The Ugly American is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer that depicts the failures of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Southeast Asia.
The book caused a sensation in diplomatic circles and had major political implications. The Peace Corps was established during the Kennedy administration partly as a result of the book. The bestseller has remained continuously in print and is one of the most influential American political novels.
Background
Authors
William Lederer was an American author and captain in the U.S. Navy who served as special assistant to the commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific and Asian theater.
Eugene Burdick was an American political scientist, novelist, and non-fiction writer, and served in the Navy during World War II. The two met in the build-up to the Vietnam War. according to the domino theory invoked by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It was in this atmosphere of fear, mistrust, and uncertainty in the United States about Soviet military and technological might and Communist political success in unaligned nations of the Third World that the novel was published in 1958, with an immediate impact.
Lyman Kirkpatrick, Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency thought it wise to alert the Director of Central Intelligence to send a memo when the book was published and serialized by the Saturday Evening Post. The Foreign Service Journal, a monthly publication of the American Foreign Service Association, commented in the Editorial Page that "no thoughtful reader will be able to dismiss 'The Ugly American' lightly because, with all its errors and distortions, it still states candidly a problem which has long been debated within the Foreign Service itself."
Content
The book depicts the failures of the U.S. diplomatic corps, whose insensitivity to local language, culture, and customs and refusal to integrate were in marked contrast to the polished abilities of Eastern Bloc (primarily Soviet) diplomacy and led to Communist diplomatic success overseas.
Literary structure
Title
The title of the novel is a play on Graham Greene's 1955 novel The Quiet American and was sometimes confused with it. stemming from innate arrogance and their failure to understand the local culture. The book implies that the Communists were successful because they practiced tactics similar to those of protagonist Homer Atkins.
The American Ambassador "Lucky" Lou Sears confines himself to his comfortable diplomatic compound in the capital. The Soviet ambassador speaks the local language and understands the local culture. He informs his Moscow superiors that Sears "keeps his people tied up with meetings, social events, and greeting and briefing the scores of senators, congressmen, generals, admirals, under secretaries of state and defense, and so on, who come pouring through here to 'look for themselves.'" Sears undermines the creative efforts to head off the communist insurgency.
Characters in real life
According to an article published in Newsweek in May 1959, the "real" "Ugly American" was identified as an International Cooperation Administration technician named Otto Hunerwadel, who, with his wife Helen, served in Burma from 1949 until his death in 1952. They lived in the villages, where they taught farming techniques, and helped to start home canning industries.
Another of the book's characters, Colonel Hillandale, appears to have been modeled on the real-life U.S. Air Force Major General Edward Lansdale, who was an expert in counter-guerrilla operations.
Popularity
The book was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post in the Fall of 1958, and came out as a Book of the Month Club selection in October. The book caused a sensation in diplomatic circles. John F. Kennedy was so impressed with the book that he sent a copy to each of his colleagues in the United States Senate. The book was one of the biggest bestsellers in the U.S., has been in print continuously since it appeared, and is one of the most politically influential novels in all of American literature.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson made reference to the term Ugly American in his Great Society speech to a 1964 university graduating class, and it was by then used as a pejorative expression for generally offensive behavior by Americans abroad.
Peace Corps
Senator Hubert Humphrey first introduced a bill in Congress in 1957 for the formation of a Peace Corps aimed primarily at development in the Third World, but "it did not meet with much enthusiasm" and the effort failed. The Ugly American was published the following year. Senator Kennedy first mentioned the idea of creating a Peace Corps during his campaign for president in 1960 and in March 1961, two months after his inauguration, Kennedy announced the establishment of the Peace Corps. Kennedy and other members of the administration viewed the Peace Corps as their answer to the problems described in The Ugly American.
Criticism
Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen alluded to the book or quoted from it, either as commentary or to further their objectives, or to criticize it. Senator J. William Fulbright, powerful chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the book from the Senate floor, declaring that it contained "phony" claims of incompetence, and that it was a follow-up to McCarthy era treason charges.
Related works
Lederer and Burdick later published a 1965 novel called Sarkhan, about the Communist threat and Washington politics in Southeast Asia. After thousands of copies which had been available in bookstores seemed to disappear from the shelves, the authors became convinced that government agencies were behind an attempt to suppress the book. After a decade of unavailability, it was republished in 1977 under the title The Deceptive American.
1963 film
The film version of the novel was made in 1963 and starred Marlon Brando as Ambassador Harrison Carter MacWhite. The Ugly American received mixed reviews and did poorly at the box office.
See also
- Ugly American (pejorative)