Transcripts For CSPAN2 Max Boot The Road Not Taken 20180203

On the vietnam war which i hope you have had a chance to see but it is on view through april 22 so i hope you return during regular museum hours. Our program is the lecture on leadership we created this series five years ago as a permanent way to honor too great americans including David Petraeus who is the history maker award in 2013. I like to think mr. Herzog for his leadership and support and as chair emeritus and general petraeus for his leadership and generous participation over the past four years. Thanks though very much a 17. [applause] i would like to thank the trustees in the audience this evening. To our chair and a chancellor for all she has done on behalf of this great institution. [applause] and the chair of the council, susan b17 and now my great colleague and Vice President of programs and you will hear from him at the close of the program. This Evening Program will last about an hour with a questionandanswer session. Q a will be conducted via written notecards. You should have received one when you enter the auditorium if not then something will be around to distribute them they will be collected with questions later on in the evening. So we are thrilled to welcome back max boot from military historians and a Foreign Policy analysts. There will be a book signing following the program and yes we are thrilled to welcome him back. The senior fellow for National Security studies at the council on Foreign Relations and a regular contributor to the New York Times and many other publications. The author of several widely accredit acclaimed books so his new book is the road not taken and the tragedy in vietnam it is an honor to welcome general petraeus back as a moderator u. S. Army retired in the Global Investment firm kkr also at the professor of university of california serving 37 years in u. S. Army and as commander of the u. S. Central command. Following his retirement he served as director of the cia to play an essential role of important achievements in the global war on terror to make sure anything that makes a noise like a cell phone is which toff so please join me to welcome general petraeus. [applause] thank you very much it is wonderful to be back and on stage with someone i have such high regard and respect and admiration with a special treat when they write about buddy for whom you have such regard of course that is edward someone many of us studied over the years with a tragic figure and that he had great achievements with brilliant advice and another that was largely disregarded. He is truly a distinguished scholar and forthright observer and a lyrical writer someone i have had enormous regard for with thoughts and advice and counsel that from the director of the cia one of those rare individuals that i read with keen interest in one of those admirable individuals that should not leave something left unsaid. And that is from contemporary times. And especially tonight to be the interview were with a role reversal. The chance to get enhanced interrogation techniques so i have long stood against them for a variety of Different Reasons to thank you to all of you for being here tonight a good thing the deepfreeze evaded in time to get here also are truly a privilege to be on the incomparable stage one of the top two centers of Critical Mass the other one from 92nd street and to have done so much to reinvigorate and sustain that wonderful organization to help us not only record and remember history but learn from that as well. That is hugely important at a time when some elements want to consign to the past rather than what earlier generations experience. It is great to be back here to the society extraordinary precedent the only person i know from two phds and also for your leadership i also want to plod all of you. [applause] this has been a Long Time Coming we have been looking forward to this over a year truly a monumental achievement thank god for those e readers like the paperweight and the barbell. But to the degree of the challenges and tragedy of vietnam i would contend the contemporary situations are similar to vietnam so the road not taken was selected bookofthemonth before it was even available so this is the evening of the day it was first on sale in bookstores and online. A lot of great reviews it was described as a fascinating portrait and a maverick and much more than a biography but with those monumental narratives also the best and brightest with a compelling look and importantly showing it was the inevitable result beyond the control of military leaders and i will draw him out on that to some degree so a riveting description of the times of one of the most significant figures of postworld war ii philippines and whose son is here with his wife and daughter welcome to each of you. As i noted the road not taken not only tell that story but also situates it wonderful into that context of the experience and offer lessons for the present day. How and when did you come to focus on this interesting individual . Thank you very much for joining the event and volunteering. I appreciate it. But thats a good question i wrote about atlanta a little bit in my previous book and it was my editor who said you ought to make the whole book and i was reluctant because what more is there to say . He had an intuition there was more to say and he was dead right because i was lucky enough to get material that previous riders on riders have written about the ugly american everybody has been written about this but none of these had access to all of the documentation and that was due to the generosity of the person who shared with me the correspondence between their parents. Between him and his first wife and also lucky enough to meet the grandchildren of the second wife pat kelly closure ears is also a longtime mistress before becoming his second wife. They share the correspondence over the years i think i am the first and also a vast amount of newly declassified information with the cia very slow about releasing where a lot of the stuff is information i am the first to look at it. For example if you want to know how to win an election. There is no better source explaining how he got ramon alongside in 1953i am one of the first historians to read that. There is a lot of new information that we have ever had. Obviously your publisher and editor was correct and also turned out to be a pivotal figure it isnt just the story about that but also with the involvement of vietnam. Because he was there in the beginning in 1954 when four when everything was going south with the tet offensive. I cannot think of anybody else like him. There were other figures like john paul the he did not start until the early 60s. Lansdale was on the ground. Calling with a little bit of exaggeration that is the creato creator. So we will get into that. So up front very broad question so if they say tell me about that in three sentences . B mikey was a wonderful engaging in eccentric character who had a passion for american democracy who loved psychological operations and engaging but above all he had a passion for help those in South Vietnam with independence and a ton of me because ideas have often been caricatured that he was a much more complex person to be into local societies than he was made out to be with bureaucratic rivals. And a huge believer of good governance. Yes. It isnt a new insight for you because you literally wrote the manual on counterinsurgency but remember in the early 50s these ideas were bold and fresh and lansdale was one of the pioneers and he understood the basic truism that you acted upon you cannot defeat an insurgency by killing the insurgent. You have to out govern them. He said time and again the communist have an idea we cannot bomb an idea into oblivion we have to have better ideas. When he said that to William Mcnamara they thought he was an idiot because he did not understand that mathematical precision of american firepower but it is obvious he understood a lot more than his detractors did but certainly to go after some of those it is interesting how that jumped off the page. Because you noted at some point he is a figure not mentioned. And was unknown to us that is significant as i think he will be now as a result. He has not set down his ideas. But he was more a practitioner. And not quite as good. Although he had his moments in selfpromotion. There are a few. The title, the road not take taken, we will come back to this because it is a pretty good deal. Do you believe if his advice was followed and certainly prior to the but what we can say with confidence is the said things like he told the Kennedy Administration please dont overthrow them. Yes he has his problems to sideline his brother and yes he is in the and four in addition fortunate confrontation with the buddhists but there is no better alternative and i know all the generals. The Kennedy Administration ignored him and sponsored the coup on november 1963 the very day lansdale was retiring from the air force and the results are catastrophic as he warned about because South Vietnam rapidly disintegrated in the situation became so dire 1965 Lyndon Johnson felt he had no choice but to sound when asked to said combat troops and i was the last thing he ever wanted to see not half a million american troops flashing through the jungle and all those that came with massive military invention but the vietnamese had to defend themselves. And then to be pfizers on the sidelines there is a chance to theft philosophy would have been followed as also the National Security advisor later said it was a tragedy disregarded what i will say is i cannot guarantee so then the war would have been run one but you cant prove that the one thing you can say for sure is we would not have lost that in that catastrophic fashion the 58000 american that unfolded in the 60s. With those repercussions here at home . So talk about his upbringing where he was born, went to school, he just graduated. He was from a fairly modest background not part of the postwar ely he didnt go to harvard or work at a place like kkr but from a much more modest upbringing his father was an Automotive Executive sometimes the family did well sometimes they didnt he grew up mainly in california to acquire this in formality became the general at the time always wanted people to get back so in some ways a proto Silicon Valley either dose and the other thing that is worth pointing out going up at a time of terrible racial prejudice was also against Asian Americans excluding chinese immigrants and there is horrible prejudice but he was never affected he saw this to be fully equal to americans when he went to the philippines in South Vietnam he didnt think he was surrounded by lesser beings but he was meeting wonderful people of friends and colleagues and treated them in a fashion that was very rare to do. And he genuinely liked them. Frankly in dealing with those you are trying to assist. He really weapon iced empathy. You cannot fake that. Going to ucla, rotc. He goes into advertising hoping to be a new yorker cartoonist it doesnt work out he did meet helen the woman he would marry with and got back into advertising went back to california when the japanese attack on pearl harbor happens and he was eager to enlist although he was in his late 30s. With that civilian intelligence agency. That is part of that at the time. First civilian intelligence agency. With very highly decorated. And to share some characteristics they are mavericks who are constantly at war with the bureaucracy and at the end it is selfdefeating. So to have bureaucratic insight and this does have an influence but he doesnt deploy. And to get information in he gets into the army and just by happenstance just as the war is ending and spent the next several years there as an Intelligence Officer and Public Affairs officer but really i would say but not normally in the army chain of command of the Cultural Affairs ambassador. That what they are deployed abroad but trying to learn about the people he was surrounded by so then he met this filipino lady that he struck up a romance and she became his cultural guide. There was a budding communists urgency at the time and she is from the same province or when they were from. So she literally guided him into those areas where the insurgents were at because he wanted to learn about them and then a tremendous romance was struck up and a lifelong romance and she became his interlocutor. And does become it isnt entirely comfortable for the family because he did come back and asked his wife for a divorce she refused they stayed married they went on the same path but then they broke off and toward the end of his life i believe he and helen reconciled and had some happy years together but finally helen died 1972 and within one year pat kelly was a retired grandmother but never married came to the United States and became his second wife and they lived happily ever after until his own demise 1987. Host he is a pivotal figure in the philippines he did to tour. It was a long time but i think the number of years he spent deployed. And dont want to speak for his son but there was the element of hardship that is to the credit like a lot of military wives held them together and had to be a single parent and raise the kids pretty well and to be a colonel in the air force. I dont know how several happens to the non aviator never firing a gun in anger basically and it is interesting the most unusual general is the guy who rises to be three stars Deputy Director of the cia a great linguist of all time and was the translator with france and italy and russia with an infantry officer there was one other. The system would not permit it. So in some ways it was a tribute you could have someone because with his second tours personal assistant to the ministry of defense of the philippines. And that is typical for the philippines. So to understand the situation in 1950 there was a fear in washington that communism was on the march the time the korean war was read today in china had fallen to the communist russia had acquired a nuclear bomb we felt we were losing this battle in asia and now with this insurgency in the philippines seem to be on the verge to take over manila so we were so committed to the korean war with no troops to spare even talked about sending multiple divisions to the philippines but instead frank who was the operations chief of the top secret that folded into the cia said their job was to rescue the philippines from communism so the way they did that was by latching on to the young defense minister because he thought they would turn the philippines around. And essentially he became like a brother and were roommates for a while. Together, under lansdales guidance they came up with population centric counterinsurgency. So issue orders to the army to say do not bombard the barrios. You will alienate the population. Dont steal act as brothers and if you do that to win the confidence of the people they will rat out the insurgency but first when their confidence so those are pretty basic insights they were pretty revolutionary ideas lansdale push them through any unobtrusive fashion so he didnt feel like he was being dictated to be getting advice from who was like a brother to him was a very effective way of operating. Also to cultivate him to make him much more successful than he was. Up to and including his Campaign Manager to be elected of the president. He did everything from composing a Campaign Song to say he is my guy. He was known as the guy throughout the philippines so including Filipino Civic Organizations to keep the other party from stealing the election. Or working with the journalists to face favorable profiles. Everything you would expect a Campaign Manager to do. The agency and the state department a lot of people were not sure it to get involved in the politics of another country. And that the way the communists acquired power to shoot through the bit role of gun. They had a political strategy and then to fight the communist militarily. And in the philippines the slogan was bombs not valid because the election is so crooked nobody had the confidence. But then with that policy. He was not stuffing ballot boxes. And as a result that basically defeated it turned the slogan around. Some people realized the political change at the ballot box that took all the air out of the hook rebellion. That is so familiar. That was the surge of ideas not forces. And not to dwell on you a bit courteous and polite to the population that you are engaging in me. And with those airborne strikes and then to photograph the enemy that they killed in part to get actual accurate reporting. And with that afghan mass. With those body counts. That is the metric of vietnam. With those statistical reductions of war that are so familiar again. So they develop population centric counterinsurgency how many troops are on the ground . Maybe a few dozen. Maybe ten assistance and that is it. Even mine you dont with get your luck with those individuals. They also made some of their own look lock. Just like the Prime Minister of iraq has a do a standby. So the very important achievement is he gets elected and sadly for only a few years. Dies on a tragic airplane crash that was one of the great tragedies of filipino history because after he was gone it was back to the same old corruption and the rise of marcos. And that flies and again by the way the aircraft is piloted by the chief of staff of the air force as i recall he new fighters very well so of course we talk about pat kelly so how does he end up in vietnam . To signal success philippines to mastermind against the hook rebellion obviously the flavor of the month with the Eisenhower Administration they love those covert operatives and the mastermind of the overthrow. Those who masterminded so in 1854 a situation where the french are defeated, a geneva conference with north and South Vietnam to be under communist control in the question is how do have a viable noncommunist aid in South Vietnam . The consensus is we dont want to send a lot of troops so lets have lansdale do in vietnam what he did in the field plate one philippines. Having gone over there first he was disgusted by the french war because he said you cannot have these white faces trying to win a war that the french as long as they were fighting to control they would never prevail or defeat nationalism. So he knew that war effort was doomed. Again six or seven years in vietnam, the first tour in the 50s then comes home and goes back five years later. Talk about the first tour the strategy and tactics with the ambassador and american diplomat though at that point the summer of 1954 of you people thought he wouldnt last nine weeks let alone nine years because of their adversaries with the local religious sect who has tens of thousands between them, nobody thought he would last long and among his critics was the ambassador fourstar general. But lansdale who was a mere criminal is not afraid to stand up to the fourstar general and in a meeting said to reduce the size of the South Vietnamese army he said this is the dumbest idea available you need a large army to pacify to have administrative governance. There was no civilian capacity. And then to understand what is going on. So to be that stereo typical fourstar general. And not a man of small ego. He went up to core command. Then ultimately takes over korea. Makes it to two star. In the mid50s i made sure i had the president in my corner when i was. Mid50s he writes an annual counterinsurgency strategy for vietnam. You have all these areas that are being vacated by the men and lansdale writes hes the first counterinsurgency chief in South Vietnam and writes a strategy houston the Vietnamese Army will control the areas areas and lott had to do with civic action, and had to do with win over the people. He did things, for example, like creating something called operation brotherhood and was this as citizen my independent organization in reality, dont tell anybody, funded by the cia. This independent organization that brought over filipino doctors and nurses to provide medical day in newly librated areas to win over the people. This is kind of course ircentury general sip 101. Something special Operations Forces do but the pie feared this efforts to win over the population, and to win their support for the siem regime, and then pushed him to go out among the people, normally reclusive ruler, tried to push former democracy and more Representative Government to create a more legitimate stable state in saigon. Really the antithesis of what becomes the u. S. Effort in vietnam. Absolutely. Huge battles, big forces. Wasnt fire power, none of that stuff. Fire zones and all the rest which proved to be really quite disastrous in its effects. So, he writes this, he protest moats this premoats this, supports seem, his version of his partner in the philippines. Not quite at the sale level but not without talent. He comes back to washington and he briefs rock mcnamara. A true clash of cultures with robert mcnaar ma a, Harvard Business school afraid, accounting background, former ceo of the you could reduce the war and peace to math mat cam equations and ed lansdale walks into his office and puts down a load of dirty weapons, very basic Spears Spears and swd rusty muskets caked with blood and mud and says and puts the down on mcnamaras desk and said, mr. Secretary you need to understand these are the people were fighting and theyre fighting with relative weapons, wear pajamas, and theyre facing a South Vietnamese army equipped by us, looks just like it, has the same equipment, but these fighters, the rag tag guerrilla fighters are licking the soldiers theyre arming and you need to under wide. They have a powerful idea behind them and theyre not going to be defeated simply by american fire power. Well, mcnamara says and his immediate seesment is this guy is an idiot. Get out of here. We know what were doing, thank you very much. And of course, in hindsight we know perfectly well that mcnamara did not know what he was doing. As he later confessed. No is shipted into this strange operation where he is the anticastro mission. Tell us about that, so tragic the long run but of the effect on the regard for him and then during that time, of course, siem is overthrown. By the early 60s lansdale was associated with he the protag knives and the quiet american and a main character in the ugly american, and although he was ostensibly a secret agent we was quite famous bit they point. Kind of the known by some of the american te lawrence and others as the american james bond, and the kennedy were very smitten by him initially. After the failure of the bay of pig us, an operation he opposed, they were still determined to get rid of castro and said we need an outsider to take over the operation. Lets get ed lansdale. This never occurred to them to say what does the know about cuba or why is a who a special enemy Southeast Asia being used in this operation. He was put in control of operation mon goose to get rid of castro in 1962 and it whereas a failure. Didnt achieve the results it weaponed because land dale toll them if you want to get rid of castro you have to use American Military force. They want some kind after quick, magical solution, and these crazy ideas came up, including one that lansdale authored over having a submarine surface off the coast of cube into and fire star shells in the air and combine that with the campaign thats the Second Coming of christ was nigh. This actually happened. Its not half as crazy as some the ideas that cia had, such as feeding castro drugs that would make his beard fall out because the beard was supposedly the source of his power. All sorts of crazy ideas circulating because the kennedys and in particular Bobby Kennedy was hammering on them, sawing i want action, we need to get rid of him. This was the result. To make a long story short, operation mon mongoo failed and we found out soviets were putting Nuclear Missiles into cuba but disbanded and lansdale was shunted aside, he was basically left vulnerable to his bureaucraticked aer searses like Robert Mcnamara and by 1963 he was retired. This was a tragedy. If the was the height of the crisis in South Vietnam, which led to siems overthrow with the tragedy consequenced we discussed earlier and a lot of people, like walt roth, later said the only way this cries could have been avert is if ed lansdale had been sent to saigon to. With siem and guide him as he guided him in the 1950s. And to shove aside the brother. To push him aside but never happened because there was too much bureaucratic opposition to lansdale. Made too many enemies and they blocked his return and one man who might conceivably have averted this dire crisis was sidelined and retired. He goes back. He is sent back, as you noted in 1965, does flee more. Tell us it how his team is regarded at this point by other persons, even Henry Kissinger has comments. He went back in 1965 but win to work for Henry Cabot Lodge who master minded the coup that overthrew his friend siem and in the 65 to 68 period when lansdale was there, he was sidelined because the big green machine took over the war, westmoreland, and the offensive minded military, and westmoreland genuinely thought he could kill the viet cong faster than they could be replaces, he would reach a crossover point where he was eliminating them fastest than they could be replaced and lansdale understood this was hubris in private next letter its read, he was in despair because he in other words that the war was being lost and he thought it was a tragedy these poor vietnamese rice farmers, who were in the middle of this war, who war not fighting but were simply caught in the middle, were getting pulverized by american artillery and air power because they were mistaken by the viet cong, and the said you cant win a war this way, by killing the people on your side, but west moreland and johnson ignored him. His greatest champion was hubert humphrey, who was Vice President , who was well intentioned but hubert humphrey, as anybody who knows the history of the Johnson Administration knows, he had no impact, completely sidelined by Lyndon Johnson, and 0 so the big difference was in the 50s, lansdale had powerful champions like the dulles brothers into allowed him to override the local bureaucracy, and in the 60s, his champion was hughber humphrey who was powerless and had no fewer effect what the american war machine was doing in vietnam, and he left after the tet offensive, very dejected, demoralized and defeated because he understood that contrary to what the generals were saying, the tet offensive was not this great victory, even though we killed a lot more of the enemy than the killed of our troops, but it was a huge psychological blow to South Vietnam and the United States, and lansdale understood that. He understood that the war was being lost, and he felt just felt horrible because he thought that he had some good ideas that could have helped us to do better but he lost the bureaucratic battle. The tragedy of lion dale and the tragedy of vietnam. One question from the audience here talks about the tet offensive. This is its precede by this massive buildup, up to over 500,000 troops on the ground, seemingly doing well,. Light at the end of the opportunity. Yes. With all of our intelligence on the ground, how did we mills the signs of the tet offensive coming . There were certainly signs, but i its kind over like the attack of pearl harbor you can see them in hindsight but at the time theres a lot of white noise. The widespread view within the military command was that these indications of the ted offensive war just the reduce to draw American Forces away from a garrison being attacked by north vietnamese troops. You can pears parse the details but thank you larger story is we didnt understand the sew cincinnati which we were fighting, didnt understand at a cultural level, and lansdale was trying to help people to understand that. He did things he was actually in some ways kind of became more of an anthropologist than a general because he would do things like compile vietnamese folk songs and write studies of vietnamese folk songs and then studies of South Vietnamese Political Parties and trying to map the political dynamics of South Vietnam. That interested him because he said thats what we need to understand, understands the society were operating in, but for people like west moreland, all of that was irrelevant because all that mattered was putting warheads on foreheads, basically. One of the big three strategic lessons that we should learn from our experiences in iraq in particular is that you should understand the country before you invade it. Right. We did not, frankly, sufficiently. We came with that understanding ultimately over time, as many of us did repetitive tours, but we should have known that going in. Again, lets get to some of the questions here from the floor and also some others. You read hr mcmaster on the performance of senior u. S. Military during vietnam. The big idea which is captured in the title dereliction of duty. How would you characterize your assessment of them . Is it the same as his, would you say . Is it different . How wouldow characterize his and yours . Well first of all, be being so with what h. R. Mcmatters thing about milt tear officers giving advice to president. As a National Security adviser he has a different privilege. Wait good booking a scathing indo itment of the joint chiefs. Basically the part of hrs thesis was that Lyndon Johnson should have listen to to joint chiefs but if you look at what they war saying, they had a congestion outlook and thought the only problem was the war was there was not enough fair u fire power, even though dropped more bombs than in world war ii. They want he more conventional forces, more, more, more, and i think Lyndon Johnson was right to be skeptical that simply applying more convention alfire power would achieve a better end state, and ed lansdale has different perspective. One of those like John Paul Van and a few others who were neither hawk nor dove because they werent doves in the sense they didnt want to abandon South Vietnam, wanted to help south veteran but at the same time they thought the way we were going was the wrong way and the ware the military establishment was recommending was the wrong approach. Question here, generals are often accuse offed refighting the last war. How did the experience of the korean war affect and influence american leadership, and specifically lansdale . Welldidnt have any real impact on lansdale because he didnt fight in korea, but the korean war certainly had an impact, world war 2 followed by the korean war, because pretty much all the generals we sent to command in vietnam from the 1950s on were veterans of world war ii and many cases the korean war. None of them really had any experience fighting insurgents, general William Westmoreland did not. They brought a conventional mindset get to abrahams who abrams is the first guy who is part enough to understand that doing more of the same wont achieve better results. But by that point i think by the time he was appointed in 1968, it was really too late because we had lost public support for the war. But we basically, because we had all these generals witch world war ii and korean experience, we basically designed the South Vietnamese army to fight a conventional adversary and lansdale was warning against this in the 1950,saying we cant crate thismer roar image force because were north fighting north vietnamese tangs, fighting communist insurgent and he tried to mold the Vietnamese Army to be more of a counterinsurgency force. Light infantry and civic action but he was overruled think decision was mode to made heavy weapon pri create a small scale vs. Over the u. S. Army which was not the appropriate force their to kind of conflict they faced. Another wonderful question. I often pondered this myself. How does someone who thinks outside the box survive, left alone succeed in the a bureaucracy that often does not appreciate such thinking . Well, you may be better placed to answer that than i am because youre a dish mean, for those who dont understand two dont know the u. S. Army culture, the fact that general petraeus is a ph. D from princeton is pretty damn rare. Not a lot of fourstar i developed i was committing professional suicide. You went on your own path, and if i look at your career, i would say you would not have risen to the top of four star comment were it not for the extremely dire situation that we found yourselves in, in iraq in 20062007, because things at that point were getting desparate enough they were raid to kind of throw out the conventional army playbook and try a new approach with somebody who had different ideas and that was you. I think lansdale did not rise to fourstar rank and was successful in navigating the bureaucratic currents as you were. He did pretties we up august things considered, retiring as twostar but one of his achilles heels what while he was very adept at winning over foreign leaders, he was not so adept at winning over his own leaders led of his subordinates who died, retired general sam wilson, former director of the dia whom you apparently had long conversations. Fascinating conversations that he was a veteran of merrills marauders, rose to threestar crank worked for lansdale and had tremendous handmer racing for lansdale but said lansdales undoing basically was that he treated the bureaucracy as an enemy and made it one. In part to answer that last question as well about how do you survive as a bit of an out of the box thinker, leaders in the organization dish used to say this, we must preserve and protect the akon knowclassed. You have to promote them, its very publicly known, it was some came out in the press that i went back and sat on only one Promotion Board in my entire life, it happened to be when i was commanding the summer which is not normally the position for which youre selected but it was secretary gates and when he asked me to do that i originally said are you crazy . He said think about it, and i did statistic frankly this was h. R. Mcnsaer passed over twice for brigadier general. I was sent back. No one ever said that to me but a it was clear to me we needed to ensure he was going to be on that list, a junior four star in the army but made the president of the board even throw there was a senior guy there Stan Mcchrystal packed the it was a very interesting process, but in a sense, we were making sure that someone who thought outside the box was indeed given a chance to continue to serve and had comments with gates the other day about the success of that strategy. Noting the position that h. R. Is in now. He had his own memoir in the mit of wars, came out in 1972. Sort of pulled punches in it. Whats your assess0. That. Deliberately opaque. He did out in want to be very forthcoming in his memoir in part for personal reasons because his wife, helen, was still alive at that sometime he didnt want to write about his passionate relationship with pat kelly, but he also wanted to pull punches and not reveal hutch he had don in the philippines and vietnam but a he wanted them to take credit for the things he had done and didnt want to make zoom like here was this big white man who was manipulating these asians. The wanted to give them publish put them forward as representatived of their society, and at that point kind of interesting because by that point he already had the release of the pentagon papers and dan elseburg was a protege of ed lansdale in vietnam. But when dan ellsberg if you have soon the post the first line spoken when dan elseburg is in the boonies in vietnam, toting a machine gun with a marrone and run marine says to the other who is the long hair, they said thats elseburg and the worked for lansdale at the embassy. Worshiped lansdale. Still does. Talked to dan elseburg and he says i love that man and i still love him. He revered lansdale, when ellsberg revealed the pentagon papers, that was a very painful episode for lansdale because among the papers that were revealed were operational reports that laps dale himself had werent nor cia and revealed the fact that operation brotherhood was not a spontaneous Filipino Civic Organization and was actually an organization created and fund by ed lansdale of the cia and that exposed his filipino friends to danger and retribution so this added to some of the agony he felt at the end of his life, but kind of interesting guy. He was such an honorable man or perhaps so quixotic that he refused to admit he worked for the cia. When this memoir came out, it was basically laughed at by critic whose knew he was not telling the truth but he felt like he had taken an oath to protect and preserve the secrets of the cia and wouldnt break that oath even then. I want to i can sense that president of this Great Organization is about to come up on the stage and before she does that, i really want to get to what you think we should take from your book for contemporary times. You talk theres three words, and i think theyre really quite brilliant distillations of what lansdale experience and what many others of us have experienced with you out there helping us from time to time. Its learn, like, and listen. Thats to me the distillation of the lansdale methodology. So Many Americans go into a foreign country that we dont know and dont understand you have envoys from wafers coming in and saying here our nonnegotiatable demands and if you dont do that, well cult aid or something bad will happen. And right now were cutting aid to pakistan as a random example. But that wasnt the lansdale approach at all. His methodology first, learn go to the country and understand the people go out in the countryside, talk to, the understand their culture, understand what theyre all about, understand their aspirations, learn what theyre all about as people. Then like them. Like identify people that you like and cultivate them and become friends with them. Dont lecture to them. Really learn to like them. And the final thing, is to listen. And this is many ways the secret always of the lansdale method. He would listen to instead of lecturing to them and this was not easy to do. Somebody like siem became notorious for hours long monologue that drove ordinary americans to distraction, trying to strangle themselves or end the agony of listening to him drone on and on and on. But ed lansdale, very strong bladder among other things, would sit there for hour are hour, listening to sim drone on and then he would say thats fascinating, if if understand what youre saying, its x, y and z, and then he would very subtly rephrase what his interlock tour was same to him to get across this own ideas as if they were siems ideas and this is very assault yet effective method of operating and that is really what dish it sounds very simple. Its very basic, but very few american onavoids or advisers employ that lansdale methodology. I think if they did, learned from him, i think they would be much more effective. Really couldnt agree more. Id like to think we learned the same over our years in iraq and afghanistan. And that we have continued to learn those. Let me just end, if i could, as i see again getting the microphone. I truly want to congratulate you on an extraordinary book about an extraordinary american, a book that establishes you more than ever as an historian thicker and writer, i mentioned this is a monumental achievement. You quote edward lansdales eulogist and cry disciple, who concluded his remarks at lansdales burial ceremony in arlington by saying, we shall not see his like again but his ideas shall never die. And i honestly think with your book that you make that latter observation, that his ideas shall never die, much more likely to be true thanked previously was, well done and congratulations. Thank you very much, sir, really appreciate it,. [applause] general pet trace, want to thank you for promoting me to president. I am dale gregory, the Vice President for Public Programs and i do love my job. I do want to thank you both for being here. They have been here many times before, and i do hope youll return many times again, and i just want anyone who doesnt yet have a brochure, please pick one up. Max boot will be returning to talk about the tet offensive and then in the spring, a prom on north korea will colleagues who are wonderful and max is wonderful, and thank you, general petraeus, everyone enjoy the program dish hope you enjoyed the program as we did, and stay for the book signing. Thank you so much. Youre watching become tv on cspan2. This weekend we are live the second guest on our 2018 fiction edition of in depth. Hell discuss all of his books, his writing process, and answer your questions live from 12 00 to 3 00 p. M. Eastern on sunday. On this weekends after words, former george w. Bush david from argue that Trump Presidency is damaging american democracy, interviewed by Washington Post book critic, carlos. And also this weekend, we bring you coverage of the recent Rancho Mirage writer festival in california which featured are car rove, brett stephens, dave barry, and historians michigan great mcmillan, douglas and john meachum. For a complete setted all, visit booktv. Org doering. Take care of patients the patient was a chronic patient. Multiple procedures. And when patients have multiple procedures they tend to lose all their ven so it gets difficult in starting i. D. S to be able to induce patients in the way you want to. So, this patient comes back to the operating room and i look at the left arm and looking in and there is nothing. Not one vein. So i say, okay, walked around the foot of the bed, put the tournament on the other arm and looking at the arm and i look at the patient. Up to this point this patient has not said a single word. Tried making connections on everything. I even asked what the favorite color was, and i couldnt get anything. Movies, books, news, music, nothing. Absolutely zero connections. And im looking at this arm. And im thinking, hmm, and finally, i said, okay, ill bite. What are you bad as . Patient goes, hmm . I said, what are you bad as . Huh . I said your tattoo, down the forearm, badas. What are you bad as, and the patient for the first time screams out, im bad ass, im bad ass. I said you spelled it wrong. That i. D. Never went in quicker and within seconds that patient was asleep. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. For nearly 20. In depth on book tv has featured the nations best known nonfiction writers for live conversations about their books. This year as a special project, were featuring bestselling fiction writers for the monthly prom, in depth tuskegee. Joins live on sunday at nooners witch Colson Whitehead, author of the 2016 best selling novel this underground railroad, awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book award. His other november veils including zorn one, sag harbor and the intuitionist. Our special series will author Colson Whitehead sunday, live, from noon to 3 00 p. M. Eastern, on booktv. Cspan2. Welcome to fayetteville, arkansas 0,en book tv. A population of 83,000, fayetteville is the states Third Largest city. Located in the northwestern part of the state near the boston mountains. This region, along with parts of southwest missouri and eastern oklahoma, is known as the ozarks. With the help of Cox Communication Cable Partners well explore the citys lit literary life and hear from brooks believe veins and talk about the stereo type that people face living in the region. Those stereotypes have been