Late in His Career
From 1965 to 1968 he returned to Vietnam to work in the US Embassy. He retired on November 1, 1963. His memoir, published in 1972, was In the Midst of Wars. His biography, The Unquiet American, was written by Cecil Currey and published in 1988; the title refers to the common, but incorrect belief, that the eponymous character in Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American was based on Lansdale. According to Norman Sherry's authorized biography of Greene The Life of Graham Greene (Penguin, 2004), Lansdale did not officially enter the Vietnam arena until 1954, while Greene wrote his book in 1952 after departing Vietnam. More likely is that he was the inspiration for the character Colonel Hillandale in Eugene Burdick's novel The Ugly American published in 1958. Many of Lansdale's private papers and effects were destroyed in a fire at his McLean home in 1972. In 1981, Lansdale donated most of his remaining papers to Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
Read more about this topic: Edward Lansdale
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