headed until leaving government in 1952. Langer served a brief period
as a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
(PFIAB) in 1961, but he remained at Harvard until his death in 1977.LANSDALE, EDWARD G. (1908–1987).Covert operative, military
officer, and Cold Warcounterinsurgency specialist, Edward G. Lans-
dale had colorful and lengthy careers in both the military and intelli-
gence in the formative years of the cold war. His dual career began in
World War IIwhen he worked simultaneously for the Office of
Strategic Services (OSS) and army intelligence. After the war, the
air force (to which he had transferred) loaned him to the Office of Pol-
icy Coordination (OPC), which became part of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency (CIA) in 1952. Although he was never an employee of
the CIA, Lansdale often worked on its behalf as an air force officer.
During the early decades of the Cold War, he became legendary for
identifying and funding effective noncommunist alternative leaders, en-
gineering psychological warfare (PSYWAR) operations in North Viet-
nam, and channeling U.S. support to the new Republic of South Viet-
nam and its president. Under President John F. Kennedy, Lansdale was
put in charge of Operation Mongoose, which involved attempts to
eliminate Fidel Castroand disrupt the economy of communist Cuba.
Lansdale’s exploits provided the backdrop for two fictional charaters:
Alden Pyle in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955) and Col.
Edwin B. Hillandale in William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick’s The
Ugly American (1958). Lansdale retired from active duty as a major
general in 1963.LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION. On 28 February 1803, Con-
gress approved President Thomas Jefferson’s request for an appropri-
ation to fund the Corps of Discovery to explore the American North-
west. President Jefferson chose his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, and
Lewis’s friend, William Clark, to lead the expedition. Although billed
as a voyage of exploration, the Lewis and Clark expedition was an in-
telligence mission to collect basic intelligenceinformation about the
lands acquired under the Louisiana Purchase, announced on 4 July- The expedition, comprised of nearly 50 men, set off from St.
Louis, Missouri, on 14 May 1803 and traveled thousands of miles
through the Great Plains, up the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, and
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