Edward Lansdale helped lead the development of Bay of Pigs invasion force, bringing the number of soldiers from 300 to 3000, training them in Guatamala. After Bundy’s refusal to destroy the 3 Cuban jets resulted in the decimation of the landing fleet and the failure of Operation Zapata, Lansdale retired from the CIA November 1, 1963. It was speculated that he appears in a photo with the Three Tramps in Dallas.
From 1965 to 1968 Lansdale returned to Vietnam to work in the US Embassy during the negotiations to prolong the war. After Nixon won election and the war was slated to continue for more years, he retired in 1968.
In his memoir “The Midst of Wars”, published in April 1972, Lansdale argued that the United States could still retain control of third-world nations by exporting ”the American way” through a blend of economic aid and efforts at ”winning the hearts and the minds of the people.” The book was written to be the establishment’s push-back against The Pentagon Papers which had just been leaked by Ellsberg to Newspapers and were being published. It quoted extensively from CIA and State Dept. documents related to planning and execution of non-military combat methods, approved for use in the clandestine services.
Many of Lansdale’s private papers and effects were destroyed in a fire at his McLean home in 1972. In 1981, Lansdale donated most of his remaining papers to Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
Lansdale had checked-out a bunch of documents of the CIA’s records library for his autobiography. A common practice. In such cases, the docs go back to Langley and the book galley is read and cleared by CIA before going to an editor or publisher. But before Lansdale can return everything, the mission is to take the docs and burn down his home office. Why Lansdale? He was Hunt’s old boss on Operation Mongoose and the Bay of Pigs. He’s certainly an “old friend.” He was Hunt’s old boss. And during the X-File construction in the first place, the FBI taps needed to square with CIA surveillance in both Paris and Saigon… Lansdale was in Saigon at the time. Also, Lansdale had been Daniel Ellsberg’s boss in Saigon… Ellsberg who got his hands on the Pentagon Papers and leaked them. However Lansdale may have got his hands on a copy of the X-File, Dorothy and Angel and a few other remaining operatives do the Lansdale mission together and Dottie gets the document from Lansdale and she pockets it – hiding it from the others. Though she eventually would tell Angel that she’s got a hot potato and needs him to sneak it out of the country.