An advertising man turned CIA operative during the cold war, Edward Lansdale was one of the powerful men behind scenes in Cuba, Vietnam and the Philippines. He used everything from advertising techniques to harmonica playing as a way to gain friendships, and even deadly force to quell Communist insurgencies.

“Edward Lansdale’s Cold War” (published by University of Massachusetts Press) by Jonathan Nashel, associate history professor at Indiana University South Bend, takes the Lansdale from his days as a dropout from UCLA, through World War II, and then beyond to the hot spots in the Cold War.

The book has garnered attention since its November publication and was recently reviewed in the New York Times.

Nashel will talk about his work at a book signing event at 4 p.m. Saturday, April 1, at Barnes and Noble Bookseller, Grape Road, Mishawaka.

Nashel said the book is an extension of his dissertation. For many graduate students, the dissertation is a dreadful topic, full of angst. This is not the case with Nashel. “I was having lunch with my advisor and he said, over sandwiches, that he read that Oliver North’s hero was Edward Lansdale.”

North was a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration.

In 15 seconds, Nashel said, he had his topic for his dissertation. The larger-than-life figure was the perfect subject for a student immersed in the Cold War era.

Nashel writes about Lansdale’s escapades in preventing a Communist takeover in the Philippines, the installation of the American-backed government of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam and the plots to kill Castro.

Lansdale was full of confidence that the American way of life was the correct way. He believed that because the U.S. developed from a colonial struggle, it could empathize with the colonial struggles of new nations. The American Dream could be transplanted anywhere.

Lansdale is widely believed to be the model for Alden Pyle, in Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American.” Greene denied that the Pyle character was Lansdale, saying it was based on another American operative.

The denial didn’t stop Lansdale who used his connections to work with screenwriter Joseph Mankiewicz to turn “The Quiet American” into a pro-American work. Greene called the movie a “travesty” because it completely reversed the politics of his novel.

Another literary work, “The Ugly American,” was also based on Lansdale. The main character, Col. Edwin Hillandale, fought Communism in Southeast Asia using techniques similar to Lansdale’s. The novel warned that America would lose the cold war because of ethnocentrism and arrogance unless people took time to understand the county and its locals.

Lansdale received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1963 for his counter-insurgency work and became a consultant for the Food for Peace program. In 1965, he returned to Vietnam and became a senior liaison of the U.S. Mission to South Vietnam.

In 1967, he became an assistant to Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker. He retired in 1968 and his memoirs, “The Midst of Wars” was published in 1972.

Lansdale died in 1987.

Nashel used a variety of sources to bring the time and the man to life – everything from the standard historical archives and declassified documents to conspiracy Websites, Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” and articles in Reader’s Digest.

Nashel said he would have enjoyed meeting the master spy who was sometimes called “America’s James Bond.” “I have had the time of my life” working on this book.

Nashel received his doctorate from Rutgers University and has been a member of the IU South Bend faculty since 1995.

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