Said unsettlingly to be the model for Graham Greene's The Quiet American, CIA operative Edward Lansdale receives a revisionist biography from New York Times best-selling author Boot. Boot argues that Lansdale originated the idea of "hearts and mind" diplomacy in the Philippines, then aimed to carry it over to Vietnam, where it was quashed by the military's fondness for troop buildups and falling bombs. With an 11-city tour.

Air Force officer Edward Lansdale (1908–87) remains a controversial figure in the history of the Vietnam conflict. In their books, David Halberstam and Michael Herr excoriated him. He's a hero in Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer's The Ugly American. Here, military historian Boot (Invisible Armies) argues that Lansdale's ideas offered our best attempt at success in this new kind of war. While in the Philippines (1950–53), Lansdale orchestrated reformer Ramon Magsaysay's victory at the polls, which led to peace with the Communist Party. But in Vietnam, he faced tougher adversaries. Lansdale was recalled from Vietnam in 1957. Six years later, South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown with U.S. support. Rule by the military ensued, with each new leader as corrupt as the previous one. Lansdale never regained his old touch. His approach of building friendships with indigenous leaders lost out to advocates of big guns and blanket bombing. VERDICT Boot has done a masterly job resuscitating the reputation of a man whom CIA director William Colby called "one of the ten greatest spies of all time." A solid military history and biography, this book will appeal to lovers of both genres.—David Keymer, Cleveland

Military historian and neoconservative commentator Boot (Invisible Armies) outshines everything ever written about the legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale (1908–1987) in this exhaustive, fact-filled, and analytical biography. Lansdale was initially an OSS man who was instrumental in defeating a Communist insurgency in the Philippines known as the Huk Rebellion in the early 1950s. He then headed the first undercover U.S. operation in the nascent nation of South Vietnam in June 1954, remaining an important voice in Vietnam War policy until the early 1960s as the debate raged over how to stop North Vietnam and the Vietcong. According to Boot, Lansdale consistently advocated what has come to be known as counterinsurgency—winning "hearts and minds"—and strongly opposed bringing in massive numbers of U.S. combat troops. Throughout, Boot argues forcefully that ignoring Lansdale's advice was a big reason that the Vietnam War turned out to be a disaster. In his afterword, Boot urges American leaders to adopt a form of "Lansdalism"—learn, like, and listen—and apply it to foreign interventions as was done in 1980s El Salvador and 2000s Colombia. This is a detailed, warts-and-all examination of Lansdale's complex professional and personal lives. Maps & illus. (Jan.)