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General Ed Lansdale, An American Optimist

On June 5th, 2024, IWP hosted a one-day colloquium titled “Liaison & Legacy: Edward Geary Lansdale,” focusing on the late U.S. military intelligence officer, advisor, and expert on irregular warfare who practiced his craft in the Philippines and Vietnam. This paper was created as a part of the colloquium.

Al Santoli speaking at the Lansdale Colloquium
Prof. Al Santoli speaking at the Lansdale Colloquium

by Al Santoli

General Edward Lansdale was a profound example of an American optimist. He was, first and foremost, an outspoken visionary and an instinctive mentor, whose courage and sincerity could bring out talents inside of young people – and American Presidents – if they were willing to listen and be receptive to his suggestions. He connected experienced “combat anthropologists” with peace builders such as Rufus Phillips, Ann Miller, and Charles Bohannon to informally guide young acolytes, born with natural talent, to “win without kinetic force” in an increasingly troubled world.  General Lansdale had a sense of legacy and genuine compassion that he and members of his team effortlessly passed to the next generation.

I was fortunate to have been taken under General Lansdale and attorney Rufus Phillips’ wings in the early 1980s as a young Vietnam combat veteran and historian, when I was actively rescuing refugees in the “killing fields [and seas]” of Southeast Asia. Gen. Lansdale somehow saw in me that I would one day work as a peacemaker in the Philippines, which I did not realize until some 20 years later in Muslim Mindanao during the global war on terror and rise of the communist Chinese military’s “Unrestricted Warfare.” I felt an obligation to continue the Lansdale practitioner-scholar legacy with the support of Dr. John Lenczowski and Dr. John Tierney, as a professor of comparative cultures [or Cultural Intelligence in military lingo] at The Institute of World Politics in Washington.  The June 2024 Conference on General Lansdale at The Institute of World Politics, organized by Dr. Christopher C. Harmon, as well as our website of presentations at that seminar, is intended to sustain the Lansdale legacy.

He and his core group of unconventional but brilliant practitioners were lifelong friends and true freedom fighters. They epitomized America’s founding commitment that “all people are created equal.” This sense of mission that began with citizen-soldier Lansdale’s experiences in the Pacific Theater and in Washington during World War II and its aftermath, was later tasked to unfamiliar environments with histories of conflict and colonialism. He was much resented by European colonial powers who saw Lansdale as disrupting their world of exploitation. In fact, Lansdale led by example of how “citizen diplomats” could become trusted bridges between powerful officials and the powerless masses. This included rebels and revolutionaries, as well as people born into privilege.

A key factor in this element of citizen diplomacy is, as Gen. Lansdale’s associate in Vietnam, Atty Rufus Phillips, had instructed me when I began my work in the Philippines a generation later, to find “what beats in the hearts of local people,” and work with it.  Make the effort to persevere through mutual respect even if there is no enforceable rule of law.  People of different cultures and languages share basic human needs that are essential to their survival and the well-being of their children.

This section of the monograph intends to show why Vietnam was different than the Philippine post-colonial period. It also underscores why the humanism and psychological emphasis of the Lansdale team could defeat the Filipino Huk guerillas and competitive oligarch factions in and around Manila but had such difficulty in Vietnam.  This schism, amplified by the assassinations of President Diem in Saigon and President Kennedy in Dallas, was antagonized by an ongoing 100-year French influence of suffocating colonialism imposed on a fatalist Vietnamese culture.

This section includes 8 excerpts directly from Gen. Lansdale and R. Phillips from To Bear Any Burden, my multi-cultural oral history of the Vietnam War and its aftermath as told by Americans and Southeast Asian participants in the war.  I also included a brief section by Truong Nhu Tang, the former “Justice Minister” of the Viet Cong, to explain the Vietnamese Communist practice of psychological warfare which was arguably the central weapon of the Vietnamese Communists against the over-confident American political establishment. This threat was clearly seen by Lansdale which made him a pariah in Washington among the foreign policy elite technocrats who surrounded Presidents Kennedy and then Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

This also led to a negative anti-American mythology regarding Lansdale that was promoted by the European elite and American globalists, whether on the Left or the Right.  To the contrary, in our private discussions on building global alliances and deterring violent adversaries, whether communists or extremists, Lansdale and Rufus Phillips advocated loyalty, consistency, and clearly defined objectives, as well as respect for traditions.  They saw themselves as patriotic volunteers for American freedom rather than “contractors” to promote an elitist “global order.”

It was my privilege to know and be mentored by General Lansdale. After his passing in 1987, guidance was provided, as needed, by Rufus Phillips, to develop as a scholar and non-military practitioner of peace; building through humanistic development in the Philippines from 2002 until today. To quote General Lansdale:

There are Americans who study the history of warfare in order to prepare themselves for leadership roles in future armed conflict. It is not that they have an unhealthy love of war. Rather, it is their awareness of the world we live in and of man’s proclivity for war that makes them study.  If the United States gets into shooting trouble in the future, they want to be ready to serve our country expertly and professionally.
—Major General Edward G. Lansdale, USAF (Ret.)
“The Opposite Number,” 1972

Gen. Lansdale’s teachings and philosophies are especially relevant today.  To quote Rufus Phillips following his fact-finding visit to Iraq, and cited in his book, Why Vietnam Matters, Naval Institute Press, 2008:

Whatever the merits of having gone into Iraq in the first place, until recently we have performed so badly the support of the American people has been lost, as it was in the Vietnam years.  Recent course corrections and leadership changes on the ground, over time may provide breathing space for civil accommodation, with a chance of leaving behind a tolerably dysfunctional country.  However, popular support for American persistence has pretty much run dry.  This is a dilemma for which there is no easy prescription.  If we are not careful we may repeat it in Afghanistan.  That we find ourselves where we are is due to an even greater degree of official arrogance, ignorance and incompetence that affected us in Vietnam.  The “x factor” is the clash between American [and globalist] official views and local cultural realities.

From To Bear Any Burden, Santoli: