## Page 1

476-10030-10168

2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

JFK Assassination System

Date:

5/5/2016

Identification Form

Agency Information

AGENCY :

NARA

RECORD NUMBER: 176-10030-10168 {Dup 176-10030-10085)

RECORD SERIES:

ORAL HISTORY

AGENCY FILE NUMBER:

Document Information

ORIGINATOR:

FROM:

TO:

TITLE: ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD G. LANSDALE

DATE:

PAGES:

SUBJECTS:

07/11/1970

124

VIETNAM; CUBA-BAY OF

PIGS

• DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT

CLASSIFICATION:

Not Marked

RESTRICTIONS:

1B

CURRENT STATUS :

Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW:

06/26/1998

OPENING CRITERIA:

COMMENTS : .

sanitized version

v9.1

---

## Page 2

SANITIRED 14K.99-411%00

Oral History Interview

with

man-

Lansdale

=_=

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 balicres

Presidento. The first meetingwasy I-believe,

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.

Eisenhowers It was sort of an I'm not sure

---

## Page 3

-2-

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 tnere.

could

O'Brien:

G/guiLe, 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.J

'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

O: BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-3-

stopped my visit to Vietnam, and back-

stopped it principally so that I could take

a look at some of the political factors as

well as economic, military, and psychologicall

and everything else. This, frankly, took a

consj."

-üanding on his part

that because my views weren't always

opular 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

problens, which is Cuba. When is the first

time that you hear about the Bay of Pigs

invasion, not the Bay of pigs, but the plansio

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

innei

member of the interpolicy group, to most of

---

## Page 5

O' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

the meetings that tr:

Wüd. When Allen Dulles

(Allen W: Dulles)

"st raised the notion to

1

the senate grour I was present at the meeting

as an Assist.:

What is the jinking about it at that time?

What kind of operation is

-üit

basically a guefilla operation at this point?

Initially, it was. Initially, it was very differ-

I srom 1

ent than the way it turned out. It was based

on a premise that many people in Cuba were very

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 o1

Castro as a guerilla and as a revolutionary

action. So? the thought was to back a number

the

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

thing evolved fairly rds liT and apparentay

there was a planning group andiCIA Central

?

---

## Page 6

-5-

O' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

0 ' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

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 military typest, that is, very militant,

K!..

-üSA

were coming, out of

Juda as refugees, 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 gorng.,

thing, was well under way in the inner circle.

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

nitely so.

Who were some of the inner circle people at

do you recall?

this point, (fice salinger, bi bourge

Let's seep tie, on golly.d

D'ERIE NATAL come [Richerd MI Bissell was!

Dick Bissell

Richard M. Bissells was the overall chief of

the group.

Tracy Barnes, was he in it at that time?

Tracy was an assistant to him, a for igtig... o

Iracy, went in the aotual planning, I have my

doubts that he was. .

How about Broe, William Brue?

---

## Page 7

-Б-

LANSDALE: He was one of a planning group who were

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

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

O' BRIEN:

on well maybe where set the transcript back,

How about fron some of the other

places

ö C.) Mann, I

Süt

LANSDALE: "es, but initially it was all CIA. They

borrowed some military personnel to help with

carlyon,

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

-7-

stage. I remember General (Lyman L.)

Lennitzer was sitting in the meetingy -

He was "chairman of the jcs [Joint Chiefs of

Staff at the time, and he backed up my urging

them to get some ritary planning in on thato.

After t

wunt among our

POi:

-nie of that, and then the JCS set up.

a special section to plan along with the

Central-Intelligence) Agency on that. And who

the hell headed that?

., O'BRIEN:

This is yet in the Eisenhower administration.

LANSDALE:

This is all back in 1960. This was still in

the early planning stagelo 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

lookera

critical of the concept, and it med just too

cLunsy and overt! and a poor planned 10 ae

don't they,

O' BRIEN:

Alot of people have knowledge of this, by the

end of the Eisenhower administration?

"throughsut gorernment

LANSDALE:

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 inr! whether the presidential candi-

dates

.. at all, do you?

Ye:

ey were. There

was a very definited

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

think they were. As a matter of fac thilt was

still in a rather nebulous stage be, shifting

over in

& 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

It was held lintwo or three people infide

the CIA

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

c.:"

D.::

wiking you to sort of

boid your criticism... O

LANSDALE: 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

Initially le they had the correct personnel

and i

they had a correct reading of dissent

inside of Cuba, that was a fair chance to do

something. My only concern 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.

O' BRIEN:

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 it. 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.

like

It just sounded

too much

¡Fide a sales job on

a viewpoint. I'd question that, whether that

was an accurate thing, so this is about as far

• 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 it? and developing it. I was his

advisor on this thing? (That was my staff 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

i-aks 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.

seriously. Later, I know, when the Jes got

in 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, wouldn't Bet in on thato the one

wou'd bars

person who bellian vill

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

..^

sundy and

his I:

un -ü äü 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 wasplowy 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, i day that by 20 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-

don't know."

1I gathered that he felt it would

succeed.

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

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

Righto ÖBRIEN:

plans there at all?

No. I left at around the first of December,

september somethung--itwe

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

Does

ite anyone come to you from the Agency, or

Irom StateY or Tron the White House, as far

as that goes, and attempt to seek an indepen-

dent judgement on your partys, your background and all, on sueces

No.

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 Deferise and the people that are around you.

that really have no need to know and direct

involvement?

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

but I have no knowledge of that.

When the thing?

the operation'd actually begins

and the landing has taken place, do you come

---

## Page 15

-14-

into it again at that point at any time?

LANSDALE: No.

O' BRIEN:

You do become involved in Cuban affairs at a

later time.

LANSDALE:

Later, yes.

O'ÉRIEN:

r.

When?-;::

..• you have any-

the:

.. vate the (Maxwell) Taylor

committeed which makes the injuiry about it?

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

with the Bay of Pigso. They were interested

In the

in the decision-making process,

of making e 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!

Weft. I had some ideas but I had given then

to somebody else, and I was skeptical of the

boss anynowo.

And this was on putting together

task forces.

The Kennedy administration had

eliminated a bureaucratic boondoggling thing

---

## Page 16

-15-

O' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

band, what the hell was that called?

'OcB?. [Operations Coordinating Boardlo

Yes, the OCBO I pointed out that the one.

good thing about it was that the principals

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

But is not men in to. aunt ino are talking

to ?.

i wad are held responsible by

him for managing nen, 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, ni,a

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 powe

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

couldastr.

*immediately.

~ nut to create another big

sureaucratic 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.. Anytine you try to change. the

government around, it seems to come right back

_YoUs BRIEN: Yes, we have atendency of doin

In form again and close ranks on it, But that

mato LANSDA

was allit did with the Taylor group. Inciden-

tally; in that inquiry into the Cuban bit was

the first time that I met (Robert F Bobby

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

connect him personal and whatnot,

with the pictures of

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

youngster was doing sitting in the meeting

---

## Page 18

-17-

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

talking so much.

Was he pretty tough

Well; he wasn't tough.

He was the most inter-

ested of anyone in the room there of what I

would say on things and plague me with many

questions.

How were his questions?

Was he fairly naive

about the problems?

, this was on problems questions of how the

goverment 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 brothersgotting.good service in the

was of information and suid details altoma-

tives and so on, on a policy decision..

Well, if you, you-know, in that period right

after the Bay of Pigs--of course you had a lot

o1 contacts. and friendships in other places

LANSDALE: YeS. O'BRIEN:

outside the Pentagon., What kind of an impact

does

Maid the Bay of Pigs have, let's say over in

the Agency and State Department, and in Defense,

and in the White House?

---

## Page 19

-18-

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

It was a

traumatic experience at top lovels throughout

of the government. I think it affected

President Kennedy more than any other single

thing. It was almost a taboo subjectoif you

were going in to do business and to get an

approv:?in jonothinr." ever even hinted

Can ada in

such

suban affair. It

was an

istenseffly sore subject. among all of these

people.

I felt that almost all of the key

executives in the administration must have

dreant about it at night or something, and

during the daytime working hours they just

even

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

90, but it was an extremely 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 Astray influence

Le the Agency fl decisions?

Yes, I think so.

I'm not certain that it was

well

the military as such. It might have been the

t::

and

Lice McNamara personalltn

ids encouragement.of some of the military who

were somewhat interested but wouldn't really

have expressed the interest unless they were

directly askedy and there always had boon some.

fooling 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-coctall party typo 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

or the civilian, executive side of Defense.

4 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 people diet ware seine

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 feel 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.

I so? it actually, wasn't a military ambition

to set up a rival intelligence agency to talla

GIA, though there had boon 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 wasmit

---

## 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

sooling hadn't come up but kill arter the.

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

the people in that who were civilian emplofees,

Defense Department employees, had an idea, "We

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

wider field than the service intelligence agencies

have done.

0' BRIEN:

Are there enough skilled and competent people

around, in the universities and the military,

to staff all the intelligence agencies: the NSA

(National Security Agency], DIA, CIA, and organi-

zations? Are there enough people, or are these

at this point?

operations just simply too bigin

LANSDALE: Iday 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-

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 vory hard you discover whole buildings

and all sorts of equipment busilis

accumulating

facts

ould say,,

I can't

sates ever needing to know some

cá that el yet he would hositate, given the

world today and the technological advances and

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

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

a gray shading of the

end objectiveson this

thing, it's vory difficult to say whether your?

got too bigan establishment or not.

0 ' BRIEN:

Do you ever take this question up, or is this

question ever raised in the administration by the

civilian people in DOD (Department of Defensel

or the White House, with you?

LANSDALE: Not with me. No. My theme on overseas operations

was reiterated enough so

that

it was known by

a number of people and I alweys felt that it wasalway

more efficient and effective to have a vory..

small group working and to choose them with very

---

## Page 24

-23-

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

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 got de simated by

? → being

TNT'd and so ond in Eastern Europo,

for examplo, it would happen 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 (Eugene]

Burdick

and Graham Greene, does this affect you

In any way in your relations with the bureau-

cracy?

Yos. It made life rather difficult. With

that

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 levels 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

9.

them very uncomfortablegend I can understand

it while it happened, but it was carried to

too great an emotional length. Fi

At times I

would suggest certain individuals be sent to

100k into a situation in a given 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 indiviaual

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 wat.

wasn

apparently

the enemy

to some. of these

---

## Page 26

-25-

people. Mono of my assistants was traveling

between Thailand and Saigon, and there was

coup going on in saigon at the time and 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

I get another flight out of

Phnom Penh. He asked this lad of mine where

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

ho 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

a place to sleep at nighto so it became very.

emotional and very silly, and detrimental to

the U.s.

For example, once in Indonesia, in

meeting our folks around the embassy in

Djakarta, I had spotted an assistant army

attaché, 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 have told

the ambassador at the time, afterwards, make

real use of these peoples, the Indonesians

believe them, and there's some antipathy towards

the U.S.; but they make an

exception

Éo the se

twooand 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 Ginal

staff, and this lad who was

tall and blond--

a Nordic. type, if you will-would go in, and

the small brown Indonesians wou d

and their

I miss marcome him like, a ling Last odor.

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:

Nso later, when the soviets start moving in

SAME [surface-to-air misslel missile 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 it?

---

## Page 28

0 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-27-

I suggested that we get the Staten Defense

sponsorship and send this one fellow who

wase

a lieutenant-colonel over and just let him

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

talk to his old friends, and they'd probably

tell him what the Soviets were up to. He

arrived thered the Indonesian general gtars

took him out and showed him these stents and.

asked him what he thought of them and so on

the first day he was there.

That night he

got back, and, 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

[Howärd P.]

Now, this was, Jones?

That

was Jones, yeso

=I And he said, "well,

let me put that in the

messaged" So I just

adked the Department of State, to please lot

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

we do."

So they told Jones

njust to sit back

---

## Page 29

O 'BRIEN:

LANS DALE:

0' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-28-

and let him do that.

We have some wonderful Americans, and this

was what I was trying to ao? was to

find out

which Americans have not only our interests

at heart but were enough interested in foreign

mise to be i"" lu understand and have

really would be serving the best

interests of other countries in things. I!a

far rather see one man get in on something

Iike that than send a whole team in with all

sorts of things.

and sort of aggravate a

natter

situation, than do something rather simple.

Almost

sensitivity training . . o

Frapali Incidentally, along these lines,

I've got a good story for your account.

Great.

About the time of the Cuban Missilo frisis,

McNamara came back from a meeting at the

White House one day and asked me to provido

the means for President Kennedy to talk to

the cuban people on Ial? How the hell did I

know how to do that? He told me that he

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

how how you intrude on a fla station!

broadcasting and get the people in the

country to gó immediatelyito their TaVa 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 in

' a real crash basis. CIA couldn't

give me details, en

technical details-

-on any

of the Isla

stations in Havannah and elsewhere.

•Hone of the Defense civilian scientists--and I

I was are

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

thore. 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 meeting, wnt 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

Line dope, and

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

we got the information for it.

The intrusion

of the I'VI space never took place, but we

got the means together and some airborne IlvI

transmitters. It was

developed finally by the

that it lie

Mary, and the project -I asked st 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

Itv broadcasts in Vietnam, this Navy equip-

ment that

was initially intended to let

President Kennedy talk to the Cubans, was the

sin'la, I guses that was,

broadcast equipment that was used from the

air--flying in the

Love

aircraft--in Saigon, downe

to initiate Ilv broadcast 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

rinding a way of getting people, that do that.

---

## Page 32

-31-

O 'BRIEN:

LANS DALE:

0' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

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

filties

Corps in the late 50's, 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

principfor

proponents of this, outside of yourself'? pDo

you have any conversations, say, with Bobby--

well, you don't really see Bobby üntil 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

had

I've given on the subject,

Batt

who had

passed those to him and who had talked to

him about it;

I just don't know.

•O 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 thingo

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, laylor's

role in this whole thing.

He is opposedo

LANSDALS: Well, he was the one that, in the very early

LANSDALE:

---

## Page 34

- 33-

formation of the Special Forces in the Army.--

he was Chief of staff of the Army at the time,-

arld 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

green berets, and he

really

out ot

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

was onLy a wartime outfit-

-that somebody

would have to go and jump in

and work with

guerrillas. "

Again, this is a rivalry type of

a thing, so there wouldn't be another oss loffice

ol Strategic Services) -there Ge a CIA or

sonething doing it, but this, afterall, is part

of the modern military function, so let's make

it military.

So he went that far on the thing.

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 forced

So well why not have

somebody in working and fomenting trouble

back there for the enemy. but connected with

>Ф

the forces.

-Tuy yow the concept of people's war-

relate pushedi, do ve seen the in vietnami

and elsewhere!

Really wasn't something that

he or others understood at all, that almost

would tie

all of us

speak see guerril-ta or counter-guer-

rilla, and that people like special forces

might well, having learned guerilla operations.

would then be qualified to start coping with

them!

and

would understand the importance of

political basis for operations and political.

goals and behavior and the psychological part

of the operations @

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;

^

-again with Taylor as the ambassador, but

---

## Page 36

-35-

having quite a bit of an advisory role with

¡it military connandezs out there, and influence

and were

with them,

was fighting another Korea in Vietnam

more or less. There

is some changes in tasties)

but, was more use of helicopters just

for verti-

cal envelopment esthere then just instead of

start

moving guys along the ground to with the thing.

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

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

for you, argood-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

-36-

do something about all along.

understood what it was?

I've never

I've always

felt that I was too inarticulate of 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 leaders|with some understanding of

some-

[Vo Ngayent

thing that Mao fIse<tung) and,Giap and others

have gotten every page down -through the rank

and

file to understand.

O BRIEN:

[counterinsurgency?

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

designed; as I understand it, primarily as

kind of educational group for top level admin-

istration people--when do you first come into

that group?

LANSDALE: 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:

This is Mongoose, isn't it?

LANSDALE:

Yes.

This was a national 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 advisor and Taylor sat

in on those meetings after he got his cI

group going. But ? in forming the CI group

initially, 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-

and put together some rough first papers

O 'BRIEN:

for Taylor to start his thinking for the

president. Then when Taylor

Then when Taylor formed his group,

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

Sure.

-:

got any insight...

•niü 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.

LANSDALE: Yes, yes.

O'BRIEN: Did you get involved in the planning of that

at all.or any of the fallout of that?

LANSDALE: Just peripherally on both. I forget the details

on that. I had been worrying about places like

colúmbia 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 ta had

encouraged that the colambians

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

foI,

and individuals in these countries they might

O'BRIEN:

talk to to get information on what was happening.

well, arelyou in colambia in the Kennedy

administration at all as . ...

LANSDALE:

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

the during 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 the that told me

the decision had bean isede...

BEGIN SIDE II TAPE I

Outside of Venezuela,

O BRIEN:

Did you get to any other countres?

---

## Page 41

-40-

LANSDALE: Well, 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

aTlien,

them A fhile I was in Bolivia, I gotinvolved

with the resettlement of indians from the

Altiplano over onto the eastern slopes into

some new conmunities, 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 poople going in. But? this was a very

exciting, agricultural-community-typo of a

project of moving people out where they'd have

an oconomic chance at lifed and also a chance

to own land. It was changing the social

---

## Page 42

.! :

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

- 41-

vEry

structure .considersbly 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

Venezuela which are not only oil production,

but we fave steel mills down there and a

number of thing?

_but I did this as much for

the Venezuglan 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

a lot of this gillito gospol 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.neros.that

of genosent lectures, I had written on these

subjects. Whion they set up the school, I

talked with them on the program of instruction

that they were going to give give. The first

adoption of any of these principles was in

---

## Page 43

O'BRIEN:

LANS DALE:

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

• O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-42-

Guatemala;and it worked very well there for

&

time. The Latin Americans 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 said, 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 Columbia.

Yes, he was in Colambia.

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

that was ambassador.

he was from Arizona and was a journalist.

Not CHizuric M.] Beinbaum, LANS DALE: No.

Well, how is he to deal

with, and do you got

a chance to see (Romulo] Betancourt or any

of the political leaders?

Jos, I saw political leadors there.. I had

five days in Venezuela, and I think I got

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

[C. Allan Stew.eit]

found our ambassador there,at the time very

and very good to wink with o

open-minded,

I wrote a report, coming back

---

## Page 44

-43-

from Venezuela asterward, and submitted itor

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 thesed "you don't

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

come out with a report on Venezuala, and hero

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 ho

found out that much, and the recommendations

are sound, and we'd discussed this before he

Loft, and we're working with thom alroady.".

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

For example, we had a portly largo American

community down there who themselves were

practically goverment 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

md

I had urged that they meet maybe once a week

K2Y

or once a month--the

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

staffs?.

Iney were very close to the police

type of forces, the constabulary down there,

and that the embassy would be very well informod

From this, as well as passing some as ints

information back to these people, and everybods

would gain by it.

Well, this doesn't take

very long to. .

In talking to the vice

president

inch ca

Steel operations down there,

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

had the power--what would it be?" and hora

tell you something like this, yoinow, sof

Wn, It was rather easy to come up with this that

thing..

Did you find them fairly Inowledgeable and

enlightened about some of the things that you

were very

---

## Page 46

-45-

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

Very much so, very much sop

Like rural economic development/ and agricul-

Tural developmento -

Particularly, the oil companies, and I was

surprised. Standard (Oil Company]of Haw Jerser]

showed me what it was doing because the rigs

out in Lake Maracaibo were getting blown up?

and their pipelines were getting blown up a

by saboteurs coming in who were really export.

I found out later that they were affiliated

with communists in colámbia and had come on

over they were really exports 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

o They

type of a thing for employees, that started

credit systems with farm groups and housing

• of their

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'd chew the wire-in-two

here:

0 'BRIEN: -

- Oh my God.

-It!s a wonder-he-hasn't electri

cuted himself? (laughter)-

LANSDALE :

_ 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'

not sure about yours.

LANSDALE: Worse than rats.

OHBRIEN:

-Well, he's a-spirited animal and he can't

LERSDALE

help-admiring that.

-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 littlo side pioco that I.

did on a village in South Vietnam inhabited

by some Chinese refugees that President

*gu Dinh Diem had located down in the midst

of a communist-held territory, and I was very

---

## Page 48

-47-

Impressed by than and

just as an examplo 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 inaugura,

my telephone in the Pentagon rangrand this

voice that sounded like Pissight Kennedy'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 Tenc

Post.

I was wondering which joker in the

Pentagon you kno, was imitating this

Harvard, Massachusetts accent and was putting

me on, and I said, "yos, yos, jes." I then

had my secretary check over at the White

Housel and sure enough, it had been President

sonnady, so I had to then do ahead t'a

pront sed to do it, end Eiguring 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,

of course,

you'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

• pripose 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

По-=

to me would 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

was to help the people in the countries to

help themselves rather than, go in and do

things for them. It was mostly on the nuts

and bolts, on hou sou go about doing this, rad

the individuals you'a 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 1961. How do you respond to some

of these people who are in policy-making:

positions at that time? I'd like to get

your feeling for them!

-people like (Walthers,

Robertson, in the state department opto

Robention and (J. Grahan) Parsons, John Irvin

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

Like Desmond Fitzgerald. How do they see . ..o

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

enough jears so that we more or less under-

stood each other and could take shortcuts in.

Conversay a tall on. All of those, you

named.1 and talked with me expressed

similar bolief 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 . . . ol Interruption]

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

aid that's

going in there that-it

really

does in some ways tear up the economy of the.

country. Now, how do you look on the training

of the Laotian army in late 1960--

016'59, 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 thingyou

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

"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

7: s

-51-

self-preservation type of an impulse on their

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

then 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 agricultured even the

administrative structure that usually comes

under a

department of ministry of the Interior

won't really have the manpower, the communi-

cations, and so forth, that the military forces

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 mon as the They first requisito of

this, but, given t fat there's still enorgr

and personnel involved in that who have a lot

of man-hours loft over that could do other

thingso and essentially; 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

working on these things, to themselves. become

interested in the military doing such things,

and aiding and abetting, including economica

projects and educational work and so on.

Well, in this Laotian deterioration that takes

place, you then the competing people there--

Phoumi Fongoleniti and Souvannal Phouma and

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

to the administration coming in? Do you?

How do you see phoumi; how do you see

Souvannah Phouma, as people? First of all;

have you met them at any time?

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

I'a met them at.

usually at formal gatherings

of one kind or another. The mein thing that

I saw in Laos in the way of political stability

actually stemmed out of the king of taasiothis.

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 already 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 pasta 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

are, but this, I think; is a little too forcigu to our natureo

end went so foren love with the factions and.

peoples..

almost: unconscious of the fact that

we were aoing that. The paratroop leader

there

O'BRIEN:

Kong Le?

LANSDALE:

..Yes, toahy who kicked over a revolt, had spent the

night before his coup with a group of American

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

that new that he was going to have a coup in

the morning. 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

nough to have said, "Woll, aren't you feeling

well for pomething, goidno, and had gotten

some

• feeling on it. But? this sort of gotting

in bed with people socially and saying, He's

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 offorts that

aro there; otherhorès, 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 got

that feeling? Maybe in regard

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 Pontagon in the secretary of

Dalenges office, and there were a mob of

people there -e

• There were,

--I can't.

quite focall now what prompted the meeting?

"thoro was a crisis of some sort in Iaos..

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

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 5o Chi Minh trail,

and this great discovery was being lectured

on at this meeting.

Ane

et the time, the

Secretary of pefense--1

think, I wonder,

that might have been (Thomas,.

Gates tjal at

the time,

Emight 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 JCS 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 whole on home leave here?

he doesn't belong here;the belongs out in

Vientiana right this momento end the rest of

---

## Page 57

-56-

O'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 to an mi

I remember Irwin

was picked

right on the spot to go immediately, and, Said

to me on the side, "You and your big mouth,"

rousknow"' (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

the

Meos,g the guerrilla forces.

Woll, how did you see in terms of a strategy

for the area?

Thorots-an as I road it, there

that are

seems to be some various strategies proposed:

one 19 a,-you kness 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 yowow, rings

---

## Page 58

-57-

a bell.

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

my memory isn't too

good on this thing. There was some talk

at the time,

I there's high country across

the Bolovens 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 even, as

understand it, to Hanoi, as early

and

interdictings

as that,

failiating some of the supply lines, as

well as the

suggestion that subsequently in

1962 does become a reality the dropping

of the

SEATO Isoutheast Asia Treaty Organization.

vas calledé

plan five, as I understand its How did you

Lool about the Laotian crisis at that point,

in terms of

a strategy or a direction twhich

should work?

---

## Page 59

-58-

LANSDALE:

Well, I had wanted the Laotians to defend

owne

their, country, and I was all for the work

with the Mates and so on of doing it.

Once it left that and started involving

Vietnamese or us, on bombing or anything

else, I felt that the cost of saving some

real estate would be too high to ever engage

and other worko

in, and on the bombing, I felt that as long

11EIe0 Of

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 serial 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, an

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

weres

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, of do you?

Oh, yos. The passes and the HoChi Minh trail

in bringing things down was one of the key

things on this. But again, there was even

talk at the time of taking Vietnamese troops

to try and stop that, and I was opposed to

that loI didn't want to see intervention like

that from the outside.

---

## Page 61

- 60-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

Well, when does some of the

covert activity,

interns of the use of some of the Mintaguards.

Jards-in interdicting those supply lines in

Laos -you kiron, from Vietnam, start? Is that

going on in the late Eiserhower 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 219557-156 aI

remember President Dion's brother, wert-do

his older brother, went into Laos fa 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 aiin to the mountain people of

Vietnam,

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

mountain people in with them, and together

they could be trained.

Yes, well, Jou're in Vietnam in the midale

'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 or a noncommunist.

opposition to then in political termso of There wire

professionally some among the military that.

was taking the Vietnamese nilitary apart from

their people more than it had been when I had

left, because I had gotten them working very

the piple on

closely with

a number of prese

or projectso

and a growing isolation of the American

embassy in particular, 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-he-l-ls-

the word-tim-trying to think-of-de misdeeds

---

## Page 63

Ti!'

- 62-

Vietiamese

and so forth by, public officials or

people connected with the regime in Vietnamo

So that the information gathering process

of the United States there was devoting an

exorbitant amount of time on sort of nitpicking

In

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

malfésance 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 don't have all the facts,

and the ambass-

1) i:

ador would say,

ies, I do; too.

This to me

was

very poor.

I felt that we had some

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?" rather

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 welly

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

intelligence people, whone in dung 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

actionsoard he, in turn, was getzing too much

---

## Page 65

-64-

secondhand from people, and this tended to

isolate him more,

since his main intelli-.

gence officer was his brother, INgo Dinhl Naly

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,

ne 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 or where I was, but just the

mere fact that you know that shows that you

were having me trailed aroundgand 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 desired ard if you a spend your time

and money and efforts and so forth watching

---

## Page 66

-65-

• 0 BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

stit

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 listen atta

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 [Nguyen Ngoc) Tho,

and Tho immediately started telling me that

the president had spies all over"his office

and in his

staff and

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; (igo Dinh) Miu,

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

arawat 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 desirey and

if you a spend your time

and money and efforts and so forth watching

---

## Page 68

-65-

O BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

72'3

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 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 (Nguyen NgOC] Thor

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 tear

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-

WEr.T.

been monthso so I, back to Diem and I jumped

himo

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 tell me when, tail? done.

it Lastoso I said,"

Well, pick up the telephone

and call him over here your first free time,

^

and you sit down and have a long talk with

him'".

so he did ito He picked up the phone,

and I got the two of them together againo

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,

11

then,

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

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.

are

people who, in the opposition to you, but I

wnether

2ver

^

don't know ja you vengotten 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 one

an independent bureaucracy..or is

degree of

U.s. influence

on, let's say, the

Nhu

intelligence

, knew.

There was probably some.

.. 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 hu 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

-бі-

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 1f

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 ing and

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 personnel

dossier type of file place.

Well, you're critical of the MAAG [Military

Assistance Advisory Groupl operation there.

fittis?

What's wrong with it, in the late

Well. I felt that MAG under "hanging" Săn

fittin

(Samuel T.) Williams in the late

*50's was

---

## Page 72

- 69-

anunusually 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 bronght over the

chief of staff of the Vietnamese army

whenever the American advisors, who at that

time were out in the countryside, but tele

& at fairly high Leveis, and were running

training camps more than advising on opera-

tions or 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.

names and

when they were told. He would leave out

on, but he would tell these Americans what

---

## Page 73

O'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 thems 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 be o

• because even though it was tough diplo

matically, the most sordid truth, wota

- the

hardest fact, would come out in thee

And then Williams himself had been in

Vietnam a long enough time by then--I forget

how 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 made

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 him and l'a 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

foreighout,

advisory effort

toä, I just figured that this

constant feeding and contact with the echelons

of Vietnamese military that were down below.

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 ong.

aita they were doing this out of a friendship,

---

## Page 75

O'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-72-

and he

Sas not to tell on their bosses or

anything, but usually personal worries and

concern that wastare of something going

wrong would effect them. Later they moved

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

parkins, and. • o

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

there before that, doesn't he?

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

It was before Harkins. McGarI. And MeGarr

built. up a staff to work on counter insurgency

and probably put together the best staff

tint

studies on counter-insurgency phan 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

on, and in europe, and switched most of his

work over into compiling "How to Do it"

manuals, but I've never seen the finished

---

## Page 76

ф..?

-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 was apparently,-

to start increasing staff and American military

personnel to handle whatever kiateter was

coming up out of this whole process.

The

feeling was was

that there should be closer

American supervision of what was happening

units,

out in Eunice,

which meant pukht you'd put

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 fields of studyoard this bead led

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,

look,

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 war

a very human. thing that started working ane

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 midale fifties sols and when you go

back in -

Pa 19.60?

operations

oh, there were guerrillaby 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 the

what you'd expect in any country, crime rate

going 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

fiftiang

later in the

Sol, there were areas of

guerrilla bands at work, with roads that were

unsafe and so on, in int

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.'

i I By the end of '60--when I got

ats

there

Christmas of '60--there were fair-

size

enemy, Vietcong units operating and

dominating areasty 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? aboutsit?

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 wabout

forty thousan

170.000 or something : .

Forty thousand. That many?

Yes.

These were officials not their families

or anything. But these were village officials?

and district officials and sort of federal

government officials.

weld, what tea bit sef happening as a result of this

in. terms

of Diem to just simply govern in those

years?

the value to govern deteriorating?

---

## Page 80

- 77-

LANSDALE:

Yes: In some ways it was. Initiallyhe

was unwilling to delegate any authority

at all "and ine

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 go 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, de, 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

T2'7

-78-

they were very much aware of plain clothes

policemen, secret service types, all

around

him, and others; that were screening out

peoples go 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 had 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

just

even if it started at opposite poles andled

to tremendous emotional clashesotat 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

daten ng the most emotional eritations

out sif

that would take place, just how the people

seened polite at the time so the content

would thie

of what they, had to say would be something

that he: wasn't gettingelsewise.

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

Congl 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..

• Q

Yes, yes.

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

for this sort of thing at tist paint?

he land

Yes. Actually, weiravé some very sound lanà

---

## Page 83

-80-

reform measures on the books and had issued

decrees.on them that were good. As usual.

the ditticulty de, 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 workew that diem approved and used

as the basis for his escrees came from wolf Laddejinstys

and Wolf, was,

when he left U.s. employment,

was actually employed by Diem

as his advisor on

that 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.

HAnd 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

of 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

operatingoor when he circumvented it, he

was doing it for _ 900d reasons of his own,

which was again open to education by somebody

of him 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 onbecause 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.

sol he

sort of

was

only circumventing the lawnfor the

greater good, in his own mind.

17

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

Indejinsky and Dien. I know there was

something of that nature,

but

what

it

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

remember that the American ambassador

Theo

aIt, would have been [Elbridge] Durbrow?

... Durbrow-

was mindful of the fact that

Indejansky was laving breakfast with Diem

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

had askid 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

I dejinsky had started getting very political

in his talk,as a result of this, with Diem,

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,

Ibdejinsky had wanted to go someplace,

-ana

•I forget where it was. ..

• I know

one

of the places was Indonesia, but there was

another courtzy he wanted to go to, and Diem

hadn't wanted him to go and

heisuggested

that he attend a conference--I think in

Latin

Americanad finally, they had agreed

between the two of them, and ladejinsky had

I te had

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 Iddejinsky is very sentimental about

---

## Page 87

O 'BRIEN:

-84-

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

cated this vely 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

guy, and

a,want to help him, and so ong and

this existed between the two. sof 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

Retirit the suggestion sis made sometimes is

that the vietnamese military hag not been.

trained for the kind of war and the kind

of insurgency that they did encounter in

1960-61/-they had not been property trained

for that before..

Is there any validity

in this at all?

---

## Page 88

-85-

LANSDALE:

They were being trained actually to

meet the challenge that the Vietnamese and

American top officials foresaw, and they were

thinking that 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, bofss 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 happen. " Instead of

this, of course, it was more of the same old

story again at there were many of the officers

In the Vietnamese armed forces who had formerly

been guerrillas themselves, who had formerly

Minh g

had been Viét men

in the old days of fighting

the French, who had broken with the communists

and wanted no part of the Cormunists and were

very sincera, patriotic pationalists. But

---

## Page 89

- 7-

since they had had t?

this former affiliation

and had taken their basic military training

with the eneny, so to speak, they never quite

had the same stature among their fellow

orricers in the vietnamese army, for example,

as graduates of the Vietnamese Military

Academy and the others coming right out of

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

'officers corps who were Inowledgeable abo

of how to counter what was happening were kept

Fittia

at fairly junior grades, and in the late

1504

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 typo 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

more

threat.

was thought

«to be a police problem than a

army problem, and there was a lot of work

---

## Page 90

-87-

on trying to equis 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 Burringhan, Alabera)

or something, and nove him'out to en Asian

country where his problem is!: jhat do you do

when a company of guerrillas comes in end

ambushes youripolice station? A completely

foreign type of a thingo so that we had

police advisors phet were insisting on all

policemen being anged with nothing more

than, say la 38-caliber revolver, with the

policemen saying, "roat., 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 sone--we

need tore 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 bnew 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

people, like Fitzgerald, and Irwin,

and Parsons--

Do they conceive of the dine of insurgency t

+ that poir

that's developing in South Vietnam,

or are

they .:.o

Fairly well. Feirly 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 renerked earlier, these were personal

---

## Page 92

-89-

LANG

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

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 ong and even that was

rare enough so that I felt that

[Interruption)

How long is the manuscript?

to no. I went through firstatic publishers

wanted me 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 afreely long

books, and since I was writing one not too

long book, why I wound up with a tremendously

trem

long manuscript.

nurged then, that I could

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

to..

I a,started off initially with a

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

do that and retain the proper narrative and

sourios on she things but 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!'Il be

a fair-size book even so.

O 'BRIEN:

Wart 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 selly 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 ee provocateurs at the time,

and they are more or less justifying what

they dial

and leaving out important parts of

it.

O 'BRIEN:

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]? =

LANS DALE:

Kost, 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:

LANS DALE:

official documents of the French, trying

to explain him end so on; by friends, I found

vory interesting end I had no way of judgine

really on it there was a tremendous sympathy

end so forth being erpressed, and then a very

strong attempt to work out an accomodation

with him afterwards, with hit, by the French.

And again, a highly emotional sensitivity to

eng interference, is what they were trying to

do, and they saw almost anything as interference.

A sof what is written by them, I read mindful

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 et Loast aha it was just amazing.

The French press was screaming that I was

starting World War III in Vietnam in '55..

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

on tapo, I'm sorrTO 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 French presence theregu

---

## Page 95

Fie:

- 92-

and it's a human, understandable type of a

thing. They had been there and associated

there, and some of them had spent their entire

Lives there, and hore they were having to

give up something,ad"s

"Swiss journalist once

explained. it to me: It was like a man giving

up his mistress and seeing some

big guy in a

big car driving by in the streetgand even

though he'd given his up, he'd just say, well,

he hates that guy dcause 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. f so

some of this feeling was very prevalent thereo

and for

some reason.or other, I happened to

suddenly bocome the focal point of it, through

my name or something, bother so that they

went to great. leninds of charging me with all

sorts of things that I was doing: I was out

sect forces

buring up the loyalties of set boansas with?

millions of dollars, and things that would bel

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

not to say, "Iook, I didn't have a million

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

---

## 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 their|talk

and say,

Well, that just isn't so.

Except

once in a while they'd get really wild and

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

for example, with french officers telling

apart how

some faerican visitors from Washington, e

at that very moment I was

trying to buy off

sect leader, and very naively, with a

suitcase full of monerora I didn't now

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 briefinglyI want to know whether the

" It was

guy killed me or not. afrazy. Now these

that way'

tarkins

were very responsible French officials and

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

of some of these things never stopped the damn

circulation of these stories. I don't know

how you ever stop that stuff.

Ken, well how about poople like Bernard Fall,

and Patty Hung and their writings? Are they • ..

[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.

sire, their different countries. Fall's initial

writings were all out of a French army historical.

sectio and I bad to tell hima one time I'd read

some of his work originally by the original

author. But! it was a detailed military

history of operations that he'd delved intoo

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

plagaris on his part. He was probably rushing

through, getting a book published for acaderic

credits and so on. And Honey!

the same way

with British intelligence, who were quite

active in Indochina during the French days.

and everything

Eut It wast some of the stories and happoninge a

were just nimost incredible. The.

Some

of the French journalists were politically

partisan. They had connections, with the

Communist 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

svery paternalistic feeling of e

"Wo11, these are our people, these vietnamese

ox, thiner

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 frenon anya 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 [Noro dom ]

Sihanoukoand the next thing I knew, Sihanouk

was accusing me of plotting to murder him or

assussinato him a I hadn't denseen near

Cambodia, and I hadn't, thought of Sihenouk

when this happened. The governor of Siem Reaph

who had been very close to Sihanouk before--

and Siem Reap is where Angkor Wak and the

historical ruins are--suddenly died, and the

story started seaping out a little bit with

Sihanouk charging that this governor, whose

---

## Page 99

- 96-

name was Das Chhu"", and I were in a conspiraci

to murder him and take over the government of

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

never net?: Chhwind never had any dealings

with him, and Cambodia was way outside my

bailiwicko 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? gome involvement of CIA: .

Do Chhuen?Yeso

LANS DALE:

1to2h

Well, he 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 chiei 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 people.. How far he got, I don't

knowo but this was really something. that

was foreign to me at

the time. f

I got sent

back into Cambodia afterwards, from Washington,

with

various military assistance groups for

economic groups

e] presidential commissions!

---

## Page 100

-97-

and so ono airà

each time they'a have Pnohm

just

Wali, Jig hod

Ponh on the thing, I'dnsay, "

"Wend better

check the embassy there." Back would come

word that! No, sihenouk was afraid that if

I were a member of the party, I would be

9

going in to murder him.

I actually went in

one time; and the chief of police of prohm

Penh net our party--along 'with the foreign

minister and so on--at plan sidi

when we came

downg and the Chief of Police walked right

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

man fromnowno! and I said, "You're keeping

an eye on me, I know it's allright. I'm

not going to murder your boss; I have no

idea of doing that." (Laughter) That is

strange. " And then Sihanouk made a movie--

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

finander of Royal Naval Intelligence Jolling

great American spy, who happened to have

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

mans who was visiting thered and I was out to

overthrow the kingdom but, of course, our bor

hero thwarted the ugly american and won the

girl, wo was the daughter of the Brazilian

---

## Page 101

-98-

0' BRIEN:

fli?

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

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

sounds great and.. ... (Laughter]

Yeah,

I hadn't heard about that. Well, that

does hit on something, though, in regard to

Southeast Asia. : As I understand, in that

Dap Chhuincident, that there was an Agency

involvement

t with him, through a guy by the

name of.

fais"', and the Agency does seen

to have

a kind of free hand in some of these

PisIoN

southeast, nations ald

I'm thinking of the

LALIEN L.J

1Pope situation in Indonesia as well. Can you

brakes

see any breaks put on them as a result of

the change of administrations? now 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. a11l

jand certainly a ühing with DiP "huor

wider,

and also the Pope thing are only, taken by the

Agency after approval up at topsided so as far

---

## Page 102

-99-

as bistes are concerned, they've 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

this much. depends ola the individuals; the

ambassador, and the station chief, and how

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

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

proposition. We have ambassadors who don't

want to know or fed are opposed all such thinky

and if an order comes down to do it, they vory

unwillingly tell the guy to go ahead, but

watch it now, not too far.

AA station chief,

then, with orders to do some things, will have

told the ambassador he jerilt going to, thise but

getting

he starts, in things, and he figures, that if 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

To donE something end, on

---

## Page 103

• 0'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN:

-100-

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 thistars 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.

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

you're there in the middle fifties as well

as when you go back in 150, 161, and later

involvement in Vietnam--do you find differences

between the embassies between the U.S. ambassy

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

involved with Cambodian relations

dur 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

LANSDALE:

-101-

on, joe Ith the souls vietnamese and tiro

Tai were playing around with groups inside

Cambodia, or with exilo groups that wanted

to go back in Cambodia; and so ong and I'm

not certain that the Americans from either

Thailend 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

¿do in and take over and run

Cambodia I the mails or the south vietnamese?

it's about a toss up which one,

down more

on the Khmers than the other. "And Diem

used to follow the predictions of the royal

fortune-teller in. Phobr Penh to Sihanouk.

Apparently, they were spending a lot of

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

---

## Page 105

-102-

O 'BRIEN:

Hi..

LANSDALE:

happened in each otherssessions and what

he was

telling the guy. Then how useful

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

Well, do you find!?

-again, in passing on to

the

task forcef and 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? :

only partially. They were as bemused by

the mechanics of getting decisions in Washing-

ton asthey were with the problem that they wore:

employing the mechanics

to solve. It was all

sort of new to them, and they wanted to do

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

principis in the administration were not

entirely aware of thespeople they were dealing

with in Washington. I recall, at the time, seiv surprises

I rusk was violently opposed in the department

---

## Page 106

-103-

over

where he was by some peopleg 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,vase

among his comrades, just,

in the entr stupid jerk, "

end 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, agaiast some of the

military against McNamara, for example.

Well, the McNamara, and the Rusk, and their

unders, and deput

it, winse on,

types of people, and

assistant

secretaries, were trying to cope with

instinctin ly

people that they, felt were instractivalrie

opposing and foot-dragging and so on, and

trying to get that workings? that to get

them working on a given problem was really

the thing that they were concerned withy end

4 you'd sudderly say,

"Well, we're going

to

talk about Laos,

or Vietnamy or Israel

or

somethings yes, jos, Yes. what have you got

in

to paper?"

¿you knowe

I And they were

---

## Page 107

-104-

watching, 300) "io12, a is ye real

done

this homework"

"Is he gomi to

and-is-it-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! -

Gi patric, I know, was shocked at the reactions

of some of the foreign service people that

came in at

Frank of ambassador and so on, that

were

sort of the staff assistants on the

assistant secretary and undersecretary level.

at nighto

Thoy would start a meeting; in laot,

asked to be sort of

-I forget what the title

was!-executive officer of something of it, 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?

O'BRIEN: Yeen Yes

LANSDALE: I think it shocked some of the Kennedy

administration people. It suddenly revealed a

---

## Page 108

-105-

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

personally didn't care that mich, you knowle

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

your system now? Let's go on with the

meeting." see."' This, of course, would activate

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

do have some problems here we've got to get

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

and ke-den have lunch or something, 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 somebody would.

tell me afterwards, "Do you think we better

take you off?" "Well, Jeah.

If it's going

I get

sitect, the work done, it's better to

take

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

chair something under conditions like this,"

O'BRIEN:

Ich were you ever approached with the job

as ambassador to Vietnam?

Yes. des.

LANSDALE: Yeah: Yeahr.

O'BRIEN: Who was pushing that?

---

## Page 109

-106-

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 White

House and meet bin there, and I thought it

was to brief him on something. And I was

working ön a number of intelligence matters

in Defense at the times end 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 he looked at me, and he said, "Did Dean

(Rusk! told you, I want you to be ambassador

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

that." Well, he hadn't at alle aid there was

ted, maybe he's asking me 1I I want to be, or

would I accept the job.

So I finally said,

"well, it would be a great honor," and that was

the Îast I ever heard of it. But, I heard

ans minal a

all sorts of rumors that tez ass for

Washingtong and dirt afterwards that Dean Rust

---

## Page 110

-107-

0 ' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

was very much opposed to it, and opposed on

the ground that I was a military man and they

didn'twant military people in on the situation.

Leah. Yaso. .

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

officers at the time, and he was telling me

that Rusk was figuring, ex' he could get

me a job some other place or a promotion or

something to get me out of the way at the time

sort of

I apparently? had becomena target for a lot of

gossle and rumozanal the time. "But after that?

then, they asked me--Kennedy asked me pretty

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 mandy

his judgo-

ment's impaired by his physical conditionsolo's

a fino professional foreign service officer. and

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

an Voter anymore, Fa"s 32028, ho's on his

back a lot of the time, and you need someone

very alert, we tass whoever it iso and pull bin

---

## Page 111

-108-

0 ' BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

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

know

""You're off your subject, boy." But I

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

and I like the guyo aíd I saw a lot of him

when I was in Vietnen on this brief visite and

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

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

Tand Durby lover forgave me for is it got

right back to him that I had sacked him and

so on licause ho was withdrawn after that but

this certainly didn't hurt his career at a11,

in any way, sit even though state put him on

a make-work job aîter thate but he held the

rank of ambassador wich is as high as you

can get in the foreign service. And he was

¡1l6, ho really was.

Well, how does (Frederick E.I Nolting come into

this

Well, Nolting came in, as-tili, apparently, as the

foreien gervices rebuttal to my going on out of then o

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 heve heard from

---

## Page 112

- 109-

other foreign service officers who respect

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

a meeting was arranged with Nolting, and

I liked him very much when I talked with, himg

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

Kennedy end 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,

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 Communist political leaders of some

sort; working the other side. And of course,

you aren't in that position, but allegedly

you arenat you're going to have people running.

ciraos around you, i, soulmor it and couldn't

lift a little finger to stop them. And

this

---

## Page 113

-110-

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?

LANSDALE: I think so. There were a number of attempts

by the Vietnamese themselves, and unfortunately,

л.

some of them werecouched in terms of wanting

me to come out as ambassador, by the Vietnameseo

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

third hando and one vine apparently president

Kennedy had said something to the JCS because

suddenly my relations with the Chiefs went

down to less than zero and sub zerod 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 said,

"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

0 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

-111-

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

that

I was

pushing myself for it.

I said

again, that isn't I'a want to do.

So. this

was about the time that--no, maybe William

Westnorelandl 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

of recormendations 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 sauvy to get into

guide, rather than control or belabor or have

confrontations with the Vietnamese 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

than doing urban police work. In this, I

was begging them to at 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 ans

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

-173-

lasted about ten days, at which point, at

Rusk's insistence, the task force went over

to State and becano a general, regular body

there. They then proceeded to rewrite our

original

instructions and drafts and

everything and both McNamara and Gilpatric

said, coming back iron the white house, "Ed,

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

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

"Well, right for the time being, youlbetter not

go near that group, see " to I actually didat

got in to some of their policy formation, 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 ard

third

echelon type of a thing, pulling back

out of it.

"But initially, I was actually

trying to get a quality U.s. representation

in Vietnam, and actually smaller again than

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

things, and to concentrate on that, and really

dick

---

## Page 117

-114-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

to get the Vietnamese coping with their own

problems more effectively than they were

doing.

YEwa

Well, between this time and the time

of the Taylor-Rostow mission, are you involved

in Vietnam on a kind of regular basis or .

• O

no. Off and on I was, but again with

second-and third-echelon type 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 agein, I was trying to explain

who certain people were that were nemed, their

backgrounds, and their qualities, and certain

events and places, and going to maps with

him and desoribing terrain, and so on añat

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 Burmese on their concopts of defense

of a country, and les they brought me in with

the Israeli who had had a mission helping them

with their defense problems in Burme. And the

Israeli

had then turned around to their defense

---

## Page 118

-115-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

0 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

minister and some of the others, and invited

me to,,look aù tucir 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 or Thursday,

I was asked to go to Vietnam with the other

mission and stufio ca

unfortunately had to

cancel out everything and never got into see

what Ilanted to see there.

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

~ serling e

the seating of the border, then, don't you,

2^

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, "Wat?, you folks?" -

this is flight which started! "Will each

that

of you write down some of the things,you

think we should look into and what you might

like to look into."

So I gave him a list of

about twenty thing?, I'a like to look into a

none of then being this, of course.

---

## Page 119

flig

--116-

I suggested some other subjects for other people

on the thing and gave it to thom,

eat he

called me back, said that it was a very interesting

list a

that I had given him, and would I please work

on building a defense on the border. And I

said, "HeIl what sort of a defense?'

He said,

"Well, a system of fortifications or a wire like

the Iron Curtain in Europe. I said, "Good

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

And he said, "Well, look into it." So that

supposcaly

washall I was supposed to do, and of course,

I got called in on other things immediately.

A 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, why I'Il

do anything I candy you can hit them high, and

I'll hit them low if you want.

We can get

some things done that was '

He said, Well, you

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

attend any of these calls on the President."

I we landed in Sate and and the poople from the

presidench,net uso and 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 better chock with

thing.

non my boss on this."

Taylor was

busy, but I grabbed Rostow who wasn't talking

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

ahead, "' So I said, "ely I wasn't even on

the protocol, and everything. I don't care

about going up to these protocol meetings

anyhowo tits 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 hin, and I had dinner with him. And he

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 1100r next to his uncle the president

who was busily eating dinner you don't point this

m-'I dian't know how big a spring this

---

## Page 121

-118-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

flies

thing had on it, whether it would take his

nead off or not. Eat It nia to

shoot it up into the ventilating fan in the

ceiling. We spent dinner, actually, taking

parachutes and things out of the ventilating

Ians, and the Lid and I were clinbing up

& ladder to get these things out of the thing

in the palace. This was very different from

an official protocol meeting.

X=.5.

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 waen Ilaskel Diem a

question, his brother would answer ito and

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

quostiond; I was asking his brother.

A very

strange relationship at the tined endI

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'& go

on for hours--details on it, which fascinated

---

## Page 122

-119-

me but used to bore other people. But he

did know his country and its history, which

he would give at the drop of a hat.. This

evening in '61, seeing him, ha was very

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

something physical as well as, mental hazard

or something, I felt.

0 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

Aare sovento that Later?

No.

Inere was mentally, people were telling

me that his brother had taken over in the

9 Tust

thc

year followingots-a dominance on thing.

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 'e asperstitious.

_ He

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

---

## Page 123

- 120-

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

O'BRIEN: •

Well, when you ged back, you talk to president

Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, and John Maconey

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

Leaving

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

asked me to stay behind and talk to himo ea

that was when he asked me to perförm 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, cembriefly

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

"Well, do you want, to forget about Vietnam

for the time being,because I haven!t written

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

this other takes priority over it so

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

to the president about the only way to save

Vietnano

---

## Page 124

-121-

LANSDALE:

is with a rather substantial commitment of

U.s. troops.

Is that....0

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

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

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

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

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

asking you a very legitimate question on this

thingy

"ed I said, "Are you ready to await 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 In sure with some of

Tiet.

the Americans befors thats would be my guess

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

do you think of'fe there anythings or

should I ask?" which was sort of like somebody

had recommended this it some point, and I

---

## Page 125

-122-

don't think it would nave been completely in

the Vietnamese context.

O'BRIEN: Yeah, do you get any of this thinking when you

get back? Any contingency planning or thinking

about the building, of 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 anto 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 aã I autonly then just

get

very quick briefings on them, but they were

essentially supporting whatever McNamara and

Gilpatric were doing@ go I'd just have them

go in and report directly and work with tham

directly.

---

## Page 126

O 'BRIEN:

LANSDALE:

2

Bowell.

O'BRIEN:

-123-

Wine unce

Yes'e who were the people, on your staff

at that point?

Well, let's seels one of them was sam wilson,

whose 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 t'ec tine

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

were my two principe ones..

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

covered esca.

- quite a lito

---