The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

by Max Boot
The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

by Max Boot

Hardcover

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Overview

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (Biography)
New York Times Bestseller

In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale, The Road Not Taken definitively reframes our understanding of the Vietnam War.

In this epic biography of Edward Lansdale (1908– 1987), the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, best-selling historian Max Boot demonstrates how Lansdale pioneered a “hearts and mind” diplomacy, first in the Philippines, then in Vietnam. It was a visionary policy that, as Boot reveals, was ultimately crushed by America’s giant military bureaucracy, steered by elitist generals and blueblood diplomats who favored troop build-ups and napalm bombs over winning the trust of the people. Through dozens of interviews and access to neverbefore-seen documents—including long-hidden love letters—Boot recasts this cautionary American story, tracing the bold rise and the crashing fall of the roguish “T. E. Lawrence of Asia” from the battle of Dien Bien Phu to the humiliating American evacuation in 1975. Bringing a tragic complexity to this so-called “ugly American,” this “engrossing biography” (Karl Marlantes) rescues Lansdale from historical ignominy and suggests that Vietnam could have been different had we only listened. With reverberations that continue to play out in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Road Not Taken is a biography of profound historical consequence.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780871409416
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date: 01/09/2018
Pages: 768
Sales rank: 449,755
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Max Boot, historian and foreign-policy analyst, is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a columnist for the Washington Post. His New York Times bestseller The Road Not Taken was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

Table of Contents

Maps xii

Dramatis Personae xv

Prologue: The Day of the Dead: Saigon, November 1-2, 1963 xxiii

Introduction: The Misunderstood Man xli

Part 1 Ad Man (1908-1945)

1 In Terrific Flux 3

2 Enfant Terrible 16

3 An Institution Run by Its Inmates 33

Part 2 Colonel Landslide (1945-1954)

4 The Time of His Life 47

5 In Love and War 65

6 The Knights Templar 87

7 "A Most Difficult and Delicate Problem" 104

8 "All-Out Force or All-Out Friendship" 118

9 The Power Broker 136

10 "A Real Vindication" 157

Part 3 Nation Builder (1954-1956)

11 La Guerre sans Fronts 171

12 A Fortress Falls 185

13 "I Am Ngo Dinh Diem" 196

14 The Chopstick Torture 214

15 Pacification 233

16 The Viper's Next 254

17 "Stop Calling Me Papa!" 277

Part 4 Washington Warrior (1957-1963)

18 Heartbreak Hotel 301

19 Guerrilla Guru 311

20 A New War Begins 332

21 The Ambassador Who Never Was 347

22 "The X Factor" 363

23 "Worms of the World Unite" 376

24 "Washington at Its Nuttiest" 400

Part 5 Bastard Child (1964-1968)

25 "A Hell of a Mess" 419

26 "Concept for Victory" 433

27 Escalation 444

28 The Impossible Missions Force 457

29 Waging Peace in a Time of War 471

30 To Stay or to Go? 490

31 Waiting for the Second Coming 502

32 The Long Goodbye 515

Part 6 The Beaten Man (1968-1987)

33 The War at Home 533

34 A Defeat in Disguise 549

35 The Abandoned Ally 564

36 The Family Jewels 575

37 The End of the Road 586

Afterword: Lansdalism in the Twenty-First Century 599

Acknowledgments 607

Notes 611

Select Bibliography 661

Index 677

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