Edward Lansdale

Edward Geary Lansdale (February 6, 1908 – February 23, 1987) was a United States Air Force officer until retiring in 1963 as a major general before continuing his work with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lansdale was a pioneer in clandestine operations and psychological warfare. In the early 1950s, Lansdale played a significant role in suppressing the Hukbalahap rebellion in the Philippines. In 1954, he moved to Saigon and started the Saigon Military Mission, a covert intelligence operation that was created to sow dissension in North Vietnam. Lansdale believed the United States could win guerrilla wars by studying the enemy's psychology, an approach that notionally won the approval of the presidential administrations of both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson but largely would not be implemented due to bureaucratic opposition.

Early life

Lansdale was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 6, 1908, and later raised in Los Angeles. He was the second of four sons of Sarah Frances (née Philips; 1881–1954) and Henry Lansdale (1883–1959). Lansdale attended school in Michigan, New York, and California before attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he earned his way largely by writing for newspapers and magazines. Lansdale struggled in learning foreign languages while at UCLA and told a biographer he retained almost nothing except Spanish curse words and French phrases he had memorized in kindergarten. Lansdale's difficulty in meeting the foreign language requirement for his degree and his lack of an obvious career path prompted him to drop out of UCLA several credits short of graduation.