Author Sterling Seagrave reads sections from his book “Red Sky in the Morning”
Gives a glimpse into the raw wild, machiavellian world of Manilla after WWII
Documents from Ed Lansdale’s G2 Manilla file led to the book (3 foot tall stack of papers)
Philip Mehan, adventures in the Philippines, Pete Peterson, escaped imprisonment
“Cheez”, arrested, liberated, and vanished, an anti-Communist White Russian, Chirskoff
It was Lansdale who really started the Cold War, murder as many Huks as they could find
Demonizing Vietnamese dirt farmers, Laos and Cambodia, then Central America, death squads
“The Manila File” – three feet high, declassified portion, Bohannon, secret agendas, private armies
Billions in funds, rich tycoons, crooked banks, dirty tricks, total control of the media
Philip Mehan, missed combat, part of Operation Magic Carpet, USS Admiral C.F. Hughes
Filipinos have mixed feelings regarding the U.S., big U.S. corporations, President Manuel Quezon
Elpidio Quirino, Americans welcomed as liberators, scams, bribery and kickbacks
Phil was assigned to a freighter and there met Pete Peterson, Java China Trading Company jobs
Reconditioning and selling U.S. surplus ships, Lansdale, warning of the Red Beast of Communism
Huks retreated, guerrilla warfare, Lansdale, mailed-fist policy, a campaign of terror
Killed men, women and children, hundreds of villages were mortared, Bohannon, Napoleon Valeriano
Lansdale, was shown 12 vaults of solid gold ingots, Dulles, Bissell, Braden, Meyer, Wisner, Fitzgerald
Counting ears, Vadim Chirskoff, the Manila Hotel, Mina, time to get out of the Philippines
Lansdale had the three spied on as Communists agents
Ed Lansdale – “If we can’t find one (a Russian agent), we’ll invent one”
Logging hardwoods, needing to flee, Bilibid Prison, escape by Harley-Davidson, Clark Air Base
“Cheez” arrested, for inciting Huks, on October 26, 1951 he was released, then he simply vanished
Perhaps he was dropped into the ocean from a helicopter, Lansdale’s favorite means of disposal
Red Sky in the Morning available here

#1302 – Sterling Seagrave