Insight into how influential JUSMAG is to US-PH defense relations. In the words of the US Army's own history
http://www.history.army.mil/books/coldwar/huk/ch5.htmMAGSAYSAY'S RELATIONSHIP WITH EDWARD G. LANSDALE
A prominent factor in the successful anti-guerrilla campaign was the close, personal relationship that developed between Edward Lansdale and Ramon Magsaysay. This relationship provided an effective conduit through which American advice affected Philippine actions during this period. To overlook Lansdale's role would be to neglect a significant chapter of this story.
The relationship began in 1950 when they first met at a Washington reception for the visiting Secretary of National Defense. Magsaysay came to the United States to encourage U.S. support for his government's growing fight against the Huks.
Lansdale, who served as an intelligence officer for the OSS and the Military Intelligence Service in the Philippines during the war and who had but recently been promoted to lieutenant colonel, was then teaching intelligence and counter-guerrilla operations at the Air Force Strategic Intelligence School at Lowry Air Force Base. Lansdale received a call from an old friend, Philippine Colonel Montemayor, telling him that he should meet the new Philippine secretary. "I'm with quite a man," Montemayor told Lansdale, "and you've got to get to know him."36 At the Ft. Myer reception, Lansdale caught both Magsaysay's ear and imagination. Later that year, as the JUSMAG began to play a more prominent role in the anti-Huk effort, Magsaysay asked President Quirino to request Lansdale's assignment to the JUSMAG.
Shortly after his arrival in the Philippines with his assistant, U.S. Army Maj. Charles T.R. Bohannan, Lansdale was invited to dinner by Magsaysay at his home near Manila. Concerned with visible guerrilla activity in the neighborhood and the lack of security for the Secretary, Lansdale invited him to share his room in the house he lived in within the JUSMAG compound in Manila. Magsaysay accepted the offer, sent his wife and children back to his wife's family on Bataan, and moved in with the U.S. advisor. Thus began the intimate relationship that existed between the two military men until Magsaysay's untimely death in 1957.
Although assigned to the JUSMAG as a G-2 advisor, Lansdale was given exceptional freedom of action and quickly became Magsaysay's de facto personal advisor. Often the two talked long into the night about conditions that fostered the insurrection and about the real need for governmental and social reforms as a prelude to a permanent solution to the Huk problem. Early each morning the Secretary would rouse Lansdale from his bed and together they made daily inspection tours around the nation. To maintain this close personal contact, Lansdale obtained special permission from the Chief of JUSMAG, General Hobbs, to make these forays into contested areas to see firsthand the condition of the Philippine armed forces. Other than Lansdale and Bohannan, JUSMAG advisors were prohibited from taking the field with their counterparts. It was during these visits, and during frequent informal coffee-chats, that Lansdale was able to discuss the real causes for the insurrection with Magsaysay, his assistants, and other concerned government officials. Shortly thereafter, Magsaysay took steps to revitalize the military, improve pay and morale, eliminate corrupt officers, and foster his campaign to win the people back to the central government.
As part of the rejuvenation campaign, Lansdale, with Magsaysay's active support, helped establish intelligence schools and a Philippine Military Intelligence Corps. As graduates from these schools joined forces in the field, battalion combat team commanders became convinced of the importance of intelligence to their operations, the battle began to shift to the government. During the next few years, programs initiated by Magsaysay gradually took the revolution away from the Huks. The people saw clear evidence of military professionalism, competence, and honesty (quite a dramatic change) and through the military's behavior, began to realize that Magsaysay was working for their benefit. The soldiers became heros to the people, "White Hats," and received more and more of their active support.
Late in 1953, Lansdale was ordered back to Washington to prepare for an assignment with the O'Daniel mission to Vietnam. After completing his first French lesson, Lansdale was called at home by President Magsaysay and asked to return to the Philippines. Lansdale told his old friend that he was unable to come back but, after the Philippine President made another call to President Eisenhower, Lansdale found himself in Manila early in 1954. This time, he was only able to remain until May, when he was ordered to continue on to Vietnam "to do there what you did in the Philippines."
