Edward Lansdale An Air Force officer and CIA operative
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Power_Elite_3.htm
In 1955, U.S. Air Force Col. Edward G. Lansdale, attached to the CIA,
was given a mission: create a pro-American, Saigon-based government
led by someone wholly acceptable to the United States. Cardinal
Spellman, a religious leader in New York, introduced Ngo Dinh Diem to
Allen Dulles, who recommended Diem for the job. Ngo Dinh Diem was an
American-educated Catholic. This was a questionable choice considering
Viet Nam is primarily a Buddhist country. Bao Dai appointed Diem as
his prime minister. Shortly after, playboy Bao Dai who had a penchant
for sports cars, women and gambling went into a permanent exile on the
French Riviera, compliments of the CIA and American tax dollars.24 He
had a 600 ton air conditioned yacht and managed to amass huge sums of
money which he stashed in Swiss bank accounts. Such is the life of
installed, compliant puppet leaders in every country.
Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American
by Cecil B. Currey (Author)
From Publishers Weekly
An Air Force officer and CIA operative, Lansdale devised tactics
against the communist Huks in the Philippines in the early '50s,
masterminded the first free elections there and soon afterward helped
Ngo Dinh Diem form his fledgling government in South Vietnam. So much
for his triumphs, which made him a legend in the Far East. The second
half of this notable biography makes for painful reading, as the
author describes Lansdale's struggles in Saigon to prevent the
disintegration of the fragile nation he helped establish. Convinced
that counterinsurgency must have a social vision as well as military
strength, he urged political-psychological programs as opposed to
search-and-destroy missions and B-52 raids. Currey does an excellent
job of summarizing Lansdale's ideas, arguing that many of them would
have been effective. Lansdale's urgent warnings were virtually ignored
by the U.S. high command, and he closed out his maverick career
collecting soldiers' songs. He died in 1987. Currey wrote Self-
Destruction: The Disintegration of the United States Army During the
Vietnam Era.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to
an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Summary of Lansdale's depositon before Rock Com. from Ford Library -
B. Kelly
LANSDALE, EDWARD G.
Deposition of Edward G. Lansdale, Friday, May 16, 1975
NLF MR Case No. 93-16. Document No. #8
Questioned by Rockefeller Commission counsel David Belin.
Declassified 8/4/94
Lansdale identifies himself as Major General USAF, retired in late
October, 1963. As Dept. Asst. to Sec. of Defense Thomas Gates, in the
Eisenhower administration, Lansdale held the title of Deputy Assistant
to SOD for Special Operations and assisted in the early planning of
what became the Bay of Pigs.
In the Kennedy administration, as Special Operations assistant to
McNamara, Lansdale coordinated counter-insurgency planning and
operations for all the military services.
In the fall of 1961 JFK asked him to look into the Cuban situation,
with the Attorney General Robert Kennedy as the chief intermediary,
although he occasional reported directly to the president. His report,
Lansdale said, is part of JFK's personal papers.
Until the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Lansdale was a member of
the Special Group Augmented, aka MOONGOOSE. Early in 1962, Lansdale
surveyed the refugee organizations primarily in Florida.
Lansdale denied any k knowledge of assassination planning or attempts
to kill Castro.
Lansdale attended an August 10, 1962 meeting at the office of the
Secretary of Defense. A report of this meeting is referred to as Helms
Exhibit No. 17, dated August 13, 1962.
At Lansdale's request, a Colonel Stakeley came in the October 4th
meeting, chaired by RFK, and first reported preparations for missile
sites in Cuba.
In regards to anti-Castro Cuban harassment raids against Cuba,
Lansdale said that they would have been against the President's policy
after October 1962, and that of those individuals he knew who was
working on such operations, a CIA office he referred to as "Mr.
Harvey" would have been the person most likely to have initiated such
raids.
"I remember most clearly from '62 was the fact that it was definitely
against the top executive policy to carry out harassing raids in Cuba,
and I had exacted a promise and had give instructions in writing to
CIA to cease and desist on that, not carry them out...There might have
been individuals there who would inclined to know better than an
outsider, and they might attempt something, but it's just a feeling I
had. I have not been able to pin it down specifically."
Q. With reference to any particular individuals?
A. It might have been Harvey. It might have been such a person.
Q. You mean Harvey might have done something you feel without
direction from above?
A. Possibly so. That is why I gave him directions in writing. It was
just a gut feeling I had dealing with him. With his Deputy, with his
bosses there. I had no such feeling and I just singled out an
individual and I thought, just be doubly sure, I should do that. Now
it might have been a personal attitude of his or something that caused
that and nothing specific in proof of it.
Q. Apart from Mr. Harvey, whom you singled out as an individual, did
you have any other experience which I might indicate that the CIA
would not follow directions to curtail an activity in those
directions.
A. Not really."
Lansdale added that his testimony should be kept secret because his
involvement in Cuban operations should not become known to the
governments in Southeast Asia, and he wanted placed into the record
the fact that he was against massive U.S. military buildup in Vietnam
and advised against it.
---- William Kelly
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Major General Edward Lansdale and the Military
One figure who has come under close scrutiny by some conspiracists is
the late Major General Edward Lansdale, U.S. Air Force. Lansdale is
undoubtedly the unnamed "General Y" in Oliver Stone's movie "JFK."
Lansdale was a special operations officer with links to the CIA. His
professional patron was CIA director Allen Dulles. The character of
the shady political manipulator, Colonel Hillindale, in the famous
novel THE UGLY AMERICAN, was based on Lansdale's activities in the
Philippines in the early 1950s, where his operations reportedly
included torture and political assassination (37:25). In Vietnam,
during the Eisenhower administration, Lansdale managed several
ruthless internal security programs for South Vietnam's corrupt and
oppressive dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem. These programs later developed
into the CIA's infamous Phoenix program, which was responsible for the
execution of over 20,000 Vietnamese and for the death and torture of
countless civilians (37; 43:79-80; 7:40).
It is clear that Lansdale schemed and plotted "to capture the emerging
Vietnam policy apparatus" (42:36), and he was a major player in the
effort to subvert Kennedy's Vietnam policy. Lansdale tried to get
Kennedy to appoint him the new ambassador to Vietnam, but his plan was
foiled when Secretary of State Dean Rusk learned of Lansdale's covert
credentials and shady reputation from the Assistant for Far Eastern
Affairs, J. Graham Powers.
Was Lansdale involved in the plot to kill JFK? Lansdale was surely
angry at Kennedy for refusing to introduce U.S. combat troops into
Vietnam and for balking at further escalation of the conflict. One can
only imagine his reaction when he learned of Kennedy's withdrawal
plan. It was Lansdale who reportedly ordered Colonel L. Fletcher
Prouty, one of Kennedy's strongest military/security supporters, on a
useless two-week trip to the South Pole eleven days before the
assassination, placing him thousands of miles from Dallas on the day
of the murder (43:103). Col. Prouty has identified Lansdale in a
picture taken in Dealey Plaza shortly after the assassination. Prouty
also reports that Lansdale told him he would be in Dallas on November
22.
Was Lansdale the only senior military officer who was possibly
involved in the plot to kill President Kennedy? Sadly, the answer to
this question might very well be no. Several generals were known to
view Kennedy as almost dangerous to the free world. Kennedy's
relations with a number of senior military officers were reportedly
about as bad as his relations were with the CIA. Some senior military
officials attempted to give JFK a misleading, inaccurate picture of
the true state of affairs in Vietnam, as John Newman discusses in his
highly acclaimed book JFK AND VIETNAM.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, one very high-ranking general took
the unbelievably irresponsible step of ordering a missile to be fired,
WITHOUT Kennedy's authorization. The missile was unarmed, but the
launching could have triggered a Soviet response. A recent episode in
the BBC 2 documentary series TIME WATCH detailed how during the '50s
and '60s leading generals were anxious to go to war with the Soviet
Union and wanted to launch a "preventive" nuclear first strike. Even
President Eisenhower distrusted some senior military officers, and at
the end of his second term spoke out against the threat posed by an
unchecked military-industrial complex. There is sworn testimony, from
one of the autopsy doctors, that a senior military officer prevented
him from performing a standard but crucial autopsy procedure during
the autopsy
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/griffith/Suspects.html
Also See:
Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Culture, Polit... by Jonathan Nashel )
In the Midst of Wars: An American's Missio... by Edward G. Lansdale
On Guerrilla Warfare by Mao Tse-tung
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