Page 16 - Forbes - USA (February 2018)

FORBES
FACT & COMMENT STEVE FORBES

ounces instead of 16. It also disrupts dant production. By the time the legisla- massive taxes on thousands of items. A
increasingly more intricate supply chains tion made its way through the congres- global trade war ensued, and the Great
here and around the world. You may end sional sausage factory, we had imposed Depression was under way.
up paying $15 for a part that should cost
$10. Companies have to devote valuable The Road Not Taken
brainpower and resources to figuring out Max Boot (Liveright, $35)
how to hedge countless currencies, a cost
THIS BRILLIANT, extremely well- and then won election as president
that hinders growth. written book about a forgotten (Lansdale was his behind-the-scenes
t Protectionism. Trade deficits? In and
figure who was one of the most manager), adopted Lansdale’s strategy
of themselves, they tell you nothing. The extraordinary and utterly un- of finding ways to win what came to be
U.S. has had merchandise trade deficits orthodox espionage agents in termed the “hearts and minds of the
for most of its existence. A key to our history contains a telling scene that people,” combined with fundamental
growth has been—and still is—invest- encapsulates what went tragically changes in military operations. Civilian
ment capital coming to our shores. wrong with the Vietnam War. The casualties were sharply reduced. Lans-
We’re starting to get inflows of hun- operative, Edward Lansdale, was dale also showed he was a master of
dreds of billions of dollars, thanks to the visiting President John F. Kennedy’s propaganda and psychological warfare.
Trump tax bill. defense chief, Robert McNamara. What had looked like an inevitable com-
It’s one thing to update trade agree- The former president of Ford Motor, McNamara munist victory withered into a total rout.
ments such as Nafta, quite another to profoundly believed that everything could be Then, in the aftermath of the French defeat
blow them up or try to dictate specific managed by numbers (or what we today call by Ho Chi Minh’s communist forces, Lansdale
outcomes, such as forcing companies to “metrics”). McNamara had an IQ that could boil played the indispensable, key role in the mi-
move their facilities back to the U.S. water, a personality that could freeze the tropics raculous creation of the state of South Vietnam.
Ditto trade abuses, such as China’s and a deep disdain for anyone he considered his In this he worked with a man named Ngo Dinh
unfairly restricting access to its markets intellectual inferior, which was almost everybody. Diem, a monkish figure given to rambling, hours-
for foreign companies or forcing busi- Lansdale was given ten minutes—no more!—to long monologues. Lansdale won his confidence,
advise McNamara on how the U.S. should deal as had no one else except Diem’s paranoid
nesses to part with their proprietary
technology, not to mention its outright with the growing communist insurgency in South brother. Against all odds—and with Lansdale’s
Vietnam. The allotted time was a harbinger of considerable help—Diem routed the warlords
theft of trade secrets via hacking. how the meeting would go. and powerful sect leaders, and a real country
But the thrust of trade negotiations
Lansdale was a man well worth listening was created from the post-French rubble.
should be reducing barriers, not erecting to. In the 1930s he’d been an advertising man In 1959, against Ho Chi Minh’s wishes, hard-lin-
them via import taxes or anti-import
in California, where he had demonstrated a ers in North Vietnam decided to make an all-out
regulations. real knack for writing and a firm grasp of the assault on the South, which was what eventually
The rest of the world is moving ahead. psychology involved in the art of persuasion. led to Lansdale’s meeting with McNamara. On the
Japan has concluded a great trade deal In WWII Lansdale ended up in the Office of defense chief’s 9-foot-long, immaculate mahoga-
with the EU. The 11 nations that were Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the CIA, ny desk (it was polished every evening), Lansdale
part of the Pacific trade deal that the U.S. which was run by the legendary William “Wild dumped a bunch of “dirty weapons, caked with
scuttled last year are constructing a new Bill” Donovan. This fish had found his water. After mud and blood,” including “handmade pistols
one, leaving out the U.S. Thirty-five new the war he moved into the newest branch of the and knives, old French rifles, and bamboo punji
bilateral and regional trade pacts are being military, the Air Force, which served as cover for sticks.” Lansdale told the startled secretary,
negotiated, which will mean more trade his overseas activities. (Even late in life, he was “The enemy uses these weapons. Many of them
between the countries involved. Increas- loath to acknowledge he had been in the CIA.) are barefoot or wear sandals. They wear black
ingly, the U.S. is on the outside looking in. Lansdale soon found himself posted in the Philip- pajamas, usually, with tatters or holes in them . . .
Fortunately, the recent tax bill pines, which was facing an increasingly powerful yet, the enemy is licking our [well-armed] side.”
should stimulate more investment from communist uprising called the Huk Rebellion. Lansdale warned that if we didn’t grasp the
businesses here and overseas. But we The Filipino government and military were nature of this new style of war, where ideas and
shouldn’t end up “leaving money on responding in ways that were fueling the insur- ideals were critical, tragedy would result.
the table” by unnecessarily losing better gency, especially by killing numerous civilians But while Lansdale had a unique ability
in the fight against the rebels. Lansdale quickly to work with foreign figures, his hatred of
market access.
Most of all, a trade war à la the 1930s grasped that these kinds of responses to a skillful bureaucracy had made him a pariah in Wash-
guerrilla enemy, one that also employed effective ington. Reflecting these attitudes, McNamara
must be avoided. Back in 1929, freshly propaganda, was a formula for a bloody defeat. ignored his advice. Even though Lansdale re-
minted President Herbert Hoover
Lansdale befriended and then won the total turned to Vietnam, his time there was mostly
thought that putting new tariffs on food confidence of an incorruptible politician—a true an exercise in frustration. He was given no
imports would help beleaguered Ameri-
rarity in that country—Ramon Magsaysay. The real authority, and the U.S. made the same
can farmers, who had been hurt by low two became inseparable, and Magsaysay, who blunders the French had, along with a few
commodity prices because of our abun- with Lansdale’s help became defense minister others of its own. F

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