Napoleon D. Valeriano

[William Kelly]

Napoleon Valeriano - Filipino associate of Lansdale, who became part of Lansdale's team in Laos and Cuban operations, and trained Bay of Pigs Brigade in Guatemala.

http://www.namebase.org/main3/Napoleon-D-Valeriano.html

VALERIANO NAPOLEON D

Philippines 1946-1954 Vietnam 1954-1956 Guatemala 1959 Cuba 1961-1962

• Bonner,R. Waltzing With a Dictator. 1987 (35)
  
• Caldwell,M. Ten Years Military Terror in Indonesia. 1975 (215)
  
• Colby,G. Dennett,C. Thy Will Be Done. 1995 (312)
  
• CounterSpy 1978-12 (31-2)
  
• CounterSpy 1980-W (4)
  
• Escalante,F. The Secret War. 1995 (48-9, 64)
  
• Kruger,H. The Great Heroin Coup. 1980 (144)
  
• Lobster Magazine (Britain) 1998-#35 (5-6)
  
• Mader,J. Who's Who in CIA. 1968
  
• McClintock,M. Instruments of Statecraft. 1992 (114-24, 272-4)
  
• Prouty,L.F. JFK. 1992 (33, 68)
  
• Rodriguez,F. Weisman,J. Shadow Warrior. 1989 (54)
  
• Seagrave,S. The Marcos Dynasty. 1988 (130-1, 147)
  
• Seagrave,S.& P. Gold Warriors. 2003 (102, 192)
  
• Smith,J.B. Portrait of a Cold Warrior. 1981 (94-5, 335)
  

Seagrave, Sterling. The Marcos Dynasty. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. 485 pages.

Edward Lansdale had just installed Ramon Magsaysay as Philippine defense minister and planned to run him for president, but first he had to deal with the peasants. "In an area thought to be harboring a team of Huk guerrillas, Lansdale's ambushers snatched a peasant one night, punctured his neck with two holes, vampire-fashion, hung the body by the ankles to drain it of blood, then put the corpse back on the trail. When the peasants found the toothmarked bloodless corpse, the entire Huk unit moved away. The novelty of these games amused Lansdale, who slyly passed them on as combat anecdotes, enchanting his CIA superiors.... Lansdale's experiments were given top priority." (page 145) With friends like these, the Philippine elite had little need to maintain democratic appearances. Fake war hero Ferdinand Marcos was elected in 1965, declared marshall law in 1972, and then defrauded his countrymen and partied his way into the hearts of U.S. celebrities for the next 14 years. Also included are several chapters on "Yamaxxxxa's Gold" -- the apparent source of much of Marcos' wealth. There's still $100 billion or so that hasn't been recovered, which attracted treasure-hunters such as the John Birch Society and, as recently as 1986, John Singlaub, who wanted the gold to fund his anti-communist campaigns.

ISBN 0-06-015815-8

From Joseph Smith's Portrait of a Cold Warrior (Putnam, 1976, p. 94)

A large psychological warfare unit was developed and trained...History and traditions in all of the Huk areas were studied for clues to the appropriate appeals to make to wean the populace from supporting the Huks. Paul Linebarger made a number of trips to the Philippines to advise Lansdale on operations.

It was in connection with Linebarger's involvement in Philippine operations that I had one of my few direct contacts with the events that transpired there. In the fall of 1952, I was given the assignment of picking up one of the Lansdale team, Napoleon Valeriano, at the Philippine Embassy and taking him to Linebarger's house for a training session. Valeriano was not only one of the key members of the team, but he was one whom Lansdale counted on in future operations. When valeriano was in Vietnam helping Lansdale in the early days of the Diem regime, he carreied off to Saigon the wife of a wealthy Filipino businessman. The injured husband immediately put out a contract on Valeriano, and he was never able to set foot in Manila again. It would have meant instant death. Subsequently, Valeriano worked in the Pentagon, trained the Cuban brigade preparing for the Bay of Pigs invasion, and was involved in post-Bay of Pigs activities with which Lansdale was concerned.

Valeriano and I arrived at Linebarger's at five o'clock one afternoon and stayed four hours. Paul concentrated on his con-man line concerning how to use a subject's own hopes and longingsto achieve results desired in a psychological operation.....

...Supporting this basic program were propaganda efforts - films, special radio programs, and so forth. George Aurell, the new division chief, never felt comfortable about any of this. He used to come over to our Plans offic and unburden himself to Kay. "What in hell is an intelligence agency doing running a rural resetlement program?" he used to ask. "I'm glad to help fight the Huks, but is it our job to rebuild a nation?" Ed Lansdale and his team in the Philippines, and later elsewhere, were convinced it was. Des Fitzgerald had no trouble tolerating this sort of diversity....

Edited December 10, 2008 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

From Joe Smith's Portrait of a Cold Warrior (p. 94)

....."You'll never get the Huks to surrender because the Philippine government wants them to," Paul (Linebarger) stressed. "They'll give up only if they think they're going to get something they want which is even more important to them than the satisfaction they get from defying authority by fighting in the hills...."

(p335)...First of all, Howard Hunt would have liked to have used in a key role a Batista follower who was a friend of J.C. King and especially of former ambassador to Cuba William D. Pauley....Gerry (Droller) of course, was following the line laid down by Tracy Barnes - the official position of taking care not to remove Castro in order to bring back the Batista gang, which was the reason the task force had to be established under Tracy Barne's control and not left to J.C. King....

...After August 1960, the operational planning of the Cuban task force changed course. Since Hunt and Droller couldn't form a political organization sufficiently coherent to confront Castro, the emphasis shifted to a larger-scale military action. Napoleon Valeriano, Ed Lansdale's man, who had been training the Cuban exile guerrilla fighters, was dismissed and $13 million to train a full-fledged fighting brigade was approved. John Kennedy didn't know it, but there was no chance that the operation, which had originally been approved in March, 1960, could be undertaken before the November elections....

(p.342) ...J.C. King and his crew of former FBI men were more disturbed by Goodwin and Schlesinger than by General Taylor's investigating committee. They believed they had a chance with Maxwell Taylor - he and King had gone to West Point together - while they thought there was no hope with Goodwin and Schlesinger.....

SO PHILLIPINE NAPOLEON VALERIANO WAS GIVEN PERSONAL PSYCH-WAR LESSONS FROM LANSDALE'S PRIMARY MENTOR IN THE BLACK ARTS, PAUL LINEBARGER, AND THEN BROUGHT TO NICARAGUA TO TRAIN THE CUBANS AS GUERRILLAS - BK

[Michael Clark]

On 5/5/2009 at 0:54 PM, William Kelly said:

From Joe Smith's Portrait of a Cold Warrior (p. 94)

....."You'll never get the Huks to surrender because the Philippine government wants them to," Paul (Linebarger) stressed. "They'll give up only if they think they're going to get something they want which is even more important to them than the satisfaction they get from defying authority by fighting in the hills...."

(p335)...First of all, Howard Hunt would have liked to have used in a key role a Batista follower who was a friend of J.C. King and especially of former ambassador to Cuba William D. Pauley....Gerry (Droller) of course, was following the line laid down by Tracy Barnes - the official position of taking care not to remove Castro in order to bring back the Batista gang, which was the reason the task force had to be established under Tracy Barne's control and not left to J.C. King....

...After August 1960, the operational planning of the Cuban task force changed course. Since Hunt and Droller couldn't form a political organization sufficiently coherent to confront Castro, the emphasis shifted to a larger-scale military action. Napoleon Valeriano, Ed Lansdale's man, who had been training the Cuban exile guerrilla fighters, was dismissed and $13 million to train a full-fledged fighting brigade was approved. John Kennedy didn't know it, but there was no chance that the operation, which had originally been approved in March, 1960, could be undertaken before the November elections....

(p.342) ...J.C. King and his crew of former FBI men were more disturbed by Goodwin and Schlesinger than by General Taylor's investigating committee. They believed they had a chance with Maxwell Taylor - he and King had gone to West Point together - while they thought there was no hope with Goodwin and Schlesinger.....

SO PHILLIPINE NAPOLEON VALERIANO WAS GIVEN PERSONAL PSYCH-WAR LESSONS FROM LANSDALE'S PRIMARY MENTOR IN THE BLACK ARTS, PAUL LINEBARGER, AND THEN BROUGHT TO NICARAGUA TO TRAIN THE CUBANS AS GUERRILLAS - BK

Landsdale, Hawaii conference, .... any chance of getting Bill Kelly back?

[Bill Simpich]

I do think Bill was and is on the right track here.  Here is the Philippine "Colonel Vallejo" identified as a trainer by one of the most intriguing of the Cuban exiles, Victor Espinosa/AMHINT-24.  

[David Boylan]

Bill was indeed onto something. Some quotes about Valeriano:

https://notesfromalonghotsummer.com/friends-and-enemies-the-philippines-and-cuba-during-the-cold-war/

When the United States began formulating a strategy to subvert the Castro regime, the CIA turned to two of their most successful black ops operatives at that time – Lansdale and Valeriano. These personalities would later play major roles in the controversial Phoenix Program in Vietnam.

Col. Valeriano started helping train Cuban exile infiltration groups in Louisiana who were bound for the Escambray Mountains in Cuba. On the other hand, Lansdale led Operation Mongoose, whose aim was to assassinate Fidel Castro by all means necessary.