Abstract
This article examines the adaptation of an historical person, the Air-Force officer and CIA operative named Edward G. Landsdale, as a model for fictional characters in three novels – English, American, and French – dealing with the early years of the American involvement in Vietnam. Landsdale’s political career and the historical background of his contribution to the creation of the anti-Communist state of South Vietnam is outlined, followed by an examination of his fictionalization in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955), Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer’s The Ugly American (1958), and Jean Lartéguy’s Yellow Fever (Eng. Transl. 1965). It is seen that Greene’s model is disputed, while all three novels actually underestimate Landsdale’s historical importance.
Highlights
Edward Landsdale and the history of VietnamEdward G
Landsdale was one of those men of action, usually described as ‘flamboyant’, who seem as fantastic as any fictional character – an example of the type novelist Philip Roth once complained about: a character thrown up every day by the American newspapers that would be the envy of any novelist
After the Second World War, when the French colonial army was allowed by the Allies to regain control of Hanoi, the Communist Viet Minh forces faded back into their bases in the countryside to fight an eight-year-long guerrilla war of resistance to
Summary
Landsdale was one of those men of action, usually described as ‘flamboyant’, who seem as fantastic as any fictional character – an example of the type novelist Philip Roth once complained about: a character thrown up every day by the American newspapers that would be the envy of any novelist. Roth’s question ‘Can anybody have imagined him if he did not really exist?’ referred to Richard Nixon but is even more pertinent to Landsdale, who seems to have inspired several fictional character in the early narrative literature of the Vietnam War, but was far more influential in supporting the American effort in Vietnam than any of his fictional counterparts turned out to be. After the Second World War, when the French colonial army was allowed by the Allies to regain control of Hanoi, the Communist Viet Minh forces faded back into their bases in the countryside to fight an eight-year-long guerrilla war of resistance to
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