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.
From other parts of the Wikipedia entry I surmise that Lansdale in
Vietnam in the mid-1950s was part of the MAAG -- Military Assistance
Advisory Group -- out in public there.
Wikipedia also mentions that "After working to suppress Communist
insurgency in the Philippines during the early 1950s, where he worked
closely and even lived with future Philippine President Ramon
Magsaysay ... " Magsaysay died in a plane crash on March 17, 1957.
Gene Coyle
On Oct 11, 2007, at 8:16 PM, Paul wrote:
david barkin wrote:
> I am not surprised about the report about the use of
> US anthropologists in the NY Times, but rather by the
> extraordinary lapses of memory by the profession,
> wreaked by an intense debate involving their members
> in the infamous Project Camelot.
[usual apologies for long delay in my response]
1) David B. raises an important story for academia. As David
points out
there was Project Camelot (Chile in the mid '60s plus some of the
rest of
LatAmer, no?), but IMO the full scope of anthropologists' turmoil also
includes a massive professional involvement in counter-insurgency in
Southeast Asia, and to some degree against Cuba (e.g. in Operation
Mongoose).
To their credit, in reaction, the American Anthropologist
Association then
formed the powerful Committee on Ethics (in the early 70s?) whose
prohibitions, inter aelia, against mixing academic and classified work
limited many abuses (it is these rules that are now changing). To
this
day, the economics profession does not have the vaguest professional
guidelines. Not even disclosure/conflict of interest rules. Not
even for
the AEA's own conferences or publications.
2) The anthropologists involvement really took off with
Colonel Edward
Lansdale (often claimed to be the role model for The Quiet
American) who
claimed to play a principle role in defeating of the Huq rebellion
in the
Philippines. Lansdale was a former advertising executive and
promoted his
role shamelessly and with a lurid appeal to U.S. prejudices. His
deputy was
an anthropologist and together they spun a story of defeating
communists
through a knowledge of "native" cultural weaknesses and psychological
warfare (vampires, etc). The U.S. public lapped it up (Edward Said
should
have written about it).
So droves of anthropologists were sent off to Vietnam, some were
full time,
some were on academic leave, and some worked as consultants from their
academic posts. The biggest funding was probably the USAID Rural
Affairs
program but other funders of the Strategic Hamlets Initiative were
involved
in large ways. Anthropologists even figured in the joint command
structure
through a then-novel integrated provincial command called CORDS that
brought together USAID, the military, and the CIA. So
anthropologists were
found helping to fine tune the infamous Phoenix village level
assassination
program.
(btw, Richard Holbrook was an example of a junior CORDS/USAID
official in
the Mekong Delta working under a protegee of Lansdale; New School
President
Bob Kerry's SEAL assassination team was carrying out a CORDS
"instructions")
Similar work was going on throughout S.E. Asia. In Thailand
accidental
exposure lead to a professional scandal since the operation used
academic
cover. Some of the most visible work done by anthropologists in this
period was done in this period through government funding, such as
Rand
anthropologist Gerald Hickey (who later was also at Yale) and his book
Village in Vietnam. Rand had a whole section of anthropologists (and
political scientists).
3) In Vietnam, as in Iraq, different political factions within
the U.S.
government aligned themselves with different strategic approaches to
"winning". Lansdale and the anthropologists were a small group but
had
strong support from Kennedy and his entourage as the "thinking man's"
alternative. (They remind me a bit of today's Biden/Peter
Galbraith, one
of the sons of JKG). They should not be confused with the overlapping
Green Beret crowd whom Kennedy also supported.
As the war progressed, factions favored by LBJ and then by
Nixon pushed
the anthropologists and the Lansdale crowd out of in-country
operations. They then became a vocal voice in saying the war was lost
because it had been fought the "wrong" way. As the political winds
shifted Rand disassociated itself from this approach, fired the
anthropologists, and switched to more aggressive and military
studies. (Was Daniel Elsberg also caught in this shift?). Along
with the
disappearance of the big funding alternative voices were permitted to
emerge in anthropology. Francis Fitzgerald's "Fire in the Lake"
being the
most prominent example (her father, btw, was a very top CIA
official for
decades and a close associate of Lansdale).
P.S. At that time economists were not deemed worth much for in-country
strategy. Mostly low level monetary types "advising" on money supply
sterilization. Today the World Bank/IMF types would be strutting
back and
forth. Vietnam...those were the days?
Paul
