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Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American
Book by Currey, Cecil B.
430 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 16, 2022
An informative and sympathetic biography of Lansdale. Like many authors dealing with similar subjects, Currey notes in the preface that the CIA wasn’t particularly helpful in assisting his research.
Lansdale here comes off as sophisticated and successful, but unfortunate because his views never received enough attention from the foreign policy establishment. Currey describes Lansdale’s successful advertising career, his service in OSS (although the details of this are murky), and his well-known Asian assignments from the State Department and CIA. Currey also covers Lansdale’s idealism and pragmatism as well as as his ineptitude in American politics, his lack of ambition, and the enemies he made among the American government, military and intelligence establishment.
The book is rather uncritical and seems very reliant on Lansdale’s own accounts, and could also have been organized better (the placement of a chapter on Lansdale’s “philosophy” is jarring). The part on Lansdale’s Pentagon stint following Vietnam is mind-numbingly boring. At one point Currey writes that Louis Johnson was secretary of state when OPC was formed. Elsewhere he claims that Reagan ran against Mondale in 1980. CIA officers are sometimes called “agents.” Currey also writes that Lansdale gave Diem the idea for the 1955 referendum. Lansdale did claim credit for this, but contemporary documents show that the US opposed the idea.
Still, a solid and well-written biography.
Lansdale here comes off as sophisticated and successful, but unfortunate because his views never received enough attention from the foreign policy establishment. Currey describes Lansdale’s successful advertising career, his service in OSS (although the details of this are murky), and his well-known Asian assignments from the State Department and CIA. Currey also covers Lansdale’s idealism and pragmatism as well as as his ineptitude in American politics, his lack of ambition, and the enemies he made among the American government, military and intelligence establishment.
The book is rather uncritical and seems very reliant on Lansdale’s own accounts, and could also have been organized better (the placement of a chapter on Lansdale’s “philosophy” is jarring). The part on Lansdale’s Pentagon stint following Vietnam is mind-numbingly boring. At one point Currey writes that Louis Johnson was secretary of state when OPC was formed. Elsewhere he claims that Reagan ran against Mondale in 1980. CIA officers are sometimes called “agents.” Currey also writes that Lansdale gave Diem the idea for the 1955 referendum. Lansdale did claim credit for this, but contemporary documents show that the US opposed the idea.
Still, a solid and well-written biography.
July 26, 2009
Currey is a decent author and a good scholar but this book, perhaps due to the author's access to the subject, seemed like it was holding too much back.
It's a good addition to Lansdale and to his late 60's memoir, but it's obviously deficient both from the release of the JFK assassination archive documents, the relatively public indictment of Lansdale by Oliver Stone, and the rapidly evolving cold war history. Currey wrote this before the avalanche of documents that were determined to reinvent and constantly reexamine Lansdale.
It's important due to his access to the subject before his death in 1987, but still woefully dated.
It's a good addition to Lansdale and to his late 60's memoir, but it's obviously deficient both from the release of the JFK assassination archive documents, the relatively public indictment of Lansdale by Oliver Stone, and the rapidly evolving cold war history. Currey wrote this before the avalanche of documents that were determined to reinvent and constantly reexamine Lansdale.
It's important due to his access to the subject before his death in 1987, but still woefully dated.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews