[1]176-10030-10085 [2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992 |
[2]JFK Assassination System Date: 5/5/2016
[3]Identification Form
[5]Agency Information
[7]AGENCY: NARA
[8]RECORD NUMBER: 176-10030-10085
[10]RECORD SERIES: ORAL HISTORY-INTERVIEWS
[12]AGENCY FILE NUMBER :
[14]Document Information
[16]ORIGINATOR: ‘CITIZEN
[17]_ FROM:
[18]TO:
[20]TITLE: ORAL HISTORY WITH EDWARD LANSDALE BY DENNIS O'BRIEN
[23]PAGES: = 123
[25]SUBJECTS :
[26]. BAY OF PIGS
[28]DOCUMENT TYPE: TRANSCRIPT
[29]CLASSIFICATION: ‘Not Marked
[30]RESTRICTIONS: Open in Full
[31]CURRENT STATUS: —Redact
[32]-DATEOF LASTREVIEW: 06/05/1998 , '
[34](
[35]OPENING CRITERIA :
[37]ce
[39]COMMENTS : Pages 3-21 and 28-34 talk about the Bay of Pigs. Pages 96 and 98 have been sanitized.
[41]O'BRIEN:
[45]LANSDALE: .
[47]Cc
[49]ShNITILED mu 99 4 oo
[51]Oral History Interview
[53]/ with
[54]Died G
[55]TER, Lansdale
[57]July 11, 1976
[58]Alexandria, Virginia
[60]By Dennis J. O'Brien
[62]For the John F. Kennedy Library
[64]I think a logical place to begin in anything _
[66]like this is just.simply with the question,
[68]when did you first meet President Kennedy,
[69]or Senator Kennedy, if you met him before
[70]he was President? .
[72]I don't recall meeting him before, he was
[73]Tv ke yen
[75]Presidentg. The first meeting,was Tebelieve,  —
[77]the first Saturday following the inauguration,
[79]' whatever date that was. I.was called into a-
[80]_ meeting in the White House by {Robert S.J
[82]"McNamara. It was a neeting, bm, actually, on
[84]-a report ‘that I had written for (Dwight D>).
[88]Eisenhower, It was sort : of ay I'm not sure.
[91]O'Brien:
[95]_ LANSDALE
[97]O'BRIEN:
[105]that it was, NSC {National Security Council]
[106]meeting but it was comparable to that with
[107]the personnel that were: attending. There were
[108]several Secretaries: | Defense, State, and his
[110]National Security people were there.
[112]Goud
[113]Bed Sowo mee ose scone with McNamara and [Roswell a
[115]A
[116]Gh patie, wembers of the incoming administra- |
[118]tion, before they actually assumed office?
[119]Just before, that is,a day or so before. I'd
[120]been in Vietnam tor ‘a brief visit and got back
[121]just before the inaugural, maybe two or three
[122]days, and at that time both McNamara and. .
[124]; Gilpatric were in Defense getting briefed for
[126]their new jobs. I met them at that time.
[127]The outgoing Deputy Secretary of Defense asked .
[129]me to start working with Gilpatric, and so I
[130]jo Know A ;
[131]got pGilpatric rather than MeNamarae,
[132]* pTames 4
[133]This is, Douglas.
[135]Douglas, Jim Douglase@ai eszHiDouglas)>
[137]How is Douglas to. work with, while you're with
[138]AN
[140]him? Is he a prevty. sympathetic person?
[142]Yes, very much so, very much sog He was ‘the
[144]one, actually, who wrote the orders and back-
[147]O! BRIEN: |
[151]stopped my visit to Vietnam, and back-
[153]_ Stopped it principally so that I could take
[155]a look at some of the political factors as
[157]well as economic, military, and psychological *
[159]‘and everything else. This, frankly, took a
[161]consi." oe " .. -vanding on his part —
[162]. vat because my - views weren't always .
[164]sopular in other parts of the government
[166]I gathered that there was some opposition to:
[168]my going out, and he insisted on’ it.
[170]i'd like to ‘come back to that. I wonder if
[172]we could g0 on to talk about one. of the major
[174]problems, which | is Cuba. When is the first
[175]A: co
[177]"time that you hear.about the Bay of Pigs
[179]invasion® not the Bay of Pigs, but the plans%5,
[180]Sometime in the fall of ointy. I think thas
[181]I heard’ of it about the first time that it
[182]was brought up to the arear-policy group of
[183]the Eisenhower administration. I was the
[184]Peputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense,
[185]at the ‘time, for Special Operations. and used
[186]to accompany the Beputy Secretary, who was a.
[188]member of the jmberpolicy group, to most of
[192]; the meetings that tr: - “ad. When Allen Dulles
[193]Sep (Xilen_W.-Duttes) - 3% raised the notion to
[195]this ANCL”
[197]jthe/Senete” grour Iwas present at the meeting
[198]- as an ‘Assist: : . ° | 7
[199]O'BRIEN: What isthe 7.inking about it at that time?’
[200]| What kind of operation is oO -» it
[201]a basically a‘ guerilla operation at this point?
[202]LANSDALE: Initially,it was. Initially it was very dirfer-
[203]ent tham the way it turned out. It was based
[204]on a ‘premise thet many people in Cuba were “very
[205]unhappy with the Gastro. administration and the
[206]way it was turning away from the initial
[207]revolutionary objectives and the capture of ‘the
[208]revolutionary movement by the Communist Party,
[209]which surprised many of the supporters of °
[210]Castro as a guerilla and as d revolutionary
[211]action. Sof the thought was to back a number _
[212]of ‘Cubans who either had been supporters of
[214]Castro or were very unhappy s were still resident
[216]in Cuba, and to cause some overturn at the time.
[218]The change of plan towards the Bay of Pigs
[219]qradur Wa) ;
[220]thing evolved fairly regina end apparently
[222]there was a | planning group ; ena’ CIA A (entra .
[225]O'BRIEN: .
[229]O'BRIEN:.
[231]LANSDALE
[233]O'BRIEN:
[237]Intelligence Agency] who were working on this.
[238]initial plan who started thinking in military
[240]invasion terms. I suspect that they were ©
[242]doing that because 8 some of the Cuban military,
[244]and military typesi, that is)very militant,
[246]r “A
[248]ke Cordele Onn BS _ “were coming, out of
[252]Cuba as’ reiugees, )and they suddenly saw a
[254]windfall of man power and started thinking in
[255]other terms of use of. them. put /** this change?
[256]was, the changed plan towards the Bay of Pigs |
[258]Wand Jong. Ly
[261]thing,jwas well under way in the inn er circle .
[263]thinking of CIA by December of "60, very defi- —
[264]nitely 50.
[266]Who were some of the inner circle people at
[267]you. recall 7
[269]this point pierre: By Salinger; es cot
[271]CBRE MT beam LRicherd Bissell w was he
[272]Let's seep ey Oh golly. 7 Dick Bissell /:
[274]~~ KRichard-Ms—Btssekl> was the overall chief of
[276]_ the group.
[278]Tracy Barnes, was he in. it at shat time?
[280]T as an assistant to nim,” Ow far
[282]ach 4
[283]Tracy,went in the Sotuar plarining, 1} have my
[285]doubts that he-was. . . O°
[287]oe
[289]LANSDALE: .
[295]He was one of a planning group who were
[296]abs?
[298]- planning the operation, but he wasn't jo chief,
[300]and I can't recall the. guy" s name offhand. .
[301]Oh well, maybe when, you g get the transcript back}
[303]. LANSD LES Maybe 50% roy “nA
[304]you can. » How about frer ‘some of the other
[305]| places 2 . on™ weg ) Mat, I
[308]erie
[310]“es, but initially it was all CIA. ‘They
[312]‘borrowed some military personnel to help with _
[313]Carly ow
[315]- the planning pearkien? but they were People —
[317]who shad been attached to CIA for temporary |
[318]duty on other matters, ‘and they. hadn't come
[320]' in initially for this specific planning. In
[322]December, when the planning had ‘obviously
[323]started-coming in with a beach landing and so
[324]on, the way it turned out, I urged at that |
[325]point to’get military planning in on the
[327]thing. I was worrying about xt. Tas a matter
[328]of fact, Allen Dulles brought his planners
[330]to a policy meeting, a policy group meeting,
[331]and they were explaining the concept, and ny
[332]questioning was such .that Allen Dulles pleaded .
[334]with me not to spoil the plan at an early
[336]‘stage. I remember General (Lyman i
[337]_ _ - Lemnitzer was si ting in [the meeting, —
[338]a je vashhatvean of the JCS (Joint Chiefs of
[339]. Staff} at the time, and he backed up my urging:
[340]them to get some r*i itary planning in on thats.
[341]After th - nent among our
[342]poi’:, .-yie of that, and then the JCS set up,
[344]a special section to plan along with the
[346]8
[348]Cén: Fal—Intelligencé: Agency | on that. “And who 7
[350]the hell headed that?
[354]» O'BRIEN: This is yet in the Eisenhower administration.
[355]LANSDALE: This is all back in 1960. This was still in
[356]théearly planning stagedo This was before
[358]training or anything like that was put forward.
[360]“When the JCS got into the act, I asked to be
[362]disassociated with the project. I was rather
[364]i looke
[365]oO critical ‘of the concept, and HE wast JUST ALOS
[366]Ol nao ,
[367]clumsy and overt/ and a poor, planned foci ties
[368]y)
[371]O'BRIEN: A\lot of people have knowledge of this, by the ent
[372]Aout gue
[373]end of the Eisenhower adninistrationg M7
[374]LANSDALE: I don't know how widespread it was. There ~
[376]were key executives that were knowledgeable,
[378]there was.a small group in the JCS that was
[381]O'BRIEN:
[385]"thought it was rather closely held.
[387]_ -8-
[389]knowledgeable, and there was a ‘planning group
[390]at CIA, but I don't think it went beyond that.
[391]I don't know how far it was known, but I
[393]. You don't knew whether the ‘presidential candi-
[395]dates -. a at: all,.do you?”
[397]Yer ..ey were. | There. was a very definite,
[399]110, ‘wait a minute the candidates, no, I. don't
[401]"think they were. As. a matter. of fact, it was.
[402]in thie
[404]still ina rather nebulous stage \wf, shifting
[405]‘over in ears Novenbers I think somebody
[407]told me, “if I recall correctly) that the concept -
[408]was in the form of a memo in ota about ‘August,
[409]so this would be well after the candidates
[411]had been nominated and so on. I imagine that
[412]Jus
[414]ia?
[415]- it was nea by ,two or three people in the CIA
[417]A
[419]at the time, At—heast, the rest of us certainly
[421]didn't know it. I forget exactly when I first
[423]heard it, but it would be possibly October,
[425]put. it might have even been November, by the ~
[427]time I heard about ‘it. As I say, I heard.
[429]‘about it when it was surfaced with the inner -
[431]“ . gircle.of our administration executives.
[434]_ O'BRIEN:
[436]- LANSDALE:
[438]O'BRIEN:
[442]O'BRIEN: .
[446]Well, I suppose you had some conversations
[448]with Dulles and.with Bissell and some of
[450]these people about it.
[451]Yes.
[453]Wnat's their feeling? You already discussed
[455]Ges
[457]Dot a ce acing you to sort of
[459]hold your: criticism,. . fo)
[460]Well, ‘Bissell definitely felt the same wayo
[462]Bissell was a very hard-working, intenselperson,
[463]. or : .
[465]almost high; strung type of, individual. He
[467]became rather impatient with my questioning ~~
[469]. of the. changed concept when it took place. DHought
[471]thar
[472]nitially, if: they had the’ correct’ personnel 7”
[474]‘and 3 they had a correct reading of dissent _
[476]inside of Cuba, that was a.fair chance to do
[478]something. My only concern at the time was/:
[480]o--
[482]“did. ee CIA have tits Americans who could work
[483]with such a situation? I just~didn't know:
[484]eS)
[486]of any, “put I was assured that there were such
[487]Americans, but I'm not certain that there were.
[488]Did you question the kind of intelligence that
[489]was coming out ‘about Cuba and the expected
[491]reaction of Cubans to an invasion/ and the
[494]-10- .
[496]reaction to Castro in general?
[497]_-} LANSDALE: - Just in very general terms. =I didn't have
[498]"enough concrete and specific information
[499]" myself that was separate from theirs: Most
[500]of the intelligence take at the time, avail-
[501]able inside the U. Ss. government, ‘was pretty
[502]colored with this dissatisfaction and state-.
[503]“ments of. it. go) 1 had no real way of ©
[504]'. determining the accuracy or inaccuracy of it.
[505]Some of the adjectives used in describing this
[506]- in briefings to, us alerted o a little bit.
[507]- He
[508]It just sounded too mach’, Feed a sales job on
[509]a viewpoint. I'd question thet, whether that
[510]was an accurate thing, so. this is about as far
[511]as I went. | |
[512]O'BRIEN: How dees’ a guy like Douglas react? Do you
[513]| recall?
[514]LANSDALE: Well, he approved of the plan, so he and the
[515]~ others at the policy level approved of going
[516]ahead with it Yana. developing it. . I was his.
[517]advisor on this thing? (zhat was my staff ro)
[518]“and I told him to be certain to get the JCS
[520]to give ita real hard scrutiny and to come .
[523], O'BRIEN:
[529]up with details of whether it could succeed
[531]or not. That was my last advisory role with
[533]him. I was taken off advising on the project
[534]after that, actually by my own request because
[536]‘I was apparently causing too much trouble and
[538]wre : organs 8 cks of progress.
[539]"ets tae reaction of the Joint Chiefs, people
[540]like Lemnitzer, tovards this? Is there an | .
[542]institutional Tiveiry or bureaucratic rivalry
[544]here in their minds?
[546]Somewhat , somewhat @ It was a little bit as
[548]though, well, somebody' Ss going to be playing
[550]Boy Scouts, so this isn't really rivalry.
[552]No
[553]They had. a difficult time taking this really. .
[555]aay ae Se Later, I know, when the JCS got
[556]and hel
[558]- in, on ‘the actual planning of this, they became
[560]. much dione serious on it because they had a
[566]share of it. .
[567]Well, do you get involved in the informing
[569]. of McNamara and Gilpatric about this? Do you
[571]get any way of sensing what their reactions
[572]are on first being informed?
[574]No. They had apparently known by the time I
[577]O'BRIEN:
[585]met them) a. ve didn't, get in on that The one
[586]person whos] a view of their reactions
[587]tithison
[589]would probably be Bill Bundy, (etane
[591]pee who I know at the time was discussing
[593]this with then.-
[595]Did you have. ae _ .+ sundy and
[597]his fo00 0 ou. as es that point?
[599]Yesg ‘nis was a little out of Bundy’ s field.
[601]- He was always ‘trying: to figure - out what: the
[603]chances were, ‘the percentages of win or losse
[604]a brft
[605]He was, lowy ana L hadn't known the final plan
[607]on this thing, and Bundy did, and he asked me
[609]what I thought. I told him, “well, if the JCS»
[610]maybe sriade -
[612]guarantees something, you can7take, it 10 percent
[614]lower than that and 0 along with itm I'm not-
[616]sure that they know a clandestine operation, |
[618]_ but they'd Sure know a military landing, whether -
[620]it would succeed or not. Given some of the - . ~~
[621]why, shade i
[623]* unknowns in this thing, . way eat by 10 percent
[625]and go along with the figure.’ ’ Well, apparently
[626]: A.
[627]they had given it a high chance of success,
[629]the JCS had, because Bundy said, "Well, you mean
[631]A py 4
[632]it's going to succeed then’ I said, Well, I -
[635]O'BRIEN: -
[637]a oo. . -13-
[639]So
[641]don't know." Al gathered that he felt it would
[643]succeed.
[645]wet?) ‘then /‘you are pretty much out of touch
[646]Lt om Hy Pount hot, rte wu bail é il
[647]A
[649]with it until it actually comes’ off, Yor LB) That's
[653]O'BRIEN:
[656]O'BRIEN:
[660]O'BRIEN:
[662]A
[664]eto ro) BME:
[666]‘ didn't get inltet any of the changes in the
[668]a
[669]lans there at all! .
[670]P Septernber certlang Wr
[671]No. I left around the. first of,December, .
[673]"60. I really didn't: follow it from then ong
[674]Does
[676]ftir’ anyone come to you from the Agency / or
[677]from State/ or Prk the White House, as far
[679]A
[680]as that goes, and attempt to seek an indepen-
[681]rae : awd ell on
[682]dent judglaent on your partpZiper backend yen Pees
[684]’ No.
[686]How about the noise level on this?. Obviously —
[687]you're out of it, but is there much talk
[689]about it that is ‘sort of filtering down
[692]‘in Defense ‘ane’ the people that are around you.
[694]that really have no need to know and direct
[695]involvement? _ oo
[697]I wasn't aware.of it. There might have been,
[699]‘but I have no knowledge of that.
[701]‘When @ne<thin the operation/ actually begins. *
[703]and the landing has taken place, do you come
[708]i LANSDALE:
[709]_ O'BRIEN:
[712]into it again at that point. at any time?
[714]No.
[716]_ You do become involved in Cuban affairs at a
[718]. later time.
[722]O'BRIEN:
[724]_ LANSDALE:
[726]Later, yes.
[728]When ¢: v2 . you. have -any-
[729]the. we WAT the (Maxwell) Taylor
[730]connittee?’ ht 1h makes , Ha inquiry abit ?
[731]I met with them Once eyand they weren't siterested\.
[732]with the Bay of Pigso. They were Me nee
[734]in the decision-making process\w# ia making bof
[736]-policy, and ‘asked me if I had any ideas on
[738]how better the President, could be served in
[739]the policy decisions and arriving at them.
[741]The thing was,right at that moment, McNamara
[743]-had previously asked me for the same thing,
[744]A
[746]‘and I had ‘come up with a proposal for him
[748]which he put to Kennedy. I just told then
[750]oO a
[751]Wet, I had some ideas but I had given then -
[753]to somebody else,)and I was skeptical of the
[755]Lo A
[756]boss anyhow, ona this was on putting together -:
[759]task forces. The Kennedy administration had
[761]eliminated. a bureaucratic boot nfdoggling thing
[764]“15- ,
[766]send sat the hell was that called! _S-
[767]O'BRIEN: “ocey ’ (perations Coordinating Board]g
[768]LANSDALE: Yes, the OCBS 1 pointed out that the one
[769]- , good thing about it was that the principals.
[770]met for lunchyand I said the. rest of it's for We birds,
[771]Bat te getomen in cc ---snt who are talking _
[772]' to we we , os wea “oe ne held responsible by
[773]. him for managing men, money, and material and — ,
[774]so on, who can understand the problem well | oe
[775], enough around the lunch table to have one
[776]“secretary or “deputy secretary or under er secretary
[777]an ond $0 ON, Wasd
[778]"say, “well, ‘we'll take care of that, 18,8
[779]good way of doing business@ Sain the
[780]. president's own national security man sitting .
[781]in on it, going back and telling hin this is:
[782]og going to happen for these reasons, why, it
[783].wasa good control. nechanism. F 50 essentially
[784]all I told the Taylor pedple and told
[785]McNamara in my paper was that this ‘function naa |
[786]been eliminated, along with cutting out t dlot of
[787]‘dead wood, and “there was some live wood, A flow
[789]~ about restoring the live wood? This osentiatiy
[791]was what my proposition was with the task force, —
[792]7 A
[797]of getting the people most concerned with
[798]something? who ¢ could operate for the
[800]a president, and having them get together and
[802]help form the policy, get’ the president's
[803]“approval, and they were the same ones’ who. a _
[804]couldsst:~ _ vs. Ty immediately. |
[805]| -~ 4.0% to create another big
[806]vureaucratic thing. 7 and of course, after they
[807]- first tried this, it rapidly started becoming
[808]a big bureaucratic thing. The task forces
[809]that were later set up were just big staffs
[810]sitting;in different buildings. It was
[811]almost like oc again, not ites but it got
[812]‘ . -out of hand. - Anytime you Bey to change the
[813]. government around, it seems to come right back
[815]: Yee? "BREN? Ji Yes) we have tendency of doa
[816]-in form again and close ranks on Fé But “that ANS Lawson
[818]A
[819]‘was all,I did with the Taylor group. Inciden-
[820]tally; in that inquiry into ‘the. Cuban bit was.
[821]the first time that I met (Robert F.) Bobby
[822]Kennedy. For some reason or other, 1 didn't
[823]-- connect him personally , with the pictures of
[824]mP . 1 ners P
[826]him and so on, on ToVq, and I wondered what the — Teo
[828]youngster was doing sitting in the meeting
[831]O'BRIEN:
[833]LANSDALE: -
[835]O'BRIEN:
[839]O'BRIEN:
[841]_ -17-
[843]talking so much.
[845]Was he pretty tough . .
[846]Well, he wasn't tough. He was the most indter-
[847]ested of’ anyone in the room there of what I a
[848]would say on things and plague me with many
[849]questions. . -
[851]How were his questions? Was he fairly naive -
[852]about the problems? .
[854]od this was on Bob iome questions of how the
[855]"government would operate at a decision level,
[857]A
[858]and they weren't naive at.all. He had a very 7
[860]good understanding. He was very much concerned ce
[862]about his brothers getting good ane in the
[863]way of information and full details “oO elterne-
[864]tives and so on, on a policy decision.
[866]Well, if ouy-you~know, in that period right
[868]. after the Bay of Pigs--of course you had a lot
[870]of contacts and friendships in other places
[871]LANSDALE: Yes. O'BRIEN:
[873]. outside the Pentagon.» What kind of an impact -
[875]does
[876]jcied?the Bay of Pigs have, let's say over in.
[878]the Agency, and State Department, and in Defense)
[879]a. —_ A
[881]and in the White House?
[886]LANSDALE: It was a traumatic. experience ‘at top Levene ant
[888]O'BRIEN:
[890]of the government. I think it affected
[891]President. Kennedy more than any other single
[892]: - A
[894]thing. It was almost a taboo subjectgif you
[896]‘were going in to do business. and to get an
[900]x pe eps Sach
[901]“ao aba or .. wuban affair. It was) an
[903]Sc
[904]| dutensefitly sore subject.among all of these
[906]people. I felt that almost all of the key
[907]executives in the administration must have
[909]dreamt about it at night or something, and
[910]A
[912]‘during the daytime working hours they just
[914]yew
[916]didn't even want to, contemplate it.. “and yet ;
[917]they were honest. énough people that they knew
[918]they had to face up and ook at it and. would ‘do
[919]go,.but it was an: extremely emotional subject
[920]with them, very much so. .
[922]Well, in terms | of the Agency, there! 8 a4 “number
[924]of prograns and of course involvements, in
[925]A
[927]‘operations that they have. Do you see any
[929]shift in these, any attempt on the part of the
[931]: Defense Department to move into some of these
[933]areas which they felt were traditionally theirs
[936]es
[940]“A
[942]las encouragement of some of the military who oS
[946]rather than the Agency. I guess what I'm
[947]trying a say is, can you see any decline in
[948]the fathey influence TGP the Agency Hef decisions?
[950]Yes, I think so. I'm not certain ‘that it was
[951]"well
[953]_ the military as such. It might, have been the -
[955]te Pore ye I Dike “Werranar personally,”
[957]- were somewhat interested but wouldn't really
[959]have expressed the interest unless they were -
[961]directly asked and there always had been some
[962]feeling of unease yt 1 think would be the best. i,
[963]word to describe itj-among the military about»:
[965]type of |
[966]any clandestine, operations. They felt that
[968]once it got over into guerrilla type of operations
[970], or anything that would involve a military subject,
[972]shee it would be far better to let the military —
[973]establishment of the U.S. ‘handle. at." ut that
[975]_would be sort of a 2 dinner-codteil party type of
[977]a gambit on their. pert, rater than sitting and -
[978]planning and so on of We must grab some of
[982]hid," | ven though among themselves they talked
[984]that way. They didn't express it in terms of
[986]. their attendénce at policy councils or even in
[988]Sa mmm me
[994]talks with people like the Secretary of Defense
[995]or the. civilian, executive side of Defense. 7 on
[996]this, I think that McNamara himself probably
[997]- started thinking initially that this was a _
[998]military operation and just to be more efficient
[999]and effective, the military should take over
[1000]sich things. . I imagine that he patked that way
[1001]to some of the military people “tee? were seeing
[1002]“him from the JCS, and. the chiefs, and from the
[1003]intelligence community, the military intelligence
[1004]community. I know that DIA [Defense Intelligence
[1005]Agency] got its great start ‘under. McNamara,and -
[1007]I feel almost certain, I've got a strong hunch,
[1008]that the Bay of Pigs and the misreading of the -
[1009]temper of the people in’ Cuba gave McNamara
[1011]great impetus in setting that up initially..
[1013]Aso] a aotueliy, wasn't a military ambition
[1014]to set up a rival intelligence agency to Wve |
[1015]CIA) though there had been tremendous rivalry
[1016]between the military service intelligence
[1017]agencies end tie CIA and had been right along.
[1018]from the initiation of CIA originally. But this :
[1020]was sort of a business rivalry,and it wasnt |
[1021]A ae
[1025]sort of dealing with them, of categories of
[1027]‘work, and where the boundary lines of: who did
[1028]what on the thingy and this is where their
[1029]jealousies and emotions and everything would .
[1030]come up over almost nitpicking of boundary lines
[1031]of who would do what. It wasn't a thing of.
[1032]“we '12 do it ali, end you go out of business Jothat
[1033]A-
[1034]feeling hadn't come up)--but | bee ate after the.
[1036]Bay of Pigs, the DIA and its creation, a lot of |
[1038]- the people in that who were civilian employees,
[1039]oyeesy
[1041]“O'BRIEN:
[1045]Defense Department employees, had an idea, "We
[1047]can do a better job than cra," and in a much.
[1049]wider field than the service intelligence agencies
[1051]peed tone. i ,
[1053]Are there enough skilled and “competent people
[1054]around, in the universities and the military,
[1056]to staff all the intelligence agencies: the NSA
[1057](National Security Agency], DIA CTA, and organi-
[1058]zations? Are there enough rece oF ae are phese
[1059]operations just simply too vigy, |
[1060]readies | They might be too ‘big. me need to
[1061]know things is a very elastic ‘bit. .-T'm certain
[1063]that the chief executive of the United States,
[1065]i -22-
[1067]in whose name these works are accomplished, -
[1069]would have no idea that he would ever désire
[1071]“to know some of the things that they're working»
[1073]on - very nerd you discover whole buildings
[1075]and all sorts of equipment pusildy acoumuneting
[1076]facts °-! ‘aren > would say, iI can't
[1077]are. a. euetOS OVER » needing to know “some
[1079]of thato "ak yor he would hesitate, given the
[1081]world today and the technological - “advences end
[1083]. .everything, it's very hard to say what you need.
[1085]O'BRIEN:
[1089]got too bigan establishment or not.
[1091]to know and what you don't. Given this sort of -
[1092]a gray shading of the end objectives\on this
[1093]thing, it's very difficult to say whether youvts.
[1095]"4
[1096]Do you ever take this question up, or is this
[1097]question ever raised in the administration by Phe
[1098]civilian people | in DOD [Department of £ Defense]
[1099]or the White’ House, with you?
[1100]Not with me. No. My theme on overseas operations
[1102]was reiterated enough so that it was known by
[1104]_ a number of people, and I auntie felt a it was tr 7
[1106]more efficient and effective to have a very
[1108]small group working and to choose them with very
[1113]| great selectivity and go for a handful. of
[1114]- highly qualified people rather than a large
[1115]group. of Americans charging overseas someplace +
[1116]. This” went for intelligence as well as diplomatic a
[1117]and other. economic work, and so on. I used to
[1118]; point out the enbassies--for example, behing
[1119]_-the Iron ‘Gurtain--that would get. ae sdimated by -
[1120]? ->) being © TNT "de and so ong in Eastern Europe,
[1121]= for example, it would neppeng tha bosa wind up
[1122]; with an anbassador and two or three people
[1123]left in an embassy, and their work would increase
[1124]in quality, and their representing U.S. interests
[1125]would seem ‘to improve tremendously when that
[1126]would happen. -
[1127]O'BRIEN: Does the *epe that you get this reputation,
[1128]mainly. out, the writings of guys like [Eugene]
[1129]Burdick and Graham Greene, does this affect you
[1130]in any way in your relations with the bureau-
[1132]LANSDALE: Yes. It-made life rather difficult. With
[1133]- much of the work, I had to do in Washington,
[1135]I came back from a lot of operations abroad
[1137]7 and went up into policy-forming levels in
[1140]-~ch=-
[1142]Washington almost immediately, ana into facing
[1143]people who were very sensitive on my presence
[1144]abroad initially. Since I didn't just stick
[1145]in.a regular military category but would get
[1146]over into their own sub ject matter, this made
[1147]‘them very uncomfortableg I can understand
[1148]it. while it happened but it was carried to
[1150]| too great an emotional: length.“ at times I
[1152]“would suggest certain individuals be sent to
[1153]look into a situation in a given country and
[1154]would arrange their: transportation: and so ong
[1155]ofa I would get backing throughout the U. Ss.
[1157]- government for this thing/ and have an individual
[1158]approved by the Secretary of State as well as
[1159]Defense and up at the White .House and so on,
[1160]but would set up a means of communicating
[1161]back so that we ‘would get reports back. There
[1162]would be times when these individuals would
[1163]‘show up in a country/and the first time they
[1165]sent a message to me, the ambassador would
[1167]ask them kindly to leave the country, to get
[1169]out of there, just because of my name. I wae.
[1170]wash ©
[1172]apparently, the “enemy to some, of these
[1177]people. One of my assistants was traveling
[1179]vetween-Thailand and Saigon, and there was a
[1182]‘coup going on in Saigon at the time and his
[1184]plane, which was Air France, put down--commercial
[1185]a , A vo,
[1186]flight--in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia, and the -
[1187]military attaché very kindly picked up this.
[1188]: d
[1190]guy and@-several other Americans from: the
[1192]plane and found a place for them to stay
[1194]until they could get another flight out of
[1196]Phnom Penh. He asked this lad of mine where
[1198]he'd worked, and he said, "In the Pentagon/"--
[1200]he was a civilian employee--and he mentioned
[1202]that he worked for me)and the attaché got
[1203]Oo A
[1205]all excited, called the ambassador, and he
[1207]was given two hours to come out of the country.
[1209][Laughter] Ail he was doing was looking for .
[1210]ve place to sleep at nights so it became very
[1212]emotional and very silly, and detrimental to .
[1214]the U.S. For example, once in Indonesia, in
[1216]meeting our folks around the embassy in
[1218]Djakarta, I had spotted an assistant army
[1220]attaché, who was the one American, along with |
[1221]: A. ‘ “A
[1223]one of the economic mission guys--there were
[1228]“two Americans, “who” were not only best known
[1230]by the Indonesians but were respected, and
[1232]"there was an. affection theres. era I eae, told
[1234]the ambassador at the time, afterwards, make
[1235]real use of these people 4, the Indonesians
[1236]believe them, and there's some antipathy towards
[1237]_the U. S.y:. -but they make an exception, “te” these
[1241]twopant they! ‘re just invaluablebut t the army
[1243]man was extremely close to the general staff
[1245]of the Indonesian army. I went on some visits
[1247]to members at their homes of the Indonesian Cowell
[1248]staff, and this lad who was tall and blond--
[1249]a Nordic. type, if you will--would go in,and
[1250]the small brown Indonesians qweut ‘and their
[1251]families welcome him like a long lost uncles .
[1252]or brother or something. The children would
[1253]run up and jump in his arms and climb all. ‘over
[1255]x &
[1256]him, and he was Uncle “some thing® to them:
[1258]Fgo later, when ‘the Soviets start moving in|
[1259]A
[1261]saud’ [surface- to-ainr ni sgie] missile sites into
[1263]Indonesia and the U.S. needed to know what.
[1265]sort of antiaircraft armaments werdgoing ing?
[1267]“oe
[1269]our embassy couldn't get the answers to its
[1273]I suggested that. we. get the State; Defense
[1274]_ Sponsorship and send this one fellow uno “Es
[1275]a lieutenant; colonel over and just let hin’
[1276]stay a week or so. He'd go right in and
[1277]talk to his old friends, and they'd probably
[1278]tell him what the. Soviets were up to. He
[1279]arrived. there’ the Indonesian general staff
[1280]took him out and. showed him these bs and.
[1281]asked him what he thought of them and so on
[1282]the first day he was there. That night he |
[1283]got back, arid wrote out a radio riessage 7 and
[1284]asked the ambassador to send it to meat
[1287]which point our ambassador told him ‘to leave
[1289]the countryg.——
[1290]. . LHoward P, |
[1291]O'BRIEN: Now) this was ,vones?
[1293]‘LANSDALE: | That was Jones, yeso eens? and he said, "Well,
[1295]art
[1297]asked the Department of state, 4S'please let
[1298]. “A =,
[1300]let me put that in the messages" so I just
[1302]Jones know that you're sponsoring this guy,
[1303], “
[1305]- too,.snd there might be some more things that
[1307]he finds out that you need to know as much as
[1309]1
[1311]. } . . 10 . .
[1312]we do.” So they told Jones , just od sit back —
[1314]O'BRIEN:
[1318]O'BRIEN:
[1321]28
[1323]and let him do that.
[1325]We have some wonderful Americans) and this
[1327]a
[1328]was what I was trying to ao): és to find out
[1329]which Americans have not only: our interests
[1330]at heart but weré enough interested in foreign
[1331]cou. ics to be my understand and have
[1332]mpot _ véally would be serving the best
[1333]interests of other countries: in things. I'd
[1334]far rather see one man get in on something
[1335]like that than’ send a whole team in with”all
[1336]sorts of enings ena sort of aggravate a
[1337]situation than do ‘something rather Simple. ,
[1338]Almost sensitivity training. . 0 .
[1341]Beerspare: Incidentally, along these lines,
[1342]I've: got a good story for your account.
[1343]Great. : 7
[1345]About’ the time of the Cuban YAssile grisis,
[1347]McNamara caéme back from a meeting at the
[1349]White House one day and asked me to provide
[1351]the means for President Kennedy to talk to
[1353]- the Cuban people on ToVq, How the hell dia I
[1357]know how to do that? He ‘told me shet+-he
[1359]wanted to do it within the next twenty-four
[1363]hours. Well, it didn't happen. I suspected
[1365]tha’ it. would take longer than that; I don't
[1367]: . 2 . - '
[1368]know how you intrude on a T.V. stations
[1369]A % A
[1370]broadcasting and get the people in the
[1371]a | 79° |
[1372]country to g¢6 immediately’ to their TV 5 Sets
[1373].and watch a program. ‘I satied scientists
[1374]in from all over the U.S. who were electronic
[1375]whizzes on this type of a subject, and our
[1376]“intelligence people and everybody else I
[1377]could think of to get some information
[1378]' CR & ;
[1379]together in a real crash basis. ‘CIA couldn't
[1382]give me details, e% technical details“on any
[1384]_ “A A
[1385]of the TaVa, stations in Havanfay anid elsewhere. .
[1387]‘Fone of the Defense civilian scientists--and I
[1390]can't think of his name offhand; East European
[1392]name--left the room and came back ten minutes
[1393]later and provided all the. technical infor-
[1395]mation, to the great amazement of everybody |
[1396]x ;
[1398]. . \ .
[1399]there. and I said, Where the hell did you
[1401]. » .
[1403]get that?) and he said, "Well, I went out to |
[1404]: _ : oO
[1406]the corridor in the Pentagon / (where we were
[1408]having the meeting, wat in one of the phone
[1410]booths there, and I called a friend of mine
[1412]O'BRIEN:
[1418]down in Havana who ‘operates a tv station
[1420]and asked him. He gave me all Pee" cope, and
[1422]I. just wrote it down." So this is the “way
[1424]we got the information for it, F one intrusion .
[1425]‘of the nv espace never took place, but we
[1427]got ‘the means together and some airborne wh
[1429]transmitters. Tt. was developed finally by the
[1431]bode thet the
[1432]Navy, end the project--Itve"asked +e~Se, put on
[1434]a sort of sled so that it could be picked up :
[1436]and changed over from one aircraft to another,
[1437]or. used elsewhere later when we- started the.
[1438]rly “oroadcasts in Vietnam, this ‘Navy equip-.
[1439]ors we)
[1441]ment that was “initially intended to let
[1443]. ie oo ©
[1445]President Kennedy talk to the Cubans ,was the
[1447]broadcast equipment that was used from the
[1451]‘air--flying in tne aircraft--in Saigon ) downs ¢
[1453]to initiate aN S vroadcast@in Saigon in °
[1454]1965.
[1456]“y
[1458]why didn't it come off? .
[1459]It took us too.long to figure, ways of getting
[1461]in on the theme and finding a channel and
[1463]. ; jo
[1464]finding a way of getting people thet” do that.
[1467]Bt ee ee Ce Re RN Mee net et vee reels eames # em elhenge
[1473]O'BRIEN:
[1477]+31]-
[1479]Gg
[1480]It took us t#en, ‘tuelve days to do it, and the
[1481]time for them to do it had passed over, and
[1482]A
[1483]the Russiaris stood down in the interim, so the.
[1485]need had passed.
[1487]. «Well how do you come back into. Lee well,
[1489]maybe, perhaps we ought. to pursue this whole
[1490]business of counterinsurgency first. It sort
[1491]of becomes the thing with the Kenne dy admin-~
[1492]istration, doesn't it?
[1494]Yes. oy
[1496]How do you see that? I was in the Marine
[1499]om:
[1500], Corps in the late 50+s, and there was a good
[1502]: A
[1503]deal ‘of guerrilla and counterguerrilla training
[1505]that was going on, and it becomes a part of *
[1507]the new administration. Who are the principhe~
[1509]‘proponents of this, outside of yourself? ADO
[1511]you have any conversations, say, with Bobby--_
[1512]well, you don't really see Bobby ‘until after
[1513]Aprilg But do you have any conversations with
[1514]the president, let's say, meeting with him. ...
[1516]No, not didn'to ‘1 don't know who talked to him
[1518]about “his. ' When he came in office, this was
[1520]already « one of his ‘themes Where he picked
[1524]that up originally, I don't know. | I was
[1525]rather surprised--he seemed to have seen
[1527]copies of lectures and other things that
[1529]. 13d give on the subject, ae who had
[1531]-Q BRIEN: ©
[1535]O'BRIEN:
[1539]O BRIEN:
[1543]passed those to him and who had talked to
[1545]him about it; I just don't know.
[1546]oo A. Lo,
[1547]Let's say, let's take a person like Max Taylor.
[1549]Do you have anything in the way of conversations
[1551]with Max Taylor ‘in the late. fifties?
[1553]No..
[1555]‘How about the rest of the Joint Chiefs?
[1557]No. Taylor was’ opposed to this type of things
[1558]He aia quite-a considerable switch, see? He
[1559]was about the last person I would have‘ ever
[1560]picked: ‘to have headed up something the way
[1561]Kennedy asked him to do it© ,
[1562]That's what I was wondering about, Taylor's
[1563]role in this whole thing. He is opposed
[1564]Well, he was the one thatgZin the very early
[1566]: LA
[1568]a i =
[1570]ee nen atc ent mite de Pats fhe Meee pment
[1574]formation of the: Special Forces in the Army--
[1576]- he was Chief of Staff of the Army at the time J- —
[1578]and took one look at these American troops in
[1580]C headgear off," or “Take that--that's it." No
[1582]7 - teally aot Tough on oS
[1584]r
[1585]} ster berets, and he eked the" oat of
[1587]the thing. He wasn't too happy with a special
[1589]}-
[1590]| unit of that nature. But-at the time, it was_
[1592]' He went ‘along with the concept that
[1594]it was only a wartime outfit;Zthat somebody
[1595]A
[1597]would have to go and jump in and work with.
[1600]gquerrillas. again, this is a rivalry type of
[1602]a thing)so. there wouldn't be another oss [Offic
[1603]. 4 a “us
[1604]of Strategic Services] ~-these“d) be a CIA or’
[1606]an
[1610]something doing it, but syis) severity se pare
[1613]; . Ao. ;
[1614]of the modern military function) so” let's: make
[1615]oo “A
[1616]it military. So he went that far on the thing.
[1617]would :
[1619]But that was a concept- ~tyou B, have a regular
[1621]green berets and said, “Take that God damn silly
[1623]e
[1625]" force fighting battle)and someplace hack of. the
[1626]AK
[1628]enemy -lines, you'd want to blow up bridges and
[1630]A
[1634]gather information and so on to support.
[1636]your tactical force? so well why not have
[1638]J 4 =
[1639]somebody ‘in working and fomenting trouble
[1641]back there for the enemy, but connected with
[1643]the forces?” now the concept of people's” war-,
[1644]neo -
[1645]--Maol 3 wg Ls 4
[1647]fare r is pushed), We' ve seen fhent in Vietnam,
[1648]and Caseunerel~”fost3y wasn't something that
[1649]he or others understood at all, that almost
[1651]i weutd. be. a
[1652]jen of us sopeak—see-querrtliasor counter-guer-
[1654]. ;
[1655]rilla, and that people like special forces
[1657]\ ashe well,’ having learned guerilla operations,
[1659]would-then be qualified to start coping with
[1661][exssen basis for operations and political
[1662]ft goals and behavior and the psychological part
[1664]\ of. the operations © This really wasn't in
[1665]any’ oftheir thinking because, as witnessed in
[1666]Korea, we went and sort of had a small World
[1668]War II in Korea. And in Vietnam later, we went
[1670]in-Zagain with Taylor as the ambassador, but
[1672]O'BRIEN:
[1674]LANSDALE+—=¥-m=stre that's
[1680]having quite a ‘bit: of an advisory role with
[1682]Mee,
[1685]A
[1686]3 wtALe
[1688]o
[1689]Our military commanders. out there, and influence
[1693]“2 .
[1694]with them, a fighting another Korea in Vietnam
[1696]tart Le,
[1697]‘more or less. There es some changes in
[1702]but ,was more use of helicopters just for:
[1704]oe
[1706]cal envelopment nathwetioaaarst instead
[1708]Star E
[1709]moving guys along the ground to,with the
[1711]Why don't ‘they come to an understanding?
[1714]Ca ;
[1715]for-you;-a*good-tape. .
[1718]. ——, . :
[1719]O_ BRIEN:——A—diversionwatuleast.
[1723]O'BRIEN:
[1727]tactics)
[1728]“A.
[1729]verti-
[1731]of
[1732]thing.
[1734]Poarking] |
[1736]“Going to thake-za--good=broadcast—
[1738]I'm completely. baffled by that. I just don't
[1740]know.
[1742]Don't they read?
[1744]They speak: the words, and particularly when they
[1746]A
[1748]were talking with President Kennedy, they picked.
[1750]up the words and enthusiasm.and responded, but
[1752]would show by what they did that they didn't
[1754]understand what they were saying. It's some-
[1756]thing that,. of course, I have been trying to
[1761]- do something about all along. I've never
[1762]‘understood what it was/,. .@ I've always
[1763]felt that I was too inarticulate or hadn't
[1764]' found a way of doing. things for myself, but-
[1765]there have been so many other exponents of
[1766]“this thing--not just Americans, but of many
[1767]countries, who have written rather good books _
[1768]‘on the subject and on parts of it,that you'd
[1769]mo, by pow ;
[1770]surely think, that we Americans would produce
[1771]a top Lender some understanding of some-
[1772]— DVo Nju en]
[1773]“ening that Mao [fse<tung}] and,Giap and others
[1774]: Qe +d .
[1775]. e “have gotten , every page down -hrowgh the rank
[1776]: and file to understand.
[1777]; ne
[1778]7 \ a F counteriasuege vd
[1779]O BRIEN: Well, in the formation of the CI,)group--it was
[1780]designed, as I understand it, primarily as a
[1781]kind of educational group for topzlevel admin~
[1782]istration people--when do you first come into.
[1783]that group?
[1784]LANSDALE: I was never really, part of that group. I was
[1786]working with a smaller group of executives, of
[1788]which Taylor was.a part.
[1790]O‘BRIEN:
[1792]“- LANSDALE:
[1796]This is Mongoose, isn't it?
[1798]Yes. This was a national security group of.
[1800]top executives.close to the president, with
[1802]the undersecretary of State, and the deputy
[1803]secretary of Defense,and so on, and the
[1805]on / A ee .
[1806]national ‘security advisorg an@ Taylor sat
[1808]in on those meetings after he got his CI
[1810]group going. But/ in forming the CI group
[1812]“inideiariy, Taylor was starting to do some.
[1814]“studies for Kennedy) and Kennedy had asked me ‘to.
[1816]- A .
[1817]help him: ‘So I put my staff in the Pentagon
[1819]at Taylor's disposal. "Initially, in Kennedy's
[1820]presence, I offered to put together a study
[1822]for Taylor on resources in the United States
[1824]‘and among our alliesifor such things--not allies
[1826]as much as friends of the United:States in many
[1827]countries--and this was done with @omz CIA and
[1828]some of the military services and the intelli-
[1829]gence part of State. They had a little working
[1831]group, and we had severallsessions in my office
[1832]A .
[1835]O'BRIEN: |
[1839]O'BRIEN:
[1843]president. Then when Taylor stpetedchis. group)
[1845]and put together some rough first papers
[1847]for Taylor to start his thinking for the
[1848]: )
[1849]; for me dq
[1851], JA.
[1852]I wasn't invited in on ityand = didn't attend.
[1853]A
[1855]Sure. wee o wore r 7 2 got any insight. . toe
[1856]Aa. - viinu it, right after the formation
[1858]of that group, and early--it was‘in May or June-—
[1859]they dispatched some teams to go around Latin
[1860]America to survey the ability of various nations |
[1861]to respond to Castro“type guerrilla activity.
[1863]Yes, yes.’ |
[1865]Did you get involved in the planning of that
[1867]at all or any of the fallout of that? -
[1869]Just peripherally on both. I forget the,,details
[1870]on that. “I had been worrying about places like
[1871]a - _ . .
[1872]Columbia and several other Latin American
[1873]countries close to the Panama Canal and had
[1875]urged that this be looked into, on some of the
[1879]. specific things that were being done there. I“¥s had
[1880]encouraged tie the colimbians start civic action
[1881]ao A .
[1884]O'BRIEN:
[1890]‘in dealing with some of the dissident
[1892]areas and so on. All’ .I had done was, not plan-
[1894]ning as much as coming in with sort of a .
[1896]‘shopping list of what people might look for,
[1898]‘and individuals in these countries they might
[1900]talk to to, get information. on what was happening.
[1901]Well, are you in Colonbia in the Kennedy
[1902]administration at all as. . ..
[1904]No.-No, the most I did was-+1 went to venezufla
[1905]4jfA during the Kennedy administration, and Bolivia,
[1906]: “A
[1908]No, by that time folks were highly sensitive
[1910]about my showing up in “foreign countries-~
[1912]that is, Americans, not foreigners--and I really
[1913]A
[1915]wasn't permitted, or I was stopped really at
[1917]policy levels from going back into Vietnam or
[1919]the phitkippines/‘or anyplace in Asia. I begged
[1921]to be permitted to go down and take a look in
[1923]Latin “America ,and Gilpatric Was the one thot play
[1924]A : a the: ALeis ion hod Kaen five
[1926]BEGIN SIDE II TAPE I ;
[1928]1, Bid you get to any other x countres?
[1930]O BRIEN:
[1933]easeede be seetmee
[1938]Well, Bolivia.. In Bolivia, I was interested
[1940]in particularly the Bolivian Air Force's
[1942]_work of setting up a public school system
[1944]_ over in the eastern slopes of the Andes---
[1946]down in the jungles and in the very sparse —
[1948]settlements. They were really the one 7
[1950]governmental group that could get around
[1952]places. “They were very enthusiastically setting
[1954]up one-room school houses down there / and flying
[1956]_in teachers and bringing some education in there,
[1957]WAS “A
[1959]which I thought was a great project, andnencouraging
[1960]Then, :
[1962]them. n Mile Ir was in Bolivia, I gobinvolved
[1964]with the resettlement of. indians from the
[1965]Altiplano over onto the eastern slopes into
[1967]some new communi ties, in which the whole Bolivian
[1969]- government 4 was involved, efa the U.S. Economic
[1971]7 Diission was working with them, and the
[1973], Botavien military was supporting it with trucks
[1975]once
[1976]and with, ‘people going in.. But/ this was a very
[1978]exciting, agricultural-community-type of a
[1979]project of moving people out where they'd have
[1980]an economic ‘chance at lite/ ana also a chance
[1982]to own land. It was changing the social
[1987]ee el
[1989]yess .
[1990]structure considerably for the, lowest class
[1992]in Bolivia, and with the armed forces doing
[1993]it. This, again, was the very first. visit.
[1994]In Venezia, I had come up with some
[1996]ways of safeguarding our own interests in.
[1997]Venezvbie Lanicn are not only oil production)
[1998]but wet ave steel mills down there and a
[1999]number of thingsZbut: I did this as much for |
[2000]the Venezufilan Defense Ministry as I did for -_
[2001]the United States at the time. They were
[2002]concerned.
[2004]“O'BRIEN: ’ What are your relations with the people
[2006]: involved in the school in Panama’ which spreads
[2008]a lot of this este gospel of civic action
[2010]among the military? Are your relations with
[2011]those people protty good?
[2012]LANSDALE: It was. They had picked up a lot of my
[2013]. material from earlier times, in the form
[2015]Oe. and woes fo
[2016]. ; of -mémosiasd léctures,I had written on these
[2018]Whiten they set up the. school, I
[2020]sub jects.
[2021]talked with them on the program of instruction
[2022]that they were going to vise give. The first~-
[2024]adoption of any of these principles was in
[2027]O'BRIEN:
[2028]“LANSDALE:
[2029]O'BRIEN:
[2032]O'BRIEN:
[2039]Guatemala, and it worked very well there for.
[2040]a ;
[2042]"atime. The Latin Americans’.became quite
[2044]enthusiastic, though again jealousies come in.
[2045]ray . . . oo, .
[2047]They thought the Guatemalans were boasting
[2049]too much about it. $0 / when I was told that
[2052]problem,I said, Weil, get them to emulate and
[2055]' try and‘beat them and get a healthy rivalry
[2058]going, which is what happened actually.
[2059]I suspect [Fulton] Freeman is there as ambass-
[2060]ador in Colgibi a when you're there--no, Freeman
[2062]was in Colfinbia.
[2064]. Yes, he was in corinbia.
[2066]I can't think of the guy who was in Veneauttla
[2067]that was ambassador.
[2068]oh he was from-Arizona and was a journalist.
[2069]Not CHMauric He Beinbaun- LAvs DALE: No-
[2070]Well, how is he to deal with, and do you get
[2071]a chance to see [Romulo)- ‘Betancourt or any
[2072]of the political leaders?
[2073]Yes, I saw political leaders there. I had
[2075]a
[2076]five days in Venezu@la, and I think I got
[2078]A“
[2079]two hours’ sleep all the time.I was there. I
[2080][c. Allan Stewet
[2082]found our ambassador there,at the time very
[2084]gad HAY qeor tb wok wi tia
[2085]open-minded, I wrote a ‘report, coming back
[2087]_ -h3-
[2089]from Venesugila afterward, and submitted itr
[2090]by the. time I got to Washington. It went up
[2092]" to President Kennedy as well as ‘Dean Rusk,
[2093]“and some of Rusk's staff immediately wired the
[2094]anbassadorgena it was one of these) "You don't
[2095]want to buy this, do you," and they said I'd
[2096]come out! with a report on Venezféla,and here
[2097]were the main omnes of my recommendations and
[2098]some findings. “He was just there five days. °-
[2099]He couldn't possible have found out enough
[2100]to come to these conclusions, isn't that
[2101]right?” Bless his heart, the ambassador came .
[2102]- back ‘and said, in effect, "I'm amazed that he
[2103]. found out that much, and the recommendations
[2104]ere sound, and we'd discussed this before he
[2105]left, and we're working with them already."
[2106]“vou | don! t have to be in @ place long. .
[2107]For example, we had a ‘phopty large American
[2108]community down there who themselves were
[2110]| practically governnentj: U.S. Steel. and all .
[2112]our big oil companies and so on. There was
[2114]very little relationship between the American
[2116]O'BRIEN:
[2120]so . ; &.
[2122]business community and the U.S. Fnbassyg aad
[2124]I had urged that they meet maybe once a week
[2125]ye
[2127]or once a month-- the’ American executives and
[2129]the Ambassador and several members ‘of his
[2131]- staffyand have lunch together rather frequently |
[2133]and discuss mutual problems because the U.S."
[2134]firms down there had very large security
[2136]starts ?, (they were very close to the police
[2137]type. of forces, the constabulary ‘down therdj<
[2138]and tarde: tha embassy would be very. well inforned .
[2139]from this, as well as passing some of Ais
[2141]information back to these people;jand everybody
[2144]would gain by it. Well, this doesn't take
[2146]very long to. . 5 - In talking to the vice
[2147]jn cha
[2148]president . of 08. Ste Steel operations down there,
[2150]“you'd an say, "One thing you would change if you
[2152]‘had the power--what would it pel" and he'd
[2154]tell you something like this, you, so,”
[2156]shy it was rather easy to come up with pais that
[2158]' thing..
[2160]Did you find them fairly knowledgeable and
[2161]enlightened about some of the things that you
[2163]were very » +» -@
[2167]O'BRIEN:
[2171]Very much so, very much sope 2
[2172]‘Like rural economic development /’ and agricul-
[2174]dural development he
[2176]Particularly the oil companies, and I was”
[2177]surprised. Standard [Oil Company ]of-tewSersey!
[2178]showed me what it was doing because the. rigs
[2180]out. in: “Lake Maracaibo were getting blown up
[2182]and their pipelines were getting blown Up
[2184]_ by saboteurs. coming in who were ‘really expert.
[2185]oe “4
[2187]I found out, later that they were affiliated
[2189]with communists in coltimbi a and had come on
[2191]“ ‘
[2193]of
[2194]overs they were really experts at explosives,
[2196]and they weren't. the student type of revolu-
[2198]tionaries and so on, who also were present
[2200]“in Venezuela. * But/ in seeing what they were
[2201]doing; it went far beyond a. company paternalism
[2202]‘type of a thing for employees, that started
[2203]credit systems with farm groups and housing
[2204]projects for people living in the vicinity
[2206]-of their (ompioysesu—not thera | employees Ye)
[2207]much, who also gained a great deal out of this.
[2209]And’ “yen U.S. Steel, in ‘pushing its developments
[2212]- -hb-
[2214]. pater on o>:
[2216]way down to the south... *, Heeprobably _\
[2220]O'BRIEN: Oh my God. — This. a wonder: the- _nasn!t~elect?i=—
[2221]| cuted. himself! “= [Laughter]- -
[2222]LANSDALE: Yeah.-.It!s not yours, itis’ <gomo-of-mine =| |
[2223]OLBRIEN: Well;—E'm. not.. worried - about that.~ Wires;-
[2224]these-sort-of-wirés’ “can-be- replaced. "tm = |
[2226]not sure. ebout™ Jours.
[2228]LANSDALE" Worse than-rets.
[2230]oa . tow
[2232]_ OABRIEN—
[2233]en _-
[2238]Yeah. @vell, _one of the stories on Kennedy
[2242]. Q- oo,
[2243]I'd like to put in was} «=< On my reports
[2245]from Vietnam in the very early days of --just
[2247]before he was inaugurated, and he read it 4
[2248]A
[2249]apparently right after the inaugural--one of
[2250]- the reports was a little side piece that. ra
[2252]‘did on a village in’ South Vietnam inhabited
[2253]by some Chinese refugees that: President
[2255]Ngo Dink 2-
[2256]HeuePank nd Diem had located down in the midst
[2258]of a conmunist-held territory, and I was very -
[2262]impressed by them,awd just as an example of
[2264]what humans will do in such a situation, I'd
[2265]written it up and turned in a separate report
[2266]on ite ana about the Zz. a It was still
[2267]January, '61, ‘about ten days ‘after the inaugural,
[2268]A
[2270]my telephone in the Pentagon rangyand this -
[2271]A
[2273]oe
[2275]“voice that sounded like Rresigohs Kennedy's
[2277]told me‘it was President Kennedy talking, and
[2278]AN
[2279]he had read this report of mine and wanted me
[2280]to’ have it published in the ‘Saturday Evening”
[2282]Post. I was wondering which joker in the-
[2283]Vee | ae page oO
[2284]Pentagon =-yousknow, was imitating this ,
[2285]Harvard, Massachusetts acééent and was putting
[2286]$0 &. , ;
[2287]me on, and I said, "Yes, yes, yes." I then
[2288]A ;
[2289]had my secretary check over at the White
[2290]House)and sure enough, it had been President
[2293]2
[2295]Kennedy, so I had. to then go aheadg-I'd
[2297]promised to do itye figuring out I didn't
[2299]know how. to get something in the. ‘Saturday
[2300]Evening Post, but quickly. found, out how) and
[2301]they published this thing afterwards as a
[2302]report that the Rresident wanted published in
[2304]their magazine.
[2308]OO . o
[2309]O'BRIEN: Wellsthets-w-—- You had takenj(of course,
[2310]: A
[2311]you'd had that interest in Vietnam and Laos. . oe
[2312]_You talked to a lot of people, as I under-
[2313]: in .
[2314]. Stand, about Laos and Vietnam ené the incoming
[2315]. . Nn :
[2316]administration. Did.you have any intent or -
[2317]- pyipose in mind outside of just explaining
[2318]‘the way that it was?
[2319]LANSDALE: ‘That was principally my intent. The first
[2320]| meeting I had with McNamara, all he wanted to:
[2322]’ . -
[2323]_ do. was, have me tell him about Vietnam, and this
[2325]was essentially what most of the incoming
[2327]: a .
[2328]administrative officialss+when they'd talk
[2329]7 ‘ ’ No--
[2330]to me-2 would want me to,explain what was
[2331]“2 aa
[2332]happening and what the situation was. This:
[2334]Ph ee ee te eben! anemia Dea
[2336]essentially was how and why I felt on. these
[2337]subjects, but my thesis right along on this.
[2338]was to help the people in the countries to
[2339]help themselves rather than’ go in and do
[2340]things for them. ..It was mostly on the nuts_
[2342]and volte ‘bef’ how you go about doing this, and
[2344]“Aw
[2345]the individuals you'd: pick to do ity and how
[2349]you'd select them, ana ‘please let's ‘have
[2351]highest quality’ and fewer people doing these
[2355]O'BRIEN:
[2359]LANSDALE: -
[2365]things.
[2367]Well, you have some successes and failures
[2369]in--I guess mostly failures in the last of
[2371]the Eisenhower administration“ I'n thinking
[2372]in terms of Laos. Laos is the immediate |
[2373]problem in 1962. How do: you respond to sonie
[2374]of these people who are in policy-making
[2375]ositions at that time? I'd like to get
[2377]your feeling for themZ people like [Waltkers]
[2378]Robertson-Zin the State department-=prapie |
[2379]Robertson and [J. Graham] Parsons: John Irwin
[2380]in tife Defense; and onthe Agency side, people
[2381]like [Desmond] Fitzgerald. How do they see...
[2382]You have named a group of people,. all of whom
[2383]are friends of mine) and we were very friendly,
[2384]and I had worked with a number of them for “
[2386]enough years so that we more or less under-
[2388]stood each other sand could take shortcuts in |
[2390]- conversations and so on. All of those you .
[2392]a2 Ad S tn FAK S
[2393]named -end-—talked*with me expressed
[2395]similar beliefs to mine)so'it was very easy in
[2396]7 A -
[2397]talking to them, and there were others.in the
[2400]O'BRIEN:
[2406]Eisenhower ‘administration. Now this wasn't
[2408]true throughout. the administration at all,
[2410]but there. was a considerable group of people
[2412]‘who were in various executive slots just
[2414]down the second and third level who had been
[2415]through the . . .o{ Interruption]
[2417]_ . | £ the
[2418]Well, Laos,as I understand it,is)with the imp2tT 0 4
[2420]wa ang NO o, oa, ”*
[2422]aid that's going in there, th sit really
[2423]does in. some ways tear up the economy of the .
[2424]country. Now, how do you look on ‘the ‘training
[2426]of the Laotian army in Late 1460--2 159, '60--
[2428]_ some of the activities’ of the Agency in Laos,
[2430]as well as the army and through the PEO
[2432][Programs Evaluation Office] office and things
[2434]. . ah
[2435]like this? Is this the kind of thing,you
[2437]envision in terms of--I hate to use the term
[2439]"nation building"--helping a country to help
[2441]- itself, in! helping people to help themselves?
[2443]Yes, as long as in the modern world the leaders
[2444]of the country will think in terms of as large
[2445]a military establishment as they can afford
[2447]in a country. And they do this without any
[2449]advice from anybody. This is just a natural)
[2450]_ . , A
[2453]Te4-
[2455]self- preservation type of an impulse on. their
[2456]part. Then my thought is: they will be doing
[2457]this. Then let's make the’ military establish-
[2458]ment serve the country in ‘a mach bigger. way
[2459]than merely toting guns around ‘and guarding
[2460]borders. It's usually the organization that
[2461]is nationwide, and there might not be any
[2462]other organization that's nationwide: in the.
[2463]country, such as agriculturey ¢ even the
[2464]administrative structure: that usually comes |
[2466]he . . e
[2468]under, department or ministry of the Interior!
[2470]. won't really have the manpower, the communi-
[2472]cations, and so forth) that the military forces
[2473]A. . A ; ;
[2474]do. * 30, given that, why not then get the
[2476]military to start doing, ‘constructive things
[2478]around and making full use of the manpower
[2480]that you have anyhow. Have. them be good
[2482]military men as the very first requisite of
[2483]thea
[2484]this, but, given that athere! s still energy
[2485]‘A Ora c4 pesth
[2486]and personnel, involved in that who have 4 lot
[2487]of man=hours left over that could do other ~
[2488]ow
[2489]things» and essentially this is what I was
[2491]trying to get the American advisory missions
[2494]O'BRIEN:
[2500]to do--not only: the military advisory missions,
[2501], : . . A)
[2502]but when other egencies would get in and be
[2504]working.on these things, to themselves. become
[2506]‘interested in the military doing such things,
[2508]and aiding and abetting, including sconomicl
[2509]projects and educational work and so on. -
[2511]Well, an this Leoti an deterioration that takes
[2512]R oO
[2513]place, yeu~know the competing people there--
[2514]ia Nosavam ] ov
[2516]Phoumi EYongienit! ¢ and Souvann Phouma and
[2518]-all--how do you read that in 1960 just prior
[2520]-
[2522]to the administration coming in? boo
[2524]How do you see Phoumi; how do you see
[2526]Souvannah Phouma,as people? First of all;
[2528]have you met them ‘at any time ¢ a
[2530]Yes, yes, yes, I didn't know them well at all.
[2531]I'4 met them ae usually at formal gatherings
[2532]of oné ‘kind or another. The main thing that
[2534]I saw in Laos in the way of political stability
[2535]actually stemmed out of the king of. Laos fp this.
[2536]was the only unifying political force that
[2537]existed there in the minds of all of the various .
[2539]Lao leaders whom I'd met. So when the others
[2541]started splitting and opposing one another, I
[2543]O'BRIEN:
[2544]LANSDALE:.
[2546]4 -53-
[2547]J gba Ce ;
[2548]had already felt that our best bet was to
[2549]turn to the king and force him --or, not
[2550]force, but to encourage himjito ‘taking the
[2551]leadership role that would be the one thing
[2552]. acceptable to all these leaders. ‘instead of
[2553]that, we were starting to vecone pantsin partison
[2554]ourselves there and playing off one guy against
[2555]another, and Americans aren't good at that
[2556]game. We have many Americans who think they
[2557]are, but this, I think, is a little too fo foretpx fo ow ndlueg
[2558]; errd ye fell in love with the factions and ;
[2559]and 00 ft
[2560]people, almost: unconscious of the fact that
[2561]“we were doing that. The paratroop leader |
[2562]there...) . _ | :
[2563]Hong Le?
[2564]eg Koad, who kicked over a ‘revolt had spent the
[2565]a night before his coup with a group of pnobican
[2566]friends, and there wasn't a damn one of then
[2567]that knew that he was going to have a coup in
[2568]the morning. This type of a thing I just -
[2569]found inconceivable. People get nervous’ and
[2570]sort of absent-minded about what's happening
[2572]at the time when they're planning an action
[2574]Le.
[2576]8)
[2580]LAN DSALE :
[2584]like that the next morning, and somebody there
[2586]A
[2588]mong the Americans should have been sensitive
[2590]enough to have said, "Well, arent you feeling ~
[2591]"to Sno |
[2592]well ¢ or something, yousrnos;, and had gotten
[2594]some feeling on it. ut] this. sort of getting
[2596]. in bed with people socially, and saying, “He's
[2598]Odea alk right, ,
[2599]a good: fettow,, and" ‘he's my friend, and excusing |
[2601]everything is a common blindness, and this had
[2602]; A
[2604]worried me in Laos quite a bit.
[2606]a
[2608]“Well, I get the impression from reading of
[2610]this perioa/ that there really is some lack . oa]
[2611]of coordination in the various efforts that
[2613]are there—-cAotherwords, the ambassador is
[2615]' not completely privy to what the Agency is
[2617]doing, and the Agency is not completely privy
[2619]to what DOD is doing through the PEO office.
[2621]Do you get that feeling? Maybe in regard
[2623]; Loekn Fe \
[2624]to the Parsons-Irwin-Reilly mission that
[2626]goes out there, do. you get any feeling over Hut
[2627]at all?
[2629]‘Yes, I'm trying to recall. ... We hit a
[2631]crisis at that point, and the group that went.
[2633]out--Parsons was on home leave, and we had a
[2635]Bap
[2639]meeting in the Pentagon in the secretary of
[2641]a ) .
[2642]Defenges office,and there were a mob of
[2644]Aro .
[2645]=<. There were ye can't.
[2647]people theres
[2649]quite recall now what prompted the meeting )
[2650]. ; “A
[2651]ww a -,
[2653]but there was a crisis of some sort in Laos. .
[2655]And the JCS gave a priefing, that's right, as
[2657]‘ part of’: the ‘hing and it was on the Pathet hao
[2659]“positioning and thoy suddenly discovered tet
[2661]there were passes over the mountains that
[2662]had some importance to the Ho Chi Minh trail,
[2663]and this great discovery was being lectured
[2664]‘on at this meeting. F yd at the time, the
[2665]Secretary of Defense--I clit think, I wonder,
[2667]that might have been [Thomas]. ‘Gates Lin] at
[2669]. the time night have been, but whoever it was-—.
[2671]A
[2673]asked it I had a comment to make,and I said,
[2674]A .
[2675]“take a look at that map that the JCS was
[2677]showing us of Pathet Lao and the other situa-!
[2678]tions on the thing} and I said,"it should
[2680]. mo, A a =
[2681]tell everybody here just one thing. You've
[2683]SIs
[2684]got an- ‘ambassador whoz,on home leave heregd
[2686]he doesn't belong here} ne Perongs out in
[2688]Vientiane right this noments axa the rest of.
[2691]O'BRIEN:
[2695]O'BRIEN:
[2699]you who are asking questions ought to have >
[2701]people out. there with him who would tell you
[2703]immediately and take a. first- hand look. "
[2705]oe
[2707]énd—the~a I remember Irwin was ‘picked
[2709], he
[2710]right on the spot to go imnediately, and, said
[2713]to me on the Side, "You and your big mouths
[2715]oo
[2717]yousknowe [Laughter]
[2719]Well; did you get involved in any of the
[2721]meetings on Laos-after. the Kennedy adminis-
[2722]tration comes in, and some of the jockeying
[2723]that goes around?. | |
[2724]Some of them, yes. I can't quite recall
[2725]which meetings they were at the time. I was”
[2727]in on some of the questions of the support of
[2729]Meos,
[2731]the Mass, the guerrilla forces.
[2733]wis
[2734]Well, hed did you see in. terms of a strategy
[2735]An
[2737]for ‘the area? - proreie-. O, a3 I read it, there
[2738]thet pare
[2740]seems to be some various strategies, proposed;
[2742]one is es =youcknos, going down the full road
[2744]behind Phoumi and supporting Phoumi, and
[2746]another is the panhandle strategy--I've never:
[2748]been able to quite understand what the pan-
[2750]i Qe
[2752]he
[2753]handle strategy was-~that ..yooriaou, rings
[2755]Se nenantined dmtamaal eRe Os etna Taken meat
[2759]-S7-
[2761]a bell.
[2762]Hinm,—yeahsvell;" ham, my memory isn't too
[2764]good on this thing. There was some talk
[2766]_ at the time dothere! 's high country across
[2768]_thdgolovens Plateau and so ‘forth down in the
[2769]south, and there was talk at the time of
[2770]that. being the dominant area,and what we
[2771]should dojvas to make use. of that and the
[2772]high ground in Vietnam end so on, across
[2774]into Thailand, and ensure that that state sted
[2776]in noncommunis t hands.
[2778]-, Well, there's also suggested in the Laotian
[2780]A
[2782]‘ crisis as early as 1961, the use of strategic.
[2784]bombing on supply routes, and even) as I
[2785]“A .
[2787]understand it, to “Hanoi, as early as that)
[2788]interdicting A A
[2790]jeweiekesing some of. the ‘supply lines, - as
[2792]' well as the suggestion ,that subsequently in
[2794]1962 does become a reality)” the dropping
[2795]of the ‘sbaTo [Southeast Asia Treaty Organization]
[2797]"plan five as I understand it, How did you
[2799]‘feel about the Laotian crisis at that point,
[2801]in terms of a strategy or a direction of nich
[2803]should work?
[2804]a.
[2808]Neo,
[2812]Well, I had wanted the Laotians to defend
[2813]on
[2814]their, country, and Iwas all for the work
[2815]- Meas
[2816]with the Nees oe Sana so on of doing it.
[2818]. Once. it left that and started involving =e
[2820]Vietnamese or us, on bombing or anything
[2821]else, I felt that the cost ‘of saving some
[2822]real estate would be too high to ever engage |
[2824]ant oler wore
[2825]iny, And on the boiibing, I felt that’ as long
[2827]as you had all of the" communication with the
[2828]people meeks in the hands of communist leaders
[2829]such as in North Vietnam and then Hanoi where
[2830]this was pushing, that anything overt such
[2832]as aerial ‘bombing that would then permit them
[2833]to, use that as a unifying force psychologically
[2835]with the people would be dead wrong.” I used
[2837]to rémind them of what [Winston] Churchill had
[2839]“gone with the German bombing of Britain oh
[2841]“A
[2843]Fjust on radio with the peopleg and here were
[2845]‘leaders with complete access to radio and
[2847]working with the people),and it would have a
[2848]A ;
[2849]reverse effect. as far as trying to stop the
[2851]ambitions and aims and’so forth of the North
[2853]were,
[2854]Vietnamese, who af ter all, the guys organizing
[2855], _ “A
[2859]the Pathet: Lao and pushing on into the area.
[2860]Wy frelt that more could be done ‘with the
[2861]7 armed forces of Laos themselves in making
[2862]them more able to stand up for themselves -
[2863]and defend their country. But if it couldn't).
[2864]I couldn't see an intervention of any sort — “
[2865]in there. Morally, we'd have been on a moral
[2866]ground then to turn around and start using
[2867]some _ international moral pressure )through the -
[2868]_ press and so forth, to sort of shame the. North
[2869]‘Vietnamese out of “nei attempts. I'm a -
[2870]great believer in exposing things to bring
[2871]‘such pressure. | . .
[2872]O'BRIEN: Well, how do’ you see the relationship of Vietnam.
[2873]. and Laos at that point, or do you? . .
[2874]LANSDALE: Oh, yes. The passes and the Ho(hi Minh trail
[2875]in bringing things down was one of the key
[2876]‘things on this. But again, there. was even
[2877]talk at the time of taking Vietnemese troops
[2878]in there, e—seoretiy;Zand using them up
[2879]to try and stop that, “and I was opposed to
[2881]that I didn't want to see intervention like
[2883]that from the outside.
[2886]O'BRIEN:
[2890]O'BRIEN:
[2894]Well, when does some of the covert activity,
[2895]interms of. the ‘use of some | of the: Mints nord s
[2898]yerds- in interdicting those supply lines in
[2899]Qe
[2901]Laos 2youtkhou, from Vietnam, start? Is that
[2903]“A
[2904]‘going on in the late Eisenhower acministretion,
[2905]. “A
[2907]or does it begin in the Kennedy administration?
[2908]I think it was the Kennedy administrations= .
[2909]there had been a little of it,or there -had
[2911]been talk of tin the Eisenhower administration.
[2912]There had been: “thoughts along that line by:
[2914]the top Vietnamese pa
[2916]remember President Diem's brother, went Gor
[2917]far a in
[2919]his older brother -Zuent into Laos gf about
[2921]'SS or. “maybe: 156, and had come up with a scheme
[2923]. A
[2924]very similar to that at the time. He had
[2926]talked about ‘the mountain people of ‘Laos
[2928]’ being akin to. "the mountain people of Vietnam
[2930]“A
[2932]_ and wouldn 't: it be ‘good to get some of our
[2934]mountain people in with them,and ‘together
[2935]A
[2936]‘they could be trained.
[2938]‘Yes, well, you're. in Vietnam in the middle
[2940]‘of the fifties,and then you go back’ in 1960
[2941]A
[2943]in the late Eisenhower administration. What's
[2945]So le etn Rt te on 8 rater each at palette 9 hematin hl I cman eel me Ds ane thn adh Litem A ta dR, st Leacde 54 .
[2949]er
[2953]O'BRIEN:
[2959]changed, or has anything?
[2961]A
[2963]Oh, a great deal. Excuse me. [Interruption]
[2965]What changes. do you find?.
[2967]. . + \ .
[2968]Well, the main change was in a growing isola- ) >
[2969]ed
[2971]tion from reality of the constituency of the {
[2972]President of Vietnamy a repression of, you,
[2974]might say,a loyal opposition or a noncommunist .
[2976]A .
[2977]. haw ; .
[2978]opposition to then in political terms a” “There werk
[2980]_ professionally some among the military that. - G
[2981]“was taking the Vietnamese military apart from
[2982]‘their people more than it had been when I had
[2984]left, because I-had gotten them working very :
[2985]. “A the pepe ON Qe . 7
[2986]closely with a number of aterki=sr~— projects»
[2988]A ana a growing isolation of the American
[2989]embassy in particular)but including some of.
[2990]. ; A
[2991]the American agencies, from the Vietnamese
[2992]; A
[2993]officialdom, and taking a very strange form
[2995]of concentrating on gossip essentially--gossip
[2996]ON
[2998]as much as fact--about eh,—what—the—hellts-
[3000]the: word-I'm-trying. to—think of,—ez misdeeds
[3007]a prs
[3008]and so forth by, public officials or
[3010]people connected with the regime in Vietnam @
[3011]so that the information~gathering process
[3012]of the United States there was devoting an
[3014]exorbitant amount of time on sort of nitpicking
[3016]Tee co , - Ee
[3018]on the people that were in power. jgne rela-
[3020]tionships, such as the ambassador with the
[3022]. A . . .
[3024]president of the country, the ambassador
[3026]AC
[3028]would go into details of malfé%ance in office
[3030]me ' and so forth, or mishandling of funds by the
[3032]Vietnamese on an internal matter, and the
[3034]president would have to correct him and Say,
[3036]A
[3038]\you Gon't have all the facts, and the ambass-~- __ _-
[3039]iN : . Ani
[3040]ador: would say, rYes,I do ) too. This. to me
[3042]e : ; A. A
[3043]was very poor I felt that we had some
[3045]Americans “trat were close enough to the top
[3047]3
[3048]4
[3052]: . : officials of the Vietnamese(who weren't
[3054]. present in the country always), who should
[3055]; . .
[3057]! . “A
[3059]be brought there and told, “Look, we under-
[3061]a , , stand these guys are doing something wrong.
[3065]Can you go in and get them to start doing
[3067]things right,as a friend of theirs?" rather
[3068]LA Ge _ . .
[3070]than going aad trying to scold them and
[3072]ES
[3073]_
[3075]‘something and getting the backs up of people, .
[3077]and they'd figure, "Well, these damn nosey
[3078]oe “A ray
[3079]Americans-only got half the facts, and
[3080]since they don't understand us that well,
[3081]a R
[3082]the hell with them. We aren't going to
[3083]an do what they wantg" I just felt that we
[3084]me weren't playing a very wise ballgame there
[3085]at the time, on the American side.““I also
[3086]‘felt that Diem was paying too much attention
[3087]-to similar types of his own people, his
[3088]intr y
[3089]intelligence people, who,were sixty telling
[3090]him what ‘the Americans were Going too damn
[3091]much, or were bringing in alarming news about
[3092]his own subjects--and particularly political
[3093]oppositionists--and)I- suspect) manufactaring
[3094]A 7A.
[3096]cases against them so that they could take
[3098]actionsgard he,in turn,was getting too much
[3099]—~ A “A '
[3103]andwat which point he asked me where I had
[3107]secondhan@ from people) and this tended to
[3108]. . ' Pay . . .
[3110]_e . , i. ; . - . - .
[3111]isolate him more) Since his main intelli--
[3113]A ;
[3115]“gence officer was his brother, [Ngo Dinh] Nhu,
[3116]Z-
[3118]. A.
[3119]who was’ an ambitious person,too, I felt that
[3121]it was a poor arrangement’ on the Vietnamese
[3123]Side. -I personally urged Diem at the time
[3124]to get in’ touch with some-of his opposition,
[3125]A
[3127]been at certain times of the day during my
[3129]. ; NS ;
[3130]visit theres and I said, I was talking to.
[3132]your opposition and I'm not going to tell
[3133]. ¢ . .
[3134]you who it was oOr:where I was, but just the
[3136]mere fact that you know that shows that you -
[3137]were having me trailed aroundgasa you know
[3139]I'm a friend of your country's,and I'm
[3140]. A
[3142]trying to help all of you succeed here, and
[3144]you happen to be the elected leader, and you
[3145]“A
[3147]jolly well better start reflecting what your.
[3149]people desires a it youd spena your time
[3151]and money and efforts and so forth watching
[3153]-65-.
[3155]a guy like me, I'm sure you're doing. a lot.
[3157]. ; Hy
[3158]more for someone else you really suspecty —
[3159]Qo ,
[3160]: ana
[3161]O BRIEN: How would he react to something like this?
[3162]LANSDALE: Listen, I was told by a number of people ~
[3164]that Iwas about the only one'that really:
[3168]ever talked to him in this manner, and he
[3170]would listeng and at the time, ‘one of the
[3172]people most critical of him was his vice--
[3173]“ - a ' president, and I went over and saw the vice~
[3175]president,whose name was [Nguyen Ngoc] Tho,
[3176]AN. : . .
[3178]~ and Tho immediately started telling me that
[3179]the president had spies all over‘ his office
[3180]and in his staffgand as he was telling me
[3181]this, one of the clerks was serving us tea,
[3182]and I said, “rs this guy .one of the president's
[3183]spies? and he said, "Probably, I think so.”
[3184]_[Laughter) Maybe he'll go ‘back and report
[3188]this one. I said," When was the last time
[3190]you two talked to each other?” Well, it had
[3191]oO ; A
[3193]‘to get in’ touch with.some of his opposition,
[3195]anheat which point he asked me where I had ;
[3199]secondhand from people, and this tended to_
[3201]A a
[3202]: . fs . . . : Q .
[3203]isolate him more, Since his main intelli-
[3204]. H _—
[3206]gence officer was his brother, [Ngo Dinh] Nhu,”
[3207]7 . . , . . Fa\
[3209]A
[3210]who was’ an ambitious person,too, -I felt that —
[3212]it was a poor arrangement'on the Vietnamese
[3214]side. -I personally urged Diem at the time
[3216]“A
[3218]been .at certain times of the day during my
[3220]. ; . \w
[3221]visit theres and I said, I was talking to
[3223]your opposition, and I'm not going to tell
[3224]you who, it wa’s or where I was, but just the
[3226]mere fact that you know that shows that you -
[3228]‘were having me trailed around ,ard you .know
[3229]| g \ y
[3231]I'm a friend of your country‘s,and I'm
[3232]2 . A .
[3233]trying to help all of you succeed here, and.
[3235]you happen to be the elected leader, and you
[3237]jolly well better start reflecting what your
[3238]an y¥ . -
[3240]people desire, afd if you™@G spend your time
[3242]and money and efforts and so forth watching
[3244]O BRIEN:
[3246]LANSDALE: |
[3250]a guy like me, I'm sure. you're doing. a lot
[3251]| —_ . 7
[3252]more for someone else you really suspecty —
[3253]oe
[3255]How would he react to something like this?
[3257]Listen, I was told by a number of people -
[3259]that. I was about the only one’that really:
[3261]ever talked to him in this manner, and he
[3262]would listens and at the time, one of the
[3264]people most critical of him-was his vice-—
[3266]’ president, and I went over and saw the vice
[3268]president, whose name was INguyen Ngoc] Tho,
[3269]and Tho immediately started telling me that —
[3270]the president had spies all over his office
[3271]and in his stafigand as he was telling me
[3272]this, one of the clerks was serving us tea,
[3274]. \ a : .
[3275]and I said, ‘Is this guy one of the president's
[3278]spies?’ and he said, "Probably, I think so."
[3280][Laughter] Maybe he'll go back and report
[3282]dee
[3283]this one. I said, When was the last time
[3285]you two talked to each other?” Well, it had
[3290]werkt.
[3291]. been months» =° I, back to Diem, and I jumped.
[3292]oan : _ A
[3293]hime I said; You've got a vice-president
[3294]who you've made responsible for ali the
[3295]economic development of the ‘country, and I
[3298]know that you consider that very importante. -
[3300]. . . mf, . . o . t
[3301]You haven't talked to him for a long time,”
[3302]: . he'd A
[3303]and I forced him to tell me when you'd done
[3304]. . \. ; : . .
[3305]it lastgso I said, Well, pick up the telephone
[3307]“and call him over here your first free time,
[3309]SO , — A
[3311]and you sit down and have a long talk with ©
[3312]no . ; .
[3314]himp. So he did itg He picked up. the phone,
[3316]mt : a A
[3318]and I got the two of them together againg
[3319]He was really out of touchm He promised me
[3320]at the time to get in touch with some of the Abs
[3321]political oppositiong he swore up and down
[3322]. « well,- .
[3323]"he wasn't oppressing anyones and I said, “Yo ou
[3324]don’t know what your own police are doing)
[3325]; A
[3326]u s, .
[3327]‘then, and-I gave him the list of names of
[3328]A
[3330]’ people who were in prisonf; who had been arrested
[3332]“at midnight and pulled out of their homes and
[3334]ce re nen er A S
[3336]Fe ern ents me melee eM Re ci Od de eek as eg wenn seme
[3338]O'BRIEN:
[3340]_ LANSDALE:
[3342]“  -67-
[3344]“SO Ong and he promised. to.look into their
[3346]cases immediately and do something about
[3348]: _ S : -
[3349]itm And I said, I've gotten this from.
[3350]; = 4 , . : 7
[3351]people who,in the opposition to you, but -I
[3352]whether _ Bee “A
[3354]don't know 3 e“you ‘ve,gotten any reports.
[3356]He said he‘d@ never heard of these cases,
[3358]and I think he was telling the truth. He
[3359]had no reason to dissemble with me at all.
[3360]on these things.
[3361]Well) why is this? Is it. the development of.
[3362]MA .
[3363]A ot te
[3364]an independent bureaucracy, or is jnexe—a
[3366]degree of U.S. influence on, let's ‘say,the
[3367]; ‘ 7A)
[3369]intelisgence, eae
[3371]There. was probably some. ‘I think by
[3373]‘that time the Vietnamese intelligence was.
[3375]way beyond any control by U. S. intelligence,
[3376]A
[3378]who. initially had been helping it, and Diem's
[3379]Bother Nhu was really--really had the bit in
[3381]his teeth and was his own man. And I suspect)
[3382]: : “A
[3384]initially, he was really trying to serve his
[3386]Anca eben ceeatteentd Ue Meee Sin A SRP A sd Pe meen Oa a As ni
[3389]nee ee sees re eS oT NRE tae en caeRaReNeeD
[3391]O'BRIEN:
[3397]brother, and he was doing it by trying ‘to
[3398]get the goods on. everybody working for his
[3399]brother throughout , the government and anybody
[3400]opposed to his brother and the intelligence |
[3401]people picking it up) discovered that if
[3402]LA NO
[3403]they brought in’bad news about some guy that
[3404]the brother. didn't like, he'd pay them and
[3405]believe it. So I'm sure that there was
[3407]a lot of manufactured evidence in the
[3408]intelligence take that was coming ing ad
[3410]I don't think the Americans were screening
[3412]“any of that type of information because it
[3414]went right into the palace,and there was a
[3415]3
[3417]big room behind the president's office that -
[3419]had many files and was the main  personner 7
[3421]dossier type of file place.
[3423]Well, you're critical of the MAAG [Military
[3425]Assistance Advisory croup] operation there.
[3428]felon
[3430]' What's wrong. with it, in the late obs
[3432]A
[3434]Well, I felt that M2AG under “hanging” Sam
[3437](Samaed T. J Williams in the late Sess was
[3441]anfunusually well-run American military
[3442]“A .
[3444]. Operation. There were some unusual things
[3446]being done that made it so.’ one of them’
[3447]was one of the best ideas I've ever bumped
[3448]into. “General Willians brought over the
[3449]chief “of Staff of the Vietnamese army
[3451]whenever .the American advisors who at that.
[3452]. . - , oe
[3453]. . . Z
[3454]time were out in the countryside; but et
[3455]A
[3457]can ae . ,
[3458]wa at fairly high level.s,and were running
[3460]A, ;
[3461]training camps more than advising on opera-
[3462]: Qa-
[3464]‘tions or anything-But. when they would come
[3466]in once a month for a weekend in Saigon,
[3468]Williams would get the Vietnamese Chief of
[3470]| Staff to come in and talk to them. The
[3472]Vietnamese ¢hief of Staff at that time was
[3473]General [Tran Van] Don. Don was quite
[3475]diplomatic, but had a way of being candid in
[3476]oR : .
[3478]his remarks and not having them hurt too much
[3481]“when they were told. He would leave out, So
[3483]‘on, but he would tell these Americans what
[3485]1
[3487]O'BRIEN:
[3493]‘their Vietnamese counterparts in the Viet--
[3495]namese army and so forth thought of them and
[3497]. . ”
[3498]their work, and their advice, and ‘the reactions
[3499]A , eo . ms
[3500]throughout the armed forces to them This
[3502]‘was the one part of the monthly gatherings —
[3504]with Americans around that everybody would
[3506]stop dozing off or thinking of something else
[3507]and would sit up and pay attention because
[3509]they were the subject of the talk,of course.
[3510]: A
[3511]This was a very healthy thing. oe
[3512]see where. |
[3514]ves, I ‘can fee¥ it F wevld bee
[3516]toe Zause even though it was tough diplo-
[3518]Q-
[3519]; matically, the most sordid truth, wotid— the
[3521]A Gee
[3523]hardest factgfwould | come out in, the,
[3525]; And then Williams himself had been in
[3527]‘Vietnam .a long eriough time by then--I forget
[3529]how-long; it may be three years at the time,
[3530]. A ‘
[3531]four years-~so that when he moved around the
[3533]Vietnamese army, it wasn't only just the top
[3535]stat £ officers and commanders who would be
[3537]with hin, but I noticed in a visit, there--1
[3539]ne
[3543]think it was '59--that sergeants and junior
[3544]lieutenants and soon would come up and .talk
[3545]a .
[3546]to himg and I'd moved in close enough to
[3547]eavesdrop on some of the conversations,and ~
[3548]OA.
[3550]these were personal problems, family problems, ~
[3552]and financial problems and so forth that
[3554]individuals had,arid this was a very unusual -
[3558]relationship .for an American to have. And
[3560]since the American was also running our
[3561]quresgret
[3563]advisory effort jroo. I just figured that this
[3565]constant’ feeding and contact with the echelons
[3567]of Vietnamese military that were down below’
[3569]the big wheels was again a very healthy
[3571]influence that -was constantly at work with
[3573]him. “So that he would know very well ‘what’
[3575]“was going on in. places.: Some of these problems-—~
[3577]personal problems--would actoally involve the
[3579]military work that was going forward, people
[3581]_ gxiping that something was wrong and so ons
[3583]atc they were doing this out of a friendship)
[3584]A
[3586]O'BRIEN:
[3590]_ O'BRIEN:
[3596]and hesvas not to tell.on their bosses or
[3598]anything, but usually personal worries and
[3600]concern. that Wastes ox something going
[3602]: a . oan
[3603]‘wrong would @ffect them. Later they moved
[3605]in an educdtor--a military educator-- {Paul D.]
[3606]Harkins, and. . -@ | | |
[3608]Well, [Lt. Gen. Lionel -C.] McGarr comes in.
[3609]there before that; doesn't he?
[3611]McGarr, It was McGarr, yes, you're right.
[3613]it was. before Harkins. McGarr. And McGarr
[3615]built. up a staff to work on. counter -insurgency
[3617]and probably put together the best staff
[3618]Hat. ;
[3620]' studies on counter-insurgenc an an
[3621]; \/ 3 ¥Y fo y
[3623]American military men have ever done.
[3624]Is that right?
[3625]He got American military men who had ‘been
[3627]guerrilla leaders in the Philippines, for
[3629]. example)in World War II)and in Burma and so
[3631]“A “A
[3633]on),and in Europe, and switched most of his,
[3635]A : .
[3636]work over: into compiling “How to Do it”
[3638]manuals, but I've never seen the finished
[3642]products. I saw them working on it at the
[3643]time, and all I know is they had tremendous
[3644]Stacks of papers with the results of their
[3645]typed-out work’ and were putting it together.
[3646]. oe
[3648]@fand the interpretation of this ‘c= apparently, wore
[3649]to: start increasing staff and American military
[3650]personnel to ‘handle whatever wipes was
[3652]coming up out of this whole process. The
[3654]a
[3656]feeling was was that there should be closer
[3658]; American Supervision of what was happening
[3659]a yrits,
[3660](out in Bunks ‘which meant pox you'd put
[3662]down your Americans at lower echelons and
[3664]then get a separate reporting system on back,
[3665]So, oe - A
[3666]feeding in the research process of the Americans
[3668]oil as A beat et cna en Na i
[3670]initially more than anything else. It wasn't
[3672]for control; it was just for information that -
[3673]would go into fields of studyead this eka fede
[3675]Anertvon oo
[3676]to a proliferation of anmilitary presence
[3678]that was intended sort of for the ‘education
[3680]of Americans)I think) more than anything else,
[3681]. A A : A
[3683]but of course didn't work out that way. You
[3687]put some red-blooded American boys in uniform.
[3688]out’ someplace, and they're going to start doing
[3689]A a -
[3691]“other things as well. In collecting information),
[3692]ae Wo: kek A
[3693]_they couldn't help but tell a guy, Well, ,if
[3695]you didn't do it this way and did it the other
[3696]uO _ ) x
[3697]_ way, it would work better, and so on. It Wang
[3699]a very human. thing that started workings avd
[3701]as this happened »we started building up our
[3704]advisory effort more and more.
[3707]O'BRIEN: | Well,in the meantime,while this is going on,
[3708]oA ; A ,
[3710]the insurgency's building up, isn't it?
[3712]LANSDALE: Yes.
[3713]O'BRIEN: Just what is the condition of the country-
[3715]side that's different from when you're there
[3717]a capnelanie 8 ee eee Be a 5 eee tens nl nic tind i
[3719]in the middie f£}fties «sede and when you go_
[3720]io back in =i. 19b0.¢° .
[3722]- Ra penations
[3724]LANSDALE: Oh, there were guerrilla,by an enemy )which
[3726]i — ' there hadn't been in the period from Geneva
[3728]on up to the time I left in the end of ‘56@
[3730]You could drive roads at night and so forth
[3735]. . ‘ ! :
[3736]and not be worrying about guerrillas. There
[3737]were isolated incidents of violence, but.
[3739]they were very minor--it would be about
[3740]. . wilt. dhe
[3741]what you'd expect in any country,crime rate
[3743]wad
[3744]going! the ; fact that former Vietbss- guerrillas
[3745]were the guys pulling the trigger didn't
[3746]matter too much as far as the overall crime.
[3748]rate went. It was in a nature of minor
[3749]Hake
[3750]terrorism,was going on. By my next visits
[3751]a Lien . :
[3752]later in the [SO+S, there were areas of
[3753]a
[3755]guerrilla bands at work) with roads that were
[3757]“A
[3759]gs
[3761]unsafe and - “So on, FA ,areas that were unsafe,
[3764]A , A
[3766]with great - problems of police posts being
[3768]"attacked and with their families being wiped
[3770]out in small massacre type of things, though
[3771]the type and degree of violence had increased
[3772]a. great deal. ” py the end of '60--when I got
[3774]7 aol & oy . , .
[3775]there xm Christmas of '60--there were fair-
[3777]size enemy, Vietcong units operating and
[3779]dominating areas/, it had escalated considerably.
[3781]by then.
[3785]O'BRIEN: Is this terrorism campaign on the local
[3787]officials as serious as some of the people
[3788], : oe . .
[3789]. > An
[3790]have written/ abouw-ity
[3792]LANSDALE: Oh, yes.
[3794]y
[3795]O'BRIEN: Do you ever get an fy feeling about the
[3797]“number of people? “I've heard all kinds
[3798]of estimates:
[3800]LANSDALE: — No, I've got [Stephen -T.]} Hosmer 's study
[3801]thereon flat , and, I haven't read it yet.
[3802]I just got that from him. I imagine he's
[3804]"got ‘a figure ‘in. there. The last figure
[3807]I remember on it was-in about ' 66-wassnloet
[3808]4
[3810]FH oe on
[3812]or something a)
[3813]O'BRIEN: Forty thousand, That many?
[3815]LANSDALE: Yes. These were officials<not their families
[3816]A :
[3817]or anything. But these were village officials?
[3819]and district officials) ana sort of federal
[3820]-government officials,
[3821]- O BRIEN: Well, what do you see happening as a result of this
[3822]: : “A the -« ‘o bil it
[3824]in terms of Diem re just simply govern in. those
[3826]wl bic
[3827]years? ts We Valed 6 govern deteriorating?
[3833]_ Yes: In some ways it was. Initially, he
[3835]was are ee to delegate any authority
[3838]at all and he had the tendency to try and
[3840]“A
[3842]do everything himself. If the problem
[3844]came up in agriculture, he ‘would be the
[3845]guy to, do all the Paper. work and the deciding
[3846]rather than his Minister of Agriculture and:
[3848]so on. He had gotten over that to a very
[3850]large extent laters 56 he had learned to be
[3852]more the administrator and executive later
[3854]on,as far as putting some authority in the
[3855]“A a . ;
[3856]: .
[3858]hands of others. But at the same time, he
[3860]also seemed to have lost some of his critical
[3862]Ze
[3864]faculty, &€,some of the things that were going
[3866]‘wrong,: of not being able to see it: He was
[3868]getting around the country and visiting) but.
[3869]: “A
[3871]not aS much anymore because of the security
[3873]- problems. He had.been shot at several. times,
[3875]A
[3876]so that he had a larger and larger security ©
[3878]guard around him all the time, which meant
[3880]; A
[3881]that .when he went in and talked to people,
[3886]-start dialogues with his political opposition
[3890]ry
[3892]‘they were very much awere of plain_clothes
[3894]policemen, secret service types, all around
[3896]him, and others)that were screening out
[3897]: , A“ . . a
[3898]peoples so that the dialogue between the
[3900]president and the people became thinner and
[3902]thinner, and less and less meaningful. So
[3904]‘while he-was. on paper. becoming a better
[3906]executive, he was, in terms-of being the
[3908]. ; oa . Co .
[3909]national leader, wis being less effective all |.
[3910]_ A Se
[3911]the time because he had no means of measuring
[3913]what was true and what wasn't? what was
[3914]tA
[3916]a
[3917]v
[3919]. . . wine’?
[3920]woxth doing and wasn't, and what” was’ work
[3922]CAV le
[3923]winld “ oO. .
[3924]and What wasn-ti” It was a considerable
[3926]an
[3927]impairment of his critical faculty. This
[3929]was one of the reasons I was urging him to
[3933]| duet
[3934]even if it started at opposite poles and,led
[3937]to tremendous emotional clashegythét there
[3938]would be some means for dialogue to take |
[3940]place that would have been useful to him,
[3942]particularly if he-had invited them into a
[3946]‘meal or something)and had some way of --
[3947]eat “A -
[3949]wee
[3951]jfactensiag the most emotional irritations
[3953]owt of
[3954]that would take place, just owt arg’ people
[3956]bol
[3957]saened- polite at the timej so the content
[3960]of what they, nad’ to Say would be something
[3962]that he..wasn't gettingnelsewise.
[3964]O'BRIEN: ves, well, as I understand it) the Vo Vv Jeg” Wwiet
[3965]Cong] make -a great deal of headway in those
[3966]years on the basis of the land system.
[3968]LANSDALE: That was one of them.
[3970]O'BRIEN: Welljwhat. . i... As I understand it there's
[3971]some rub: between the U.S. in this regard
[3972]and Diem about putting through some land
[3973]reform which would cure’ some of the rural
[3975]' cultural problems that the French had sort
[3976]of created, as I understand, from yousicne
[3978]the Vietnamese moving into the country. . .@
[3980]LANSDALE: Yes, yes.
[3982]O'BRIEN: Well, how do you see that? Are you pushing hin
[3983]. _& .
[3984]for this sort of thing?at Hot polit 2
[3985]a, a be hod 2 .
[3986]LANSDALE: Yes. Actually,we+reve some very sound land
[3988]A
[3993]reform measures on the books and had issued
[3995]decrees on them that were good. As usual,
[3997]vA
[3999]the diffgculty i when you get a piece of
[4000]. . - “aA . . we °
[4002]legislation Or somethingytis then implementing
[4003]A
[4004]it correctly) and I was pushing him mostly on
[4006]Fg
[4008]implementing his measures. “Now ‘the land ‘
[4010]. . -Q7
[4011]reform worke® that Diem approved and used
[4013]“sk,
[4014]as the basis for his decrees came from 40/F lade ¢
[4016]a ;
[4017]and Wolf) wes, wnen he left U.S. employment,
[4019]wes actually employed by Diem as his advisor on.
[4020]ASE sopject. and Wolf was getting over and
[4021]having breakfast with Diem quite a bit.
[4022]Wolf is a very articulate, personable type
[4023]of a guy yand there was a great deal of .
[4024]- aA
[4025]affectionate friendship between the two mena
[4026]so that Wolf, who is a champion of reforms
[4027]and of helping the man on the land, had full
[4028]“access to this guy and had a way of doing
[4029]things. ana I felt that the main thing. that
[4030]‘needed doing was demonstrating to President
[4032]Diem, who was sympatnetic towards this, of where’
[4034]“A
[4036]-Pl-
[4038]things weren't going right and changing some.
[4039]a ths,
[4040]of the inner workings of tre “thing)instead
[4041]A A
[4042]of sust falting him on intent. And his
[4043]‘intent was very sound, very good. I think
[4044]he was ignorant of some of these things.
[4046]; Fi a
[4047]going, wrong. I felt that we should have
[4048]bornejdown on the matters in which he was
[4050]‘ignorant and tried to get some changes there
[4051]-'and make these things work because certainly
[4052]A
[4053]landlords and others were circumventing
[4054]the .law of the land that Diem thought ‘was
[4055]operatingpzor when he circumvented it, he
[4056]was doing it for good reasons of his own,
[4058]“A
[4059]which was again open to education by somebody
[4061]of hime but he was moving in people whom he ,
[4063]could trust--who were refugees--into farm
[4065]communities and distributing land to them
[4067]for security reasons and political reasons
[4069]and so on, and then dictating what they
[4071]would grow and’so ongAdcause he'd just figure,
[4072]; A.
[4074]Well,: in the national economy ,we need this
[4075]; A
[4077]soniething,and the land will produce i
[4079]A
[4080]there,and so they should do that. sof he
[4081]A sort of .
[4082]was only circumvent ing: ‘tthe law,for the
[4083]greater good, in his own .mind, if nis own |
[4084]extent. ~ ° 4
[4085]O'BRIEN: . This centralization. brings about a reaction, ~
[4086]; oe ; A
[4087]-though, doesn't it?
[4088]LANSDALE: | Yes. | os
[4089], we .
[4090]TAPE If SIDE I
[4091]LANSDALE: You asked about the falling out between
[4093]just
[4095]something of that nature, but, what it
[4097]remember that the American ambassador
[4098]Thue ,
[4100]A “Spee
[4102]Ledejsnsky was having breakfast with Diem
[4104]and was close to him, and,in a rather general
[4106]pod axked I adejinsky ra
[4107]way, to bring up thoughts of corruption
[4108]A
[4112]£ up
[4114]Ladejinsky and Diem. I know there was
[4116]consisted of, or why, I don't know. I
[4118]_ O'BRIEN:  “£t,would have been [Elbridge]’ Durbrow?:
[4120]a
[4122]4, Nn
[4124]type of fiber drown or this type of crop or
[4126]“LANSDALE: |. Durbrow-—-- was mindful of the fact that
[4130]fn UMP SSE Se or ee eS et RR le iE Ee, RA aA atl Ebi Oral been Ai nt he Miele ae wp weenie ee ie i
[4134]the government and subjects beyond anything
[4135]Like land reform. And I suspect that
[4136]Ledejinsky had’ started getting very political
[4137]in his talk ,as a result of this,with Diem,
[4139]“A .
[4141]Ft. ;
[4142]and that Diem had resented it. But beyond...
[4144]this, there was a very deep affection between |
[4146]_ the two. When I was there in .'59 or ‘60,
[4148]2 , oo,
[4149]Ladejinsky had wanted to go someplaceand
[4151]A
[4152]‘I forget where it was. ... . I know one
[4154]of the places was Indonesia, but there was
[4156]another country he wanted. to go to)and Diem
[4158]hadn't wanted him to go/ and he*suggested
[4159]that he attend a conference--I think in
[4160]5 .
[4163]Latin Americases pared finally, they had agreed |
[4165]between the two. “of them, and Lihejinsky had
[4167]A fre hod
[4168]gone on to: :do these other things, bret, te ken
[4169]FH
[4171]sort of a sabbatical leave to do that.” But
[4173]this was a very personal thing between two -
[4175]men, and it was two friends/ rather than a
[4176]A
[4178]president and his consultant working. I
[4180]know re Yaejinsky is very sentimental about
[4182], - a I
[4184]“7
[4188]‘Diem as a man, and I know that Diem recipro- |
[4190]cated this very much. There was a point.
[4192]where the rational thought would end, and.
[4194]; A
[4196]‘the feelings of affection and so forth
[4198]would come over, and say, Well, even if that
[4200]is true and everything, I still like the.
[4202]guy, and,vant to help him and so ong and
[4204]this existéd between the two. soy they
[4206]might have’ differed ‘on some things and perhaps :
[4207]are : i on carrying out land reform exactly the way: fot
[4209]Wolf wanted, but “the two men kept seeing
[4211]each other all the time,and he had ample
[4213]; “A
[4214]opportunity to work on that.
[4215]. G- thot's . _
[4216]O'BRIEN: penta -the- suggestion sks made sometimes is
[4218]that the Vietnamese military nag not been
[4219]trained for the kind of war and the kind
[4221]of insurgency that they did encounter in
[4222]1960-61}-tney had not been properly trained
[4223]for that before. Is there any validity
[4225]“in this at all?
[4227]i a a a |
[4230]we? ce
[4231]-LANSDALE:, Oh yes), They were being trained actually to
[4232]| . meet the challenge that the Vietnamese and
[4234]American top officials. foresaw, and they were
[4235]‘thinking shat thes--and incidentally, the
[4236]French General [Pau] Ely before he left. was
[4237]thinking the same way-- just in terms of
[4238]contigency, planning» they saw a lot of artil-
[4239]lery. and armor being given the North Vietnamese.
[4240]army. So, veteg given that information, they
[4241]saw any attack or military trouble in Vietnam
[4242]as consisting of divisions of North Vietnamese |
[4243]with a lot of artillery and armor coming | |
[4244]across the border. So they built up an army
[4246]to meet the foreseeable thing that was happenings,
[4249]that they thought might happen. ” Instead of
[4251]this, of course, it was more of the same old
[4253]ker lene es a
[4255]story againgese. there were many of the officers
[4256]in the Vietnamese armed forces who had formerly
[4257]been guerrillas themselves, who had formerly
[4258]had been viet Hee? in the old: days of fighting
[4259]the French, who had proken with the gommunists
[4260]“and wanted no pert of the Communists and were
[4262]very sincere, patriotic wationalists. But
[4264]“high school and so on.
[4266]Yo
[4268]Br
[4270]sincé they had had favg .this former affiliation |
[4271]and had teken their basic military training
[4272]with the enemy, so to speak, they never quite
[4274]had the same stature among their fellow
[4276].officers in the Vietnamese army, for example,
[4278]as graduates of the Vietnamese “wilitary
[4279]Academy and the others’ coming right out of
[4280]GF
[4282]So as a result, the
[4284]officers corps who were lmowledgeable # he
[4286]“of how to counter what was happening were kept
[4288]tines
[4289]‘at fairly junior grades, and in the late *bis
[4291]A
[4293]‘the highest any of them gor that I ever knew .
[4295]dice
[4296]about was ,rank of Majors and they had to take
[4297]orders from Golonels and so forth who had
[4298]served under the French in very much the
[4300]same type of a conventional military organi- —
[4302]gation as the Americans had put up and were
[4304]advocating. And these junior types who warited
[4305]to do different things were simply too junior
[4307]to do it and were unable to convince anyone
[4309]a
[4310]‘of the need. The initial meeting of the threot-
[4313]was thought, to be a police problem than an
[4315]army problem, and there wes a lot of work
[4317]1
[4321]on trying to equip and train the national
[4323]police to cope with itg exia we Americans
[4325]did that through our economic mission and
[4327]. through, Michi geri State University had a
[4328]group helping on administration there. They
[4329]recruited some very ‘good police officials from
[4331]the v: S. who were quite used to dealing with
[4333]Ft
[4335]‘urban crime problems in the U.S. Well, you.
[4337]can't take aman who is very good at precinct
[4339]work in Detroit, Michigan, or pifninghan, Alabama) _
[4341]_ or something, and move him’ out tio an Asian a
[4343]are a . A
[4344]country where his problem is > What do you do
[4346]when a company of guerrillas comes in end
[4348]“ambushes your/police: station? A completely
[4350]foreign type of a thingy EL that we hed
[4351]4 a : " who
[4352]| police eavisors poet were insisting on all
[4353]j
[4355]A
[4356]‘policemen being armeted with nothing more
[4357]i - 7 than,say)a 38-caliber revolver, with the
[4358]: . o : A~ A Yo sy : . .
[4360]: policemen saying, Weeks but people are
[4361]shooting at us with rifles, and we need rifles
[4362]or something like that to shoot back at then,
[4363]or how about sub-machine guns or some--we
[4365]neec x.ore fire power." Well, it was foreign
[4367]O'BRIEN:
[4373]— A 7
[4374]to them. So there was a mixup on a number of
[4376]things on this coping with the insurgency ~
[4378]: G .
[4379]‘ that was growing;<not only the conventional
[4380], ; R . .
[4381]formation of the Vietnamese army but of a
[4383]: conventional urban police formation of the
[4385]police.’ And yet, throughout the syatend’ therey
[4387]' there were meny individuals who knew better,
[4389]and who knew how to cope With it, and who.
[4391]were continually begging, "Give us a chance
[4393]“to dQ it some other way."
[4394]Well, in terms of these people we were talking
[4396]about a | little earlier--the late Eisenhower
[4398]people, like Fitegerala/ ana Irwin / ana Parsons--
[4399]o they conceive of the kind of insurgency
[4400]p dast poiety
[4402]or are
[4404]that's deve loping in South Vietnam,
[4406]they nr)
[4408]Fairly well. Fairly well.- They were more
[4409]aware of, or had more understanding of, the
[4411]needs than did some of the folks that. were
[4412]coming in sort’ of brand new to the problem
[4413]or who had been steeped in a ‘far more
[4414]conventional approach to the problemas were
[4416]some of our military leaders at the time. .
[4418]But, as I remarked earlier, these were personal
[4422]friends of mine,and when I'd talk to them and
[4423]2
[4425]tell them my views, there was always sympathy .
[4426]for them) so I might have mistaken: that for
[4428]ra +
[4429]understanding and so .ong and even t that was
[4431]|. rare enough so: “that I-felt that, antenmoption) 17
[4432]cg. ",
[4434]“O'BRIEN: - How long. is the manuscript?
[4437]LANSDALE: Ho ho. Ir went through first /--the publishers
[4439]wanted me ‘to tell all;. Aaptherporas, just |
[4441]write as much as T could for later “edi ting
[4443]fey
[4444]end, said this is the way people do it. So
[4445]: . - very
[4446]es -I wound up with really three osansaity long
[4448]books, and ‘since I was writing one not too
[4449]OA,
[4450]long book, why I wound up with a tremendously
[4452]ta
[4453]long manuscript. . 186 Eegea bcs that I could
[4455]we could .
[4456]cut it down to two books, and) publish it as
[4457]A
[4459]two different things, and the subject matter
[4460]. would have permitted me. They still want
[4461]just one book, so I am now going back with
[4462]editor’ 8 notes and with my own notes and trying
[4463]to. o 8G tarted off initially with a
[4464]cutcand-peste job, but I discovered I couldn't
[4465]~ do that and retain the proper narrative and
[4468]RoE ics on ‘the thingy © oi I wound up having
[4471]O'BRIEN:
[4474]O'BRIEN:
[4477]O'BRIEN:
[4483]to rewrite almost of all of it, and recast it,
[4485]and-retell it in a somewhat different form.
[4486]I'm about half-way through, that, but it'll be
[4487]a fair-size book even so. .
[4488]Wert that's goodLmainly on the Philippines
[4489]and the early period in Vietnam? .
[4491]Umhmm.
[4493]‘Good, you know war's really CO)
[4494]. Well, there's nesity one pig period in Vietnam
[4496]that isn't known too well, and most historians
[4497]have passed over ityjand the ones who haven't
[4499]have been championing a cause, and their work |
[4502]‘is ‘quite suspect. Some of the French were
[4504]or
[4505]sort of agents c=“ provocateurs at the time,
[4506]‘A.
[4508]. and they are more or less justifying what
[4510]they aia and leaving out. important parts of
[4511]it.
[4512]How about the French journalist [Jean] Lacouture?
[4514]What do you think'of his work? Is it Lacouture
[4516]that's done the thing on Ho (Chi Minh]? -
[4518]Le
[4519]ne I'm trying to remember. I think that's
[4521]who it was. Well, most-of the French writings
[4523]‘about Ho and some of the explanations in
[4533]official documents of the French, trying
[4534]to explain him end 30 ony by friends, I found
[4535]“A Long
[4538]very interestinggert I-had. no way of judg
[4540]really, on itZthere was a tremendous sympathy
[4542]and so corth, being expressed, and then a very.
[4545]; , moo.
[4546]Strong attempt. to work out an accomodation
[4548]oe
[4549]with him’ afterwards, with<hin, by the French.
[4551]And again, a nighly emotional sensitivity to
[4552]any interference awas what they - were trying to
[4553]do) and they saw almost anything as interference.
[4554]sof what is written by. them, I read mindful
[4556]of their sensitivities. at the time and whet
[4557]they’ re trying to prevent anybody ever believing
[4558]that would be opposite at all) or something _
[4559]different at leasts exrd it was just amazing.
[4561]The French press was screaming that I was
[4562]starting World War III in Vietnam in '55 . . .
[4563]Mind if. I get this on tape--well, it is
[4565]on tape, I'm sorrys I didn't realize it was
[4566]going. ,
[4568]. “ simply because « anama there was a feeling
[4570]by the French colonialists in Indochina/ of not
[4572]wanting to give up the French presence therej**
[4575]ge
[4577]“and it's a human,understandable type of a-
[4579]A
[4580]thing. They had been there and. associated
[4582]there, and some of them had spent their entire
[4583]ives there, end here they were having to
[4585]wis,
[4586]give up something; end ‘Swiss journalist once
[4588]‘explained. it to me{ It was like a man giving’
[4590]up his. mistress end seeing some ESevy in a
[4592]big car driving by in the stree tgand even.
[4594]though he'd given Ne up, he'd just say, well,
[4596]he hates that guy/b2cause he got the mistress.
[4598]‘allegedly with material means such as an
[4600]automobile and maybe a fur coat and so on) and he
[4601]isn't the man that the former guy was. 7% go
[4602]some of this feeling was very prevalent thereo
[4604]and for some reason. or other, I happened to
[4606]suddenly become the focal point of it) through
[4608]my name or sone thing, @asthey so that. they
[4610]-went to great Lengpfls of charging me ‘with all
[4612]sorts of things that I was doing: I was vot)
[4614]sect frees Qo .
[4615]buying up the loyalties of set Goursds with’ -
[4617]‘millions of dollars, end things that would be!
[4619]hard to prove that . wasn't, mind you, except
[4621]Ga¥ to say, "Look, I didn't have ‘a million
[4623]dollars to buy anything with." . 4nd they'd
[4625]O'BRIEN:
[4627]; oe | 993+.
[4629]say, "Well, the U.S..government did, and you
[4630], uw “A
[4631]were a secret agent for them and so on. It
[4633]. was very hard to disprove some of theirjtalk
[4635]: wu - , VF sd
[4636]and say, Well, that just isn't so. Except
[4637]once in a while. they'd get really wild and
[4639]claim I wes down--I walked in on a briefing,
[4640]“A
[4642]. for example, with French officers telling how
[4644]7 apo*
[4646]some American visitors from Washington mse?
[4648]down
[4649]at that very moment I was avrying to. buy off
[4651]a sect leader, and very naively, with. a
[4652]suitcase full of moneypexA I didn't senow
[4654]but the guy was going to ambush me end take
[4656]. @1l the money and not do whatever I was going
[4658]to plan to do. And at that moment, I just
[4659]asked him, I said, “Well, please Keep on with
[4661]your briefings, I want to know whether the
[4663]oe bot Y wey _
[4665]guy killed me or not. APrazy- Now these .
[4666]4
[4667]a
[4669]were very responsible French officials ‘and
[4671]“the fact that I'd be miles away from the scene
[4673]of some of these things never stopped the aww
[4675]circulation of these stories. JI don't know
[4677]“how you ever stop that stuff.
[4679]' Yes
[4680]Yeats well how about people like Bernard Pall’
[4682]and Patty 2 sex end their writings? Are they. . .@
[4684](RT) Hoey
[4687]~ Lohe.
[4689]LANSDALE: Well, they' re very sound, very sound. Fall's
[4690]vackground, as was Honey's, was out of |
[4691]‘intelligence or information collection units
[4692]Zid, their different countries. Fall's initial
[4693]"writings were all out of a French army historical.
[4694]sectis” and I had to tell him one time Ted read
[4695]some of his work originally by the original
[4696]‘author, “putf it was a deteiled military
[4697]history of operations that he'd delved intog
[4698]etd T don't know, I doubt that it was intentional
[4699]plegarism on his part. He was probably rushing
[4700]through, getting a book published» »for academic
[4701]credits ‘end: so on. énd Honey the same way .
[4702], with British’ intelligence, who were quite
[4703]active in Indochina auring the French days. wat
[4704]' But it was )--some of the stories and happenings A
[4705]were just nlmost incredible. Thé-.-—.—r=n Some
[4706]of the French journalists were ‘politically
[4707]partisan. - They had connections wi th the ©
[4708]Communist Party or sympathies with them of
[4709]some sort. And Ho had been one of the
[4710]founders of the French Communist Party, 380 that
[4711]there was always a cultural or comradeship
[4714]feeling of some sort therés exd when the
[4720]Americans started showing up on the scene)
[4723]there was, very paternelistic feeling ot 2
[4724]“Well, these Are our people these Vietnamese,”
[4725]or Khmer 7 or Lao,® end you keep your
[4726]cotton-picking fingers off of them" type of
[4727]a thing that went to very great Lengths J——
[4728]Volatile emotions erupting on this type of a
[4729]thing. I remember one of the journalists,
[4731]{John Beret; published a newspaper in Saigon
[4732]and wrote a lot of the early propaganda for
[4733]individuals. in the French army sad hed ‘sort |
[4734]adventurer| types among them. He then went to
[4735]Pnohm Penh ,where he. started a weekiy newspaper
[4736]and started also writing speeches for LNero dom |
[4737]Sihanouk, and the next thing I knew, Sihanouk
[4739]- was: "accusing me of plotting to murder him or
[4740]assnssinate him, c eT nean Nts eeatéeen near
[4741]Cambodia) and I hadn't athought of Sihanouk‘
[4742]when this happened. The governor of Siem Reap,
[4744], who had been very close to Sihenouk before-- “
[4746]and Siem Reap is where Angkor Wak and the
[4748]_ historical ruins are--suddenly died,and the
[4749]story started seeping out a little pat with
[4751]Sihanouk charging that this governor, whose
[4754]ee ee enemewe sae se weet aiemene nia amity Raterae a e 88 cee
[4756]O'BRIEN:
[4760]~ TACO De . 7 ae oo,
[4761]name was Dap Onn , and I were in a conspiracy
[4762]to murder him and take over the government of
[4763]Cambodia. And it didn't do any good that I had
[4765]never met :!: wn ‘and never had any dealings
[4767]with hin, and Cambodia was way outside my
[4769]_bailiwickg b but this is the story that's gone
[4771]on and: on» and on.
[4773]‘Well, there was a little bit of truth to , that,
[4775]wasn't theret/gome involvement of CIA. ...
[4777]Def Chiywsh Yeso =
[4779]LANSDALE: Rae Well, he was a national leader and.
[4781]d
[4783]actually had formed the political groupings
[4785]initially that supported Sihanouk and gave
[4786]SO , - 67
[4787]him his political powenér-he was the organizer;
[4789]he was the chief political lieutenant of
[4791]Sihanouk. And then apparently, he felt that
[4793]Sihanouk was going sour, and he wanted to get
[4794]“A
[4796]the government back into reflecting more the
[4798]will of the people. . How far he got, I don't
[4800]knows but this was really something that
[4802]-was foreign to me at the time. / 7 got sent
[4804]back into Cambodia afterwards, from Washington,
[4805]with Gk various military assistance groups or
[4808]economic groups 4 presidential commissions”
[4812]and so ong end, gach time they'd have Pnohm
[4813]. dust. WwW: Wes:
[4814]Penh on the thing, 1 'dAsay, Wer better
[4815]check the embassy there. " Back would come
[4816]word that? Yo, Sihenouk was ‘efraid that if
[4817]r were a member of the party, I would be
[4818]going in to murder nim. 7 I actually went in’
[4819]one - time} and the chief of police of Pnohm
[4820]rN
[4821]“Penk met our party--along’ with the: foreign
[4823]minister and so on--at plane, ‘when we came
[4825]downy and the Chiet of Police walked right
[4826]_nmext to me)and he said, "I'm your Li agon
[4827]A S-
[4828]man fromnwmg!. eid I said, "You're keeping
[4829]an eye on me, I knowy it's ‘allright. I'm
[4830]not going to murder your boss; I have no
[4831]idea of doing that." [Laughter] That is
[4832]strange. ” ana then Sihanouk made a movie--
[4833]about '65, “166--in which he played the
[4834]Khwot
[4835]fommander, tod Royal Naval Intelligence foiling
[4836]. a | great Americen spy, who happened to have ;
[4837]. oO!
[4838]my name ) and was a role played by some patnoe Fieachwer
[4839]arr who: was visiting theres, and I was out to
[4840]overthrow the kingdom,but, of course, our boy
[4841]~ A
[4842]hero thwarted the ugly ‘American and won the
[4844]girl, wno was the daughter of the Brazilian.
[4849]ambassador or something. Some French gal
[4850]played the role: I've been trying to get
[4851]a print of that or some way of seeing that
[4852]‘ movieg@t'd love to see it, you know. It
[4853]sounds great and... . .[Laughter]
[4854]O'BRIEN: - ects I hadn't heard about that. Weld) thet _
[4856]does hit on _Some thing )though) an regard to
[4857]Southeast Asia. .. As t understand, in that
[4859]7 Dap Crew" incident, onde there: was an Agency
[4860]involvement with hin, through a guy by the
[4861]name on fifa ‘and the Agency does seem - .
[4863]‘to have a kind of free hand in some of these
[4865]Misia
[4866]r Southeast jnationse emt I'm thinking of the
[4868]APope ‘situation in Indonesia as well. Can you
[4871]see any prosks put on them as'a result of
[4872]the change of administrations’how do you
[4873]react to this sort.of activity?
[4874]LANSDALE: Well, most of the things that they did that
[4875]had political consequences of any major size
[4876]‘at. all yond certainly a thing with Dae oro
[4877]and also the Pope thing,ere only taken by the
[4879]Agency after approval up at ‘topside so as far
[4881]Non Re ak eed ot Re te en ae eat Renate ahd dle! mh ashi anclolenBive af Baal
[4885]as brakes are concerned) they've had them from
[4886]ray
[4888]the beginning. However, the objectives and
[4889]the intent are approved, and not ihe mesns of 7
[4890]doing .it--the nuts and bolts--which are
[4891]supposedly overseen by an ambassador. “and
[4892]when we get down to the level of a country.
[4894]where: ‘these things are happening, then I
[4896]think much depends on the individuals: the
[4898]7 ambassador, and the station chief, and how
[4900]"they get along, and again, mostly on the... ._
[4902]Well, no) it isn't either; it's a fifty-fifty
[4903]proposition. We have ambassadors who. don't
[4905]want to know or OF are opposed, all such’ things ,
[4906]A
[4907]and if. an order comes down to do it,they very
[4909]unwillingly tell the guy to go shead, but
[4910]watch it now, not too far. “A station chief,
[4911]. A
[4913]then,- with orders to do Some things) will have.
[4914]“
[4916]‘told the ambassador he samt?’ going to, thiss but
[4918]gate WG
[4919]he starts, in things, and he figures, thas if he
[4921]‘goes back and tells the ambassador what's
[4923]happening, that he's not going to get any.
[4924]: A
[4926]‘understanding and will probably get an order
[4929]prohibiting him 3 Be$ doing something Sp anc ,won't -
[4932]“O'BRIEN:
[4936]O'BRIEN:
[4938]" Washington wants us to have this happen.
[4942], Se
[4943]be-able to explain, Well, if I stop doing
[4945]this, then this other thing won't work, and.
[4946]y
[4948]just \
[4949]The ambassador will ysay,. No, I don't see -it
[4951]that way. Don't. do it. ? So I'm sure there are
[4952]things thetare. } happening that aren't sold for
[4953]this--for operational reasonsg and again, it's
[4955]a judedment of an individual on that thing.
[4956]It's not a policy type of a thing from the
[4957]Agency. | . , .
[4959]vat? Do you find any--in the time that
[4961]you tre there in the middle fifties as well
[4963]as when you go back in '60, ‘61, and later —
[4964]involvement in Vietnam--do you tina differences
[4965]between the embassies “between the U.S. embassy
[4966]in, particularly, Pnofim Penh and Saigon?
[4968]I didn't notice ‘that. It might have oxiated
[4970]“A
[4971]and I wouldn't have even known that.
[4973]‘Well, there! S some feeling. among people
[4975]char
[4977]. involved with Cambodien relations ee that time,
[4979]as I understand it, that somehow there's an
[4980]involvement on the part of the South Vietnamese
[4982]in some of the groups like the .. .«@
[4984]SA al eA i 6 invari Dhe at Ds din i Dlnto-canbaanedh eh Data, dain Nila 8 lhe he pnt 20 epee oleh tee
[4986]cree, nme eA An Mele once san 1 Oe. medina neleden,
[4988]_ LANSDALE:
[4990]-101-_
[4993]|
[4994]TL cee ea”
[4995]YNS06
[4997]Oh, yeeh. , Both the South Vietnamese and the.
[4998]ths were playing eround with groups inside
[4999]Cambodia) or with exile groups that wanted .
[5000]to go back in Cambodia; end so ong and I'm
[5001]not certain thet the Americans from either
[5002]Thailand or South Vietnam were fully aware
[5003]of what all was going on. And I'm not
[5004]certain that the- Americans or the Cambodian
[5006]government people inside Cambodia knew what
[5008]was going on, and were tending to oxeggerate
[5010]some of this. Things get blown up out of all;
[5011]proportion in this. But) just. the fact that
[5012]there was antipathy and it would take this
[5013]form of expression, among others: that were
[5014]going on. . . 4 { don't know which people
[5015]would rather go in and take over and run
[5016]Cambodiat Leng Thai fs « or the South Vietnamese?
[5017]it's about’ a ‘boss up which one Se down more
[5018]on the Khrers than the other. 4 ana Diem
[5019]used.to follow the predictions of the royal
[5021]fortune~teller in P nohm Penh to Sihanouk.
[5023]‘Apparently, they were spending a lot of
[5024]“A
[5026]intelligence money to find-out, you know, what S
[5028]O'BRIEN:
[5032]happened in each otherssessions and what
[5033]he was telling the guy. Then how useful
[5035]this was mind you, T don't know.
[5037]2
[5039]"Well, do “you. cind)-again, in passing on to
[5041]’ the ‘bask toree Zand the formation of that.
[5042]‘Vietnam task. force in the early part of
[5044]’ the Kentie dy administration--do you find the 0
[5045]sensitivity on the part of the people, the
[5046]political appointées, to what's going on
[5047]in South Vietnam? Are you able to explain
[5048]what you're telling ‘me right now about
[5050]South Vietnam to these’ people?
[5052]LANSDALE: us, only partially. They were as bemused by
[5054]the mechanics of getting decisions in Washing-
[5055]ton asthey were with the problem that they were.
[5056]employing the mechanics to solve. It was all
[5057]sort of new to them,and they vented to do a
[5058]good job, but in order to do it, they were
[5060]you ge)
[5061]suddenty working with these instruments, that
[5062]were foreign to them here. I think that the
[5063]principe” in the administration were not
[5064]entirely aware of thespeople they were dealing
[5065]with in Washington. I recall, at the time, Some SuAptisess
[5067]A
[5068]FG Rusk was violently opposed in the department :
[5071]over where he was by some peoples and I
[5072]noticed at times that he wasn't aware that
[5073]he was. turning around and. asking a guy who)
[5075]“minutes before Rusk had come in to pin wee
[5077]: in fis pape Mee C called him, A 7
[5078]_ among his comrades, just; "This stupid jerk," 7
[5079]end 80 on, which I felt was ai sloyal-behind ;
[5080]the guy" s back, you know. T was always
[5081]urging them to speak up in “front of people
[5082]and 80 on, and they woula ts do it. And the
[5083]oF
[5084]same _damn thing was true pageinsh’ some of the
[5085]_ military against McNamara, for example.
[5086]Sie’ . :
[5087]_ fi Well, the ‘McNamara’ and ‘the “Rasid end their
[5088]‘ ot : y we yard $c tn)
[5089]unders , and deputy 7 types of people, and
[5090]assistant secretaries, were trying to cope with
[5092]enctechtr[y =
[5093]people that they, felt Were=fnstinet ively:
[5095]opposing and foot-dragging and so on, and
[5096]. . A .
[5098]trying’ to get that working,so that to get
[5100]} , ‘them working on a given problem was really
[5101]the thing that they were concerned with send
[5103]F you'd suddenly say, "well, we're going to
[5104]talk about tees,” or Vietnang or Israel or
[5106]' . something®Yes, yes, Fes. What have you got
[5110]in jpn papery you knowty And they were
[5113]coet dymab ip ease cot des ed en aaante Demet te es nett al Abies 2mm iit mtinn the stale di ea nko cae
[5117]dp w - 7 ha Shire guy a.
[5118]watching, seej: "Well, itis=just—H6 really
[5120]r ok “Es he goey
[5121]done rhis homework) end-is—it-gonka come.up
[5122]A
[5124]with some thing or not?" rather than what is
[5126]the real problem here, and how would I solve
[5127]“a
[5129]it if I weren't sitting in this room in this
[5131]particular group, and so on. So there was a. ...
[5133]FP so then, working on this type of a ‘thing which
[5135]O'BRIEN:
[5137]LANS DALE:
[5139]I saw very much in the task force on vVietnam--
[5141]Gilpatric,I know,)was shocked at the reactions
[5143]_ of some of the foreign service people that
[5145]came in at, rank of ambassador and so on, that
[5146]; . : A
[5147]were sort of the staff assistants on the
[5149]. assistant. secretary and undersecretary level.
[5152]They would . ‘Start a mesting—in-facty I was
[5154]asked to be sort ot fr forget what the title
[5155]was )-executive officer or something of it, and
[5156]they asked me to chair the meetings. Well, I'd
[5157]no sooner open it. thon these guys would be
[5158]passionately explaining why I ‘founan's be
[5159]Sitting in the chair of the. meeting, ‘see?
[5161]ech. %e@
[5163]I think it shocked some of the Kennedy
[5165]administration people. It suddenly revealed a
[5167]ne
[5169]O'BRIEN:
[5173]O'BRIEN:
[5177]Pd
[5179]_feud-and so ong ené I hadn't said it, and I
[5181]personally didn't care that much, you knows
[5183]I'd say, "Have you got all the hate out of
[5185]your system now? Let's go on with the
[5187]meeting,’ ’ see. This )of course, would activate
[5189]it more,but I would sey, myerr look, we really
[5190]A
[5192]do have some probiems here we've: got to get
[5194]to, and if you want, 122 meet you afterwards
[5195]A
[5197]oO
[5198]and wesvan have lunch or something) and you
[5200]Pay
[5201]can spoil my lunch by telling me what a
[5203]heel I am or something. But we've got work
[5205]Fi
[5206]to do." So then, Gilpatric or somebody would.
[5207]tell me af terwards, "Do you think we better
[5208]take you oft" "Well, yeah. If it's going
[5210]} Gu Cc. oan
[5211]to ortets, the work done, itis better 45 take
[5212]me off. It's no fun for me to sit up and
[5214]: y
[5215]chair something under conditions like this,
[5217]SO. . -@
[5218]o- : , |
[5219]Feah. Were you ever approached with the job
[5220]as ambassador to Vietnam?
[5221]Yos, Yese comm
[5224]Who was pushing thet?
[5226]a a ne ee Sn, Tn
[5231]; the G
[5233]I don't know. I heard abcut it thes first.
[5234]‘Saturday after the ineugurel--I think that's
[5235]it. It was very early in the administration.
[5236]McNamara asked me to come down to the White’
[5237]House and meet him there, and I thought it
[5238]was to brief him on something. ina I wes
[5239]working on a number of intel Tigence matters: .—
[5241]in Defense at the times esa I showed up) and
[5243]he askéd me to just wait outside, and they
[5244]“ oO
[5246]were meeting in the Cabinet roomy and as I
[5248]said, it was essentially an NSC ‘group. F ani
[5249]ws 1
[5250]after a bit, they asked me “to: come on wend
[5252]A
[5254]they had me sit opposite the president.
[5256]And he looked at me,and he said, "Did Dean
[5257]“2 ;
[5259](Rusk] tell you’ I want you to be ambassador
[5261]to Vietnam?" I said, "No, he didn't mention
[5263]. . O-
[5264]that." Well, he hadn't at alls = evd ghere was
[5266]a ae painful silence and I figured, "well,
[5267]A
[5269]exe, maybe he! s asking me if I want to beyor
[5270]would I accept the joo.” So I finally said,
[5271]“Well,it would be a great honor,” ana thet was
[5273]A . :
[5274]the last I ever heard of it. put Jt heard
[5275]all sorts of rumors that “Reps “for
[5277]TL
[5280]‘Washingtong and=Snin is afterwards that Dean Rusk
[5284]O'BRIEN:
[5292]was very much opposed to it, and opposed on
[5294]the ground that I. was a military men and they
[5295]didn! Ywent military: people in on the situation.
[5296]ech. Yaso
[5298]And then later I kee met one of Rusk's staff
[5299]officers at the time, and he Was telling me
[5300]that Rusk was eiguving Sn ne could get.
[5302]me a job some other place or a promotion or
[5304]something - to. get me out of the way at the tim oe
[5305]sort oF
[5306]F apparently © had becomeAa target for a lot of
[5307]and 69 on Fr ;
[5308]gossip and rumors,at the time. But after that,
[5309]“A
[5310]then, they asked me--Kenne dy asked me pretty
[5311]Aistrassadot
[5313]point blank--about Durbrow, and I said, "Well,
[5314]ray
[5316]after-what you just asked me and so forth, I'm
[5318]‘a little hesitant, but you're the President .and
[5320]you need the truthg so I'll just tell you right
[5322]now, TI think he's a very ill manf, his juage~
[5324]ment's impaired by his physical conditions, he's
[5326]a fine professional foreign service officer.and
[5328]could be used some_place, but don't keep him on
[5329]A
[5331]in Vietnen anymore. He's sick ihe! s on his
[5333]back .a lot of the time, and you ‘need someone
[5334]ro “A
[5336]‘very alert, whr “hir-~whoever it is, and pull him ~
[5337]mre 9 and 3
[5339]“A
[5344]out." And they got--Rusk and everything, you
[5345]know-4"You're off your subject, boy." But I
[5346]said, "Well, Durby's an old friend of mine,
[5348]and I like the BUY wD. ond I saw a lot of him
[5349]ave
[5351]when I was in Vietnem on this brief visits ena
[5353]I think it's a shame that the guy's kept on -
[5354]there LZcause he was quite ill, in bad shape."
[5356]. Y
[5357]And Durby never forgave me for its, it got
[5359]-yight back to him that I had sacked him and
[5361]. . so on cause he was withdraure after thaty 2 but
[5363]| O'BRIEN:
[5367]this certainty didn't hurt his. career at all,
[5368]in any way, ena even though: State put him on
[5369]a make ~work job after thate but he held the
[5370]rank of ambassador which . is as nigh as you
[5371]can get in the foreign service. And he was
[5373]14, he really was.
[5375]Well, how does [Frederick E.] Nolting come into
[5377]A
[5378]this...
[5380]: Cc. :
[5381]Well, Nolting came in, as= ssthie., apparently, as the
[5383]“
[5384]foreign services rebuttal to my going on  outd of flue
[5386]I remember both McNamara and ‘Gilpatric asked
[5388]me about him, end I didn't know him. I said,
[5391]. “Well, I'd just go on what I heve heard from
[5395]other foreign service officers who respect
[5397]him very much." So finally, Nolting was--
[5399]& “meeting was arranged with Noting, and
[5401]I liked him very much when I talked: Sale .himg
[5402]He asked me if I would give him some briefings
[5403]on Vietnam, which I did do. And when I wound
[5404]up thé'end of that, I was asked again by _.
[5405]McNemara, who ‘Said he was going to tell
[5406]Kennedy end I said, “Well, this looks like
[5408]a very good man, and I think it's a sound
[5410]appointment." " z didn't want to be. ambassador.
[5412]Jesus. ‘During the Eisenhower administration,
[5413]4o 2
[5415]they wanted to make me ambassador oe the
[5417]Philippines, and I begged them not to. I
[5418]A
[5420]cite enet one emer
[5422]think that's one of the world's worst jobs.
[5424]You're stuck where you can't do what your
[5428]job is supposed to be, and I knew they were
[5429]. , A
[5431]| , ‘going to put me in places where I'd be up
[5432]against Communist political leaders of some
[5434]sort, working the other side. and of course;
[5437]you aren't in that position, but allegedly
[5439]Oo. ie oe
[5440]you ares <td you ‘pe-going-to have people running
[5441]Cn ae
[5442]circles around you £2, "youlnow it and couldn't
[5444]a
[5446]lift a ‘little finger to stop them. Ad this
[5449]‘but Nolting and I had very friendly relations,
[5453]isn't my idea of a good spot to be in. You
[5454]just get belabored over that.
[5456]Well, did Nolting ever try to get you back to
[5457]A
[5459]o
[5460]Vietnam/ in an advisory position? .
[5462]I think so. There were a number of attempts
[5464]by the Vietnamese themselves, and unfortunately)
[5465]; a fn.
[5466]some of them were’ ouched in terms of wanting
[5468]“me to come out as ambassador, by the Vietnamese
[5470]N
[5472]and I think he had proposed that I come on
[5474]out several times. But these things would
[5475]usually only come to me sort of second or
[5476]third hands and one time apparently President
[5477]Kennedy had said something to the JCS because
[5478]suddenly my, relations with the Chiefs went
[5479]down to leds than zero. and sub-zerog ead I
[5481]finally asked General (Curtis E.] Lemay of
[5483]the Air Force, because I'm an Air Force officer,
[5485]what the trouble was. And he said, "You and
[5486]your ambitions to have four stars." I said,
[5487]"What's this again?" Apparently Kennedy had
[5488]said something to the Chiefs of) what. would
[5489]they think of my being given four stars and
[5491]being put in cherge of
[5493]operations in Vietnam?
[5496]-lli- |.
[5498]And I.didn't know about it, and they took it
[5500]that 7 was pushing myself for it. I said
[5502]65024 AS
[5504]again “that isn't, te yant to do. Y So this
[5505]» Gopal
[5507]was about the time that--no, maybe (William
[5508]Westmorelend] Westy was coming in about then
[5510]it was around that time. .
[5511]O'BRIEN: Well, the: ‘task: force really forms up the instructions
[5513]for Noting, doesn't ith...
[5514]LANSDALE: Yes.
[5515]O'BRIEN: ... for the next 1 few years. Just what kind
[5517]of recommenéations come out of that task |
[5519]' force? ; .
[5520]LANSDALE: Well, I was only in on the very original one,
[5522]which was to undertake some things such as
[5524]changing the spécific types of things to
[5525]‘meet a situation injthere. One of them wasy
[5526]we would get a political section that would -
[5527]work out better relations with the Vietnamese
[5528]government, a political section in our embassy,
[5529]and that the foreign service would go and
[5530]search through their own personnel for people
[5531]with some real political savvy to get ino
[5533]w
[5535]guide,’ rather than control cr belabor or have
[5537]confrontations with the Vietnamese government
[5539]Be .
[5543]to carry out essentially political reforms,
[5544]and getting some of the just criticism of.
[5545]the opposition considered in the governing
[5546]ody. “another thing was on the police, of
[5547]getting police training done so that they .
[5549]could cope with meeting enemy units, rather ~
[5551]than doing urban police work. In this, I
[5553]was begging them to at least get to a state -
[5554]leve -
[5556]constabularyyjas far as American advisors were
[5558]concernedy and I wasn't certain that the U.S. °
[5559]Army's military police could cope with it, but
[5560]maybe they could get a team of them in,exa
[5561]then I was pointing out that there were
[5562]constabulary officers and officers from other
[5563]countries, including South America and the
[5565]old Philippine constabulary, who knew the.
[5567]law-and-order conditions~-auite similar to
[5568]“A \ .
[5570]Vietnam--and bring them in if they wanted to
[5572]go international. I.was trying to. get them
[5574]‘to get very realisticad solving problems by
[5576]changing the quality and the approach that _
[5578]Fi
[5579]we had. We drew up an original draft that
[5581]went to the President, out of meetings that
[5582]. * “A
[5586]Cae ee eens ne ed A Rane AE Nie On me ip etl ea hel
[5590]lasted about ten days, at which point, at
[5591]Rusk's insistence, the task force went over
[5592]to State and became e general, regular body —
[5594]there. They then proceeded to rewrite our
[5596]original eny instructions and drafts and >
[5598]everythings, ex both McNamara end Gilpatric
[5599]y
[5600]A A
[5601]you had better not get in there." I said,
[5603]said<2coming back from the White Houses*"Ed,
[5605]"If I can help in any way, I will." They said,
[5607]se
[5609]i
[5611]"Well, right for the time being ,youdbetter not) 7
[5612]go near that group, sees" Dt ‘sctually didn't | (
[5613]get in to some of their policy formation, again
[5615]in a fairly early period, on the thrust of
[5617]things in Vietnamyexcept for some of the
[5619]Defense people who were over there. I would
[5621]talk to them on what was being proposed and |
[5623]“going on,: but this was sort of second and
[5625]third echelon type of a thing, pulling back
[5627]out of st. “put f ini tially) I was actually
[5629]trying to get a quality U.S. representation
[5631]in Vietnam, and actually smaller egein than
[5633]it was at the time, and to pick a few key
[5635]things, and to concentrate on that,and really
[5636]A n
[5639]O'BRIEN: .
[5643]to get the Vietnemese coping with their own
[5645]problems more effectively than they were
[5646]doing.
[5647]coe . : . .
[5648]Yeu. Well, between this time and the time
[5649]A Puig Yd 3 ,
[5651]of the Taylor>Rostow mission, ave you involved
[5653]in Vietnam on a kind of regular basis or. .°-©
[5655]o- .
[5656]LANSDALE: Uh, no.’\.0ff and on I was, but again with
[5658], second- and: third-echelon type of problems.
[5660]I was seeing Gilpatric everyday and working’
[5662]very closely with him,so that .a lot of times,
[5664]A “
[5666]as things would come up),he would discuss them
[5667]. “A ‘
[5669]with me. ‘But again, I was trying to explain
[5670]who certain people were that were named, their
[5671]backgrounds, and their qualities, and certain
[5672]events and places, and going to maps with
[5674]. sos : . Oo”
[5675]him and describing terrain, and so ong, “anat
[5676]aA A
[5678]" -the situation really meant that was making
[5680]the problem. So I was fairly well out of it. -
[5682]fas a matter of fact, I was working with some
[5684]visiting Burmese on their concepts of defense
[5685]of a country) and @&éy they brought me in with
[5686]the Israeli whe had had a mission helping them
[5687]with their defense problems in Burma. And the
[5689]qh O-
[5690]. c
[5692]Israeli had Cris turmed around to their Gefense
[5694]me seater 9 enh a Neen eda a aes ee mete rr bea ean te ken abil il ha fim adam haath in ch? fade nae Sie fo Libs oa a ee ASR ati annonce ene rast ab nee te oe racine be!
[5696]Re.
[5700]minister and some of the others,and invited
[5701]fake &
[5702]me to,look at their defense system in Israel.
[5704]FI was quite enthusiastic about going and had
[5706]O'BRIEN:
[5709]O'BRIEN:
[5713]everything arranged and was to leave on a
[5714]Saturday, wnen about on a Wednesday or Thursday 7
[5715]I was asked to go to Vietnam with the other
[5716]mission and stuff, ef unfortunately had to
[5717]cancel out everything and never got inlto see
[5718]what TAwanted to see there.
[5720]Well) you end up working on border _-actually,
[5721]the Sse of the border’ 2 then, don't yous | ‘
[5722]trot A
[5723]on , bas" Taylor- -Rostow thing? ;
[5725]Yes. Yes.
[5726]What about that preoccupation? Where does
[5727]7,
[5729]that idea come from*is that Rostow's?
[5731]Well, ‘Taylor was the one that charged me
[5733]with it. Taylor said, nba J you boiss J vi
[5734]: he
[5735]this ise flight which startea-‘yfi11 each
[5737]hat -
[5738]of you write down some of the things, you
[5740]think we should look into and what you might
[5742]like to look into." So I gave him a list of
[5744]Yor cS
[5746]about twenty things, I'd like to look into=
[5747]7,
[5749]none of them being this,of course. 2
[5750]. . A .
[5755]Z suggested some other subjects for other people
[5756]- on the thing ane gave it to Hee ett he
[5757]called me back, vaaid that it was a very interesting
[5758]seine I had given him, end would I please work
[5759]on building a defense on the border. And I
[5760]‘said, “FEZ yhat sort ofa defense?” He said,
[5761]“Well, a system of fortifications or a wire like
[5762]the Iron Curtein in Europe. I said, "Good
[5763]God, you aren't going to do that, ere you?"
[5764]And he said, "Well,look into it." So that
[5765]Supposedly A c-
[5766]. washall I was supposed to do, and of course,
[5767]" I got called in on other things immediately.
[5768]@ But I wasn't even invited along to go in and
[5769]see Diem with him. I said, “Look, these are
[5770]old friends of mine. If you'd Like, why I'll
[5771]do anything I can fo you can hit then high, and
[5772]“I'll hit’ them low if you want. We can get
[5773]some things done that -way.” He said, “Well, you
[5774]aren't on our protocol list, so you ‘don't
[5775]attend any of these calls on the President.
[5776]F we landed in Saigon, and the people from the
[5777]were Pere and “£G
[5779]presidency, met uss afd Taylor and Rostow were
[5781]over talking with reporte=s who were interviewing
[5785]Leek pane eee ae ee tee
[5789]them pilene side, and these people from the
[5790]presidency said, "President Diem wants you
[5792]-to come to dinner tonights" and I said, "Well,
[5793]I better check “ie ny boss on vtnig. Taylor was .
[5794]busy, but I grabbed Rostow who wasn't talking
[5795]at the moment and told him, end he said, "Go°
[5796]ahead." sof said, "wera T wasn't even on
[5798]the protocol, end everything. I don't care
[5799]about going up to these protocol meetings
[5800]anyhow, we" went in and saw Diem, whose *
[5801]question was, "What's this mission doing-here?
[5802]What are’ you all up to?" I said, "Why don't
[5804]you wait, and they'll be in here to have a
[5807]pee eres dimen a ese Rh ee Cine, mame Ore oapetnkahl ie Zednetin “A tetannteis dn wyeet ainer nant nme: Se ann wt mene ahaa,
[5809]meeting with you tomorrow, and you'll find
[5810]A .
[5811]out." And then it became very personal. We
[5813]-" la
[5815]just started talking over, hts two old friends
[5816]‘toch onion, and I had dinner with him. Aana he
[5817]-prought his nephew in.to join us--Nhu's boy, ~
[5818]oldest boy--who had a new toy missile, like a
[5819]rocket with a launcheng and I was trying to |
[5821]explain to this youngster who was squatting
[5824]on the floor next to his uncles the Presiden’ te.
[5825]: E suid, ; ‘A '
[5826]who was busiiy eating dinner-“you don't point this
[5830]img2T dién't know how big a spring this
[5834]eT |
[5836]O'BRIEN:
[5838]me
[5844]thing had on it, whether it would take his.
[5845]oS Tan Fe) ht
[5846]head off or not. FReisrrer} I pokd him to
[5848]shoot it up into the ventilating fan in the
[5850]ceiling. We spent dinner actually, teking
[5851]parachutes and things out. of the ventilating
[5853]fans,and the kid and I were climbing up
[5854]A
[5856]a ladder’ ‘to get these things out of the thing
[5858]in the palace. This was very different: from
[5859]an official protocol meeting.
[5861]Yodo How is Diem at that point?
[5863]He was a very changed man. It was the first
[5864]time in our talks with each other......
[5865]When I met him at the palace that night, his
[5866]brother Nhu came in for the first time and
[5867]sat next to himy a and when Tjaske® Diem a
[5869]question, his brother would. answer it® a and
[5871][id havé to tell him I wasn't asking him the
[5873]oO. .
[5874]questiond I was asking his brother. A very
[5875]strange relationship at the timeg end I
[5877](a,
[5878]found that he was a talker--Diem was--and he
[5879]was very clear and concise in his statements
[5880]; woe
[5881]and had too big a grasp of details “i8 wnat-
[5883]ever subject he was talking evout. It'd go
[5885]on for hours--details on it, which fascinated
[5886]. - 4
[5888]0
[5893]O'BRIEN:
[5899]me but used to ‘bore other people. But he
[5901]ee _
[5902]did know his countryy and its history, which
[5903]ron
[5905]he would give at the drop of a hat. This
[5906]. evening in '61, seeing hin, he was very
[5908]hesitant in his talk and magn boat was
[5910]some thing physical as well as mental hazard
[5912]A
[5914]or sonething, I felt.
[5916]Any yevid ERO 6
[5917]porerhe pen gotnte’ that later?
[5919]No. There was j-nenvally, people were telling
[5921]-me that his brother had ‘baken over in the
[5923]+ ho Gast the
[5925]year following gthss-7 8 dominance onsthing.
[5927]. But this: was a man that wasn't as sure of
[5929]himself as he had been when I had seen him
[5931]less than a year before. And there had been
[5932]one assassination attempt only, but the vig
[5933]one had taken place ‘before I saw him in .
[5935]January or December of '60--the attack on
[5937]' the palace and so on. So it hadn't been an .
[5939]outside, physical happening like that that
[5940]had caused the change.
[5942]Was he a spiritualist at all? -
[5943]CL
[5944]No, no. He wasn't superstitious. wo He
[5945]. ~
[5947]was a very rational sort of a person-~--pragmatic.
[5950]O'BRIEN:
[5954]O'BRIEN: -
[5958]Well when you get back, you talk to President
[5959]Kennedy and Robert Kermedy/ and John MeCone »
[5960]eas I understand, in a rether private meeting.
[5962]What happened here?
[5964]Well, this was,when I came back, I met the
[5966]AN
[5968]President. I went in with Taylor ‘and Rostow--—
[5970]all oftis did who - were out on the “mission--and
[5971]| joo! Wed
[5973]he thanked us all very machg 2 and as we were, ne
[5975]-asked me to stay behind and talk to “himg ok
[5977]that was when he asked me to perform this
[5979]other service for him) which was initially to
[5980]A
[5981]think about it,and if I came up with some
[5983]ron
[5985]ideas, why to ‘put them down, «= ~brh ety
[5986]“a
[5988]wii
[5989]on paper and give them to him.”
[5991]fnd I said,
[5993]ra
[5994]"Well, do you want, bo forget sott Vietnam
[5996]for the time being )because I haven't written
[5998]“A . .
[6000]my report yet about Vietnam." He said, "Yes,
[6001]Jt a
[6003]this other takes priority over it;,so
[6005]es
[6007]didn't even finish writing my reports on what
[6009]‘ZT had seen in Vietnam at the time. I went
[6011]immediately into this other work.
[6013]Well,about that time, there's at least some
[6014]fay :
[6016]thinking in terms of mimos that are going
[6018]to the Presicent sodout the only wey to save Vietnam
[6019]A
[6024]. : fe :
[6025]is with a rather substantial commit$ment of
[6026]U.S. troops. Is that... .@ .
[6027]Yes; there was some. Now where. ... . Hm,
[6028]there was some, and I can't remember just
[6030]a ;
[6031]where it was coming from. This was one of
[6033]reed
[6034]the things, that Diem asked me when I saw him.
[6035]He asked: me if he should ask for U.S. troops,
[6037]and I said, "Do you need them?" He said, My
[6039]asked rou a question," and I said, "Well, I'm
[6041]asking. you a very legitimate question on this
[6043]things ih + said,"Are you ready to admit that
[6044]you have so lost control of your situation
[6045]that you can't cope with it here?" And I said,
[6046]"You'd have to do that before you ever turn
[6047]around and ask for American troops in here."
[6048]And he said, "No, we can still handle things,
[6049]. v7)
[6050]end you've answered my question, so apparently
[6051]. : & fad :
[6052]<— he didn't ask. 4 onere reve been some
[6053]Tin SUD CH
[6054]conversations, going on -Eim-Sure. with some of
[6055]The |
[6056]the Americans befor: that, would be my guess
[6057]on this thing hcause he didn't say, "What
[6058]| ; Tod oo ;
[6059]do you ‘think Of wap earnest snthens anything, of
[6060]a “A
[6061]“should I ask?" which was sort of like somebody
[6065]had recommended this at some voint,and [
[6066]A
[6068]ce a  *
[6070]O'BRIEN: .
[6076]don't think it would nave been completely in
[6077]o- ow
[6078]Bee aVietnanese context.
[6080]veéh, do you get eny of this thinking" when you
[6082]| get pack? Any contingency planning or thinking ©
[6084]ra
[6086]about the building ,of troop levels to a more
[6088]substantial Jevelyemaybe linked with the
[6089]settling ‘of the Leotian question first? -
[6091]There might have been, and I might have known -
[6092]some of it. I can't recall now of nye it's
[6094]someplace in the back of my head ,there were
[6096]-§ome things like that going on. I turned.
[6098]around, just took time off completely from
[6100]other things and concentrated on this other
[6101]problem for a time afterwards. Actually, through
[6103]December of that year, I was sort of holed up
[6106]and working on some things. My staff would get
[6108]in and out of some of these other things) and
[6110]ara)
[6111]I used to shove them in to take my place in
[6113]O- _ cous
[6114]meetings and so on, and I posn® only then just
[6115]get very quick briefings on them, but they were
[6116]essentially supporting whatever McNamara and
[6118]Gilpatric were doings so I'd just -have them
[6120]_go in and report directly and work with them
[6122]directly.
[6124]O'BRIEN:
[6128]soul
[6130]O'BRIEN:
[6135]Yes. whe uw
[6137]Yesh. Who were the people, | on your staff
[6139]at that point?
[6141]a :
[6142]Well, let's see? One of them was Sam Wilson,
[6143]A
[6145]whdse’ now a brigadier general in the army fo
[6146]A .
[6148]Jack Bowles: was a Navy Captain who went down _
[6149]. . J ;
[6151]to serve with the JCS afterwards and.is now
[6153]with Standard Oil and working out of Singapore...
[6155]feat fray
[6157]And I had five or six K people Like that, but those
[6158]were my two “princi dones.
[6159]Well, this is about ready to run out, and we! ve
[6161]oS
[6162]covered fuel Qu A Lito
[6163]. i f