From my long-ago reading of The Quiet American I pictured the
eponymous character as a young William F. Buckley, fresh out of Yale,
not a military officer.
Gene Coyle
On Oct 12, 2007, at 2:45 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
On 10/12/07, Eugene Coyle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Wikipedia has this about Edward Lansdale re "The Quiet American"
Lansdale's memoir, published in 1972, was In the Midst of Wars. His
biography, The Unquiet American, was written by Cecil Currey and
published
in 1988; the title refers to the common, but incorrect belief,
that the
eponymous character in Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American
was based on
Lansdale. According to Norman Sherry's authorized biography of
Greene The
Life of Graham Greene (Penguin, 2004), Landsdale did not
officially enter
the Vietnam arena until 1954, while Greene wrote his book in 1952
after
departing Viet Nam.
There are a lot of people _like_ Landsdale working for the CIA (and
before that, the OSS).
--
Jim Devine / "The truth is at once less sinister and more dangerous."
-- Naomi Klein.
