state

level

constabularynas far as American advisors were

concernedo and I wasn't certain that the U.s.

Army's military police could cope with it, but

maybe they could get a team of them in and

then I was pointing out that there were

constabulary officers and officers from other

countries, including South America and the

old Philippine constabulary, who knew the.

law-and-order conditions--quite similar to

Vietnam--and bring them in if they wanted to

go international. I was trying to. get them

to get very realistica solving problems by

changing the quality and the approach that

we had.

We drew up an original draft that

went to the president, out of meetings that

---

## Page 116

-113-

lasted about ten days, at which point, at

Rusk's insistence, the task force went over

to State and became a general, regular body

there.

They then proceeded to rewrite our

original

a instructions and drafts and

everythingg anu both McNamara and Gilpatric

said, coming back from the White Fouse,, "Ed,

you had better not get in there." I said,

"II I can help in any way, I will." They said,

"Well, right for the time being, youlbetter not

go near that group, seed" eo

I actually didn't

got in to some of their policy fornatión, again

in a fairly early period, on the thrust of

things in Vietnam, except for some of the

Defense people who were over there. I would

talk to them on what

was being proposed and

going on, but this was sort of second and

third echelon type of a thing, pulling back

out of it.

" But fInd +1a125,I was actually

trying to get a quality U.S. representation

in Vietnam, and actually smaller agein than

it was at the time, end to pick a few. key

things, and to concentrate on that, and really

did Mr

didid

---

## Page 117

-114-

to get the Vietnamese coping with their own

problems more effectively then they were

doing.

0 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

Well, between this time and the time

TWist.

of the Taylor Rostow mission, are you involved

in Vietnam on a kind of regular basis or :

:Off and on I was, but again with

socond-and third echelon typo of problems.

I was seeing Gilpatric everyday and working

very closely with him; so that a lot of times,

as things would come up, he would discuss them

with me. But again, I was trying to explain

who certain people were that were named, their

backgrounds, and their qualities, and certain

events and places, and going to maps with

hit and describing terrain, and so onfaul

the situation really meant that was making

the problem. So I was fairly well out of it.

I As a matter of fact, I was wirking with some

visiting Burnese on their concepte of defense

of a country, and the

they brought me in with

the Israeli who had had a mission helping them

with their defense problems in burma. And the

Isrgeli

Mad this turned around to their defense

---

## Page 118

-115-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

minister and some of the others, and invited

me to,look at tavia defense system in Israel.

"I was quite enthusiastic about going and had

everything arranged and was to leave on a

saturday, when about on a Wednesday of Thursday?

I was

asked to go to Vietnem with the other

mission and stufff and unfortunately had to

cancel out everything and never got into see

what Ilwanted to see there.

Well, you end up working on border --actually,

serling e

the saving of the border, then, don't you,?

that.

on a Taylor-Rostow thing?

Yes. Yes.

What about that preoccupation? Where does

that idea come from is that Rostow's?

Well, Taylor was the one that charged me

with it. Taylor said, "Woll! you folks?" --

this is ' right which started. "all each

that

of you write down some of the thingsiyou

think we should look into and what you might

like to 100k into."

So I gave him a list of

bout twenty things, I'd like to 100k into,

none of them being this, of course.

---

## Page 119

--116-

I suggested some other subjects for other people

Linos

•on the thing and gave it to then,

called me back, sad tinat it was a very interesting

list a

that I had given him, and would I please work

on building & defense on the border. And I

said, "toil what sort of a defense,"

He said,

"Well, a system of fortificaiions. or a wire like

the Iron Curtain in Europe. I said, "Good

God, you aren't going to do that, are you?"

And be said, "Well, I00k into it." so that

supposedly

washall I was supposed to do, and of course,

I got called in on other things immediately.

4 But I wasn't even invited along to go in and

see Diem with him. I said,"'

look, these are

old friends of mine. If you'd like, way I'II

do anything I candyou can hit thom high, and

I'Il hit them low if you want. We can get

some things done that way.

He said, Well, you

aron't on our protocol list, so you don't

attend any of these calls on the President.

"We landed in saigon,,

and the people from the

were there asid o

presidency,net uso aid Taylor and Rostow were

over talking with reporters who were interviewing

---

## Page 120

-117-

them plane side, and these people from the

presidency said, "President Diem wants you

to come to dinner tonighto" and I said, "Well,

I botter chock, " my boss on this.

this.

Taylor was

busy, but I grabbed Rostow who wasn't talking

at the moment and told him, and he said, "go

ahead'" sol I said, '"elz, I wasn't even on

the protocol, and everything. I don't care

about going up to these protocol meetings

199

anyhowd but I went in and saw Diem, whose

question was, "What's this mission doing here?

What are

you all up to?" I said, "Why don't

you wait, and they'll be in here to have a

meeting with you tomorrow, and you'll find

out." And then it became very personal. We

just started talking over his two old friends

with-him, and I had dinner with him. Pand ho

brought his nephew in. to join us--Nu's boy,.

oldest boy--who had a new toy missile, like a

rocket with a launcherd and I was trying to

explain to this youngster who was squatting

on the roor next to his uncle the prosident

Who was busily eating dinner you don't point this

at him-

nI dian't know how big a spring toas

---

## Page 121

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-118-

thing had on it, whether it would take his

head off of not. Heighter I fiania to

shoot it up into the ventilating fan in the

coizing. We spent dinner, actually, taking

parachutes and things out of the ventilating

fans, and the kid and I were climbing up

& ladder to get these things out of the thing

in the palace. This was very different from

an official protocol meeting.

Yeah? How is Diem at that point?

He was a very changed man. It was the first

time in our talks with each other......

When I met him at the palace that night, his

brother Nhu came in for the first time and

sat next to himo and when Ilasked Diem a

question, his brother would answer ito and

I'd have to tell him I wasn't asking him the

questiond;

I was asking his brother.

A very

strange relationship at the timeo sa

found that he was a talker--Diem was--and he

was very clear and concise in his statements

and had too big a grasp of details

what-

ever subject he was

talking about. It'd go

on for hours--details on it, wich fascinated

---

## Page 122

-119-

me but used to bore other people. But he

did know his countrys and its history, which

he would give at the drop of a hat. This

evening in '61, seeing him, he was very

hesitant in his talk and hadn't--it was

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

something physical as well as, mental hazard

or something, I felt:

since anto that Later?

No.

Inere washmentally, people were telling

me that his brother had taken over in the

Just

thc

year followingothis-a dominance onsthing.

But this was a man that wasn't as sure of

himself as he had been when I had seen him

less than a year before. And there had been

one assassination attempt only, but the big

one had taken place before I saw him in

January or December of '60--the

attack on

the palace and so on. So it hadn't been an.

outside, physical happening like that that

had caused the change.

O'BRIEN: Was he a spiritualist at all?

LANSDALE: No; no. He wasn't superstitious..

I He

was a very rational sort of a person--pragmatic.

---

## Page 123

-120-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN: •

well, when you get back, you talk to President

Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, and John MeCone,

es I understand, in a rather private meeting.

What happened here?

Well, this was, when I came back, I met the

President. I went in with Taylor and Rostow--.

all ofus did who were out on the mission--and

Leavings

he thanked us all very muchy and as we were, he

asked me to stay behind and talk to him ans

that was when he asked me to perform this

other service for him, which was initially to

think about it, and If I came up with some

ideas, why to put them down, cambrief]y,

on paper and give them to him." and I said,

"Well, do you want, to forget about Vietnam

for the time being,because I haven!t written

my report jet about Vietnam." He said, "Yes,

this other takes priority over itledo I

didn't even finish writing my reports on what

I had seen in Vietnam at the time.

I went

immediately into this other work.

Well, about that time, there's at least some

thinking in terms of mimos that are going

the president aoout the only way to save

Vietnav

---

## Page 124

-121-

is with a rather substantiaí commitment of

U.S. troops. Is that... .0

LANSDALE: Yes; there was some. Now where.

• Hmm,

there was some, and I can't remember just

where it was coming from. This was one of

Tew

the things, that Diem asked me when I saw him.

He asked me if he should ask for U.s. troops,

arid I said, "Do you need them?" He said, "I

asked you a question," and I said, "Well, I'm

asking jou a very legitimate question on this

things

' as I said, "Are you ready to admit that

you have so lost control of your/situation

that you can't cope with it here?" And I said,

"You'a have to do that before you ever turn

around and ask for American troops in here."

And he said, "No, we can still handle things,

and you've answered my question, so apparently

- he didn't ask.

There here been some

I'm sure,

conversations, going on -Em-sure with some of

the Americans befors'thate vould be my guess

on this thing ecause he didn't say, "What

do you think of;.

"' is there anything, or

"should I ask?" which was sort of like someboay

bad recommended this it some point, anà I

---

## Page 125

-122-

don't think it would nave been completely in

the , Vietnanese context.

O'BRIEN:

•Yesh, do you get any of this thinking when you

get back? Any contingency planning or thinking

about the building

,0f troop levels to a more

substantial level, maybe linked with the

settling of the Laotian question first?

LANSDALE: There might have been, and I might have known

some of it. I can't recall now of ento it's

someplace in the back of my head, there were

some things like that going on. I turned.

around, just took time off completely from

other. things and concentrated on this other

problem for a time afterwards. Actually,

through

December of that year, I was sort of holed up

and working on some things.

My staff would get

in and out of some of these other things, and

I used to shove them in to take my place in

meetings and

so ong ald I our onzy then just

Bet

very quick briefings on them, but they were

essentially supporting whatever McNamara and

Gilpatric

were doing@ so I'd just have them

go in and report directly and work with them

directly.

---

## Page 126

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

Bowell

O'BRIEN:

-123-

Yes.

wits wale

Yash

5 Who were the people, on your staff

at that point?

We11, jet's seela one of them was sam wilson,

whos now a brigadier general in the Armylo

Jack Bowles was a Navy Captain who went down

to serve with the JCS afterwards and, is now

with Standard Oil and working out of singapore...

at the time

And I had five or six people like that, but those

were my two principro ones.

Well, this is about ready to run out, and we've

covered end quite a lito

---