| Author: | Boot, Max, 1968- author. American tragedy in Vietnam / Max Boot. |
| Edition: | First edition. |
| Description: | l, 717 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm |
| LC Call No.: | E840.5.L36B66 2018 |
| Dewey No.: | 959.704/3373092 23 |
| ISBN: | 9780871409416 (hardcover) |
| Notes: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 661-675) and index. |
| Ad man (1908-1945) -- Colonel Landslide (1945-1954) -- Nation builder (1954-1956) -- Washington warrior (1957-1963) -- Bastard child (1964-1968) -- The beaten man (1968-1987). |
| A biography of Edward Lansdale, the CIA operative. Boot chronicles his rise and fall as a proponent of a visionary "hearts and minds" diplomacy in Vietnam who was ultimately overruled by the American military bureaucracy, which favored bombs and troop build-ups over winning the people's trust. |
| Max Boot positions Lansdale against the American twentieth century and evocatively charts Lansdale's itinerant upbringing and his transition from unorthodox California ad man to Army and OSS officer. Leaving behind his wife and two young sons, Lansdale was sent to Manila in 1945. While becoming embroiled in a passionate love affair with the woman who would become his longtime mistress and later wife, he charted a way for the Filipinos to defend themselves against Communist insurgents by promoting Ramon Magsaysay, a charismatic figure who went from being a lowly congressman to the country's greatest president. Lansdale's singular success convinced the Eisenhower administration to send him to South Vietnam after the ignominious French rout at Dien Bien Phu. Assigned the impossible task of protecting the South from Communist encroachment, Lansdale was initially successful, cultivating the friendship of Ngo Dinh Diem, South Vietnam's new president. . |
| "In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale, The Road Not Taken definitively reframes our understanding of the Vietnam War. In this epic biography of Edward Lansdale (1908- 1987), the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greene's The Quiet American, best-selling historian Max Boot demonstrates how Lansdale pioneered a "hearts and minds" diplomacy, first in the Philippines, then in Vietnam. It was a visionary policy that, as Boot reveals, was ultimately crushed by America's giant military bureaucracy, steered by elitist generals and blueblood diplomats who favored troop build-ups and napalm bombs over winning the trust of the people. Through dozens of interviews and access to neverbefore-seen documents--including long-hidden love letters--Boot recasts this cautionary American story, tracing the bold rise and the crashing fall of the roguish "T. E. Lawrence of Asia" from the battle of Dien Bien Phu to the humiliating American evacuation in 1975. Bringing a tragic complexity to this so-called ugly American, Boot's "engrossing biography" (Karl Marlantes) rescues Lansdale from historical ignominy and suggests that Vietnam could have been different had we only listened. With reverberations that continue to play out in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Road Not Taken is a biography of profound historical consequence."-- Provided by publisher. |
| Subjects: | Lansdale, Edward Geary, 1908-1987. |
| United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- Officials and employees -- Biography. |
| United States. Air Force -- Officers -- Biography. |
| Intelligence officers -- United States -- Biography. |
| Generals -- United States -- Biography. |
| Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- United States -- Biography. |
| United States. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Civil Operations and Rural Development Support -- Biography. |
| Vietnam -- Foreign relations -- United States. |
| United States -- Foreign relations -- Vietnam. |
| Americans -- Philippines -- Biography. |
| Vietnam pacification program |
| Biographies. |
