Edward Lansdale - Vietnam

Vietnam

Lansdale was a member of General John W. O'Daniel's mission to Indo-China in 1953, acting as an advisor on special counter-guerrilla operations to French forces against the Viet Minh. From 1954-57 he was stationed in Saigon as the head of the Saigon Military Mission (SMM). During this period he was active in the training of the Vietnamese National Army (VNA), organizing the Caodaist militias under Trình Minh Thế in an attempt to bolster the VNA, a propaganda campaign encouraging Vietnam's Catholics to move to the south as part of Operation Passage to Freedom, and spreading claims that North Vietnamese agents were making attacks in South Vietnam. Before the widely discredited 1955 referendum that saw Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm depose head of state Bảo Đại and proclaim himself President of the newly formed Republic of Vietnam, Lansdale advised Diệm, with whom had a close friendship, to not rig the poll and be content with a realistic 60-70% result, advice Diệm did not take. Diệm was credited with 98.2% overall and 133% in Saigon.

Lansdale mentored and trained Phạm Xuân Ẩn, a reporter for Time magazine who was actually a highly placed North Vietnamese spy. In 1961, he helped to publicize the story of Father Nguyen Lac Hoa, the "fighting priest" who had organized a crack militia called the Sea Swallows from his village of anti-communist Chinese Catholic exiles. In 1961, Lansdale recruited John M. Deutch to his first job in government, working as one of Robert McNamara's 'Whiz Kids'. Deutch would go on to be the 17th Director of Central Intelligence.