Our Men in Sarkhan
JAECKEL, HUGO
Our Men in Sarkhan The Ugly American. By William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick. Norton. 275 pp. $3.75. Reviewed by Hugo Jaeckel THE FICTIONAL Kingdom of Sarkhan has been given a set of ailments...
...Constructed along the same prodigal lines is Solomon Asch, who heads a U.S...
...Unpleasant, rather than merely fatuous, is the vein of betrayal that runs through several of the stories...
...Linguistic and other informational deficiencies, nabob-like indulgences and racial snobbery are elements undoubtedly present in our culture, and unavoidably get shipped overseas by the Government...
...The point about this grisly procession is that its members, presumed harmless as long as they remain Stateside, are public menaces abroad...
...In a "factual epilogue" they are at pains to insist that their Americans have real counterparts throughout the area and that, consequently, a drastic overhauling of our overseas recruitment procedures is required...
...And so on...
...But consider them now at closer range...
...Among the latter, the most blatant example is perhaps that of Joe Bing, the last Ambassador to be appointed to Sarkhan...
...It is his credo that "you have to work among foreigners, but we don't expect you to love 'em just because you have to work among them...
...The point is too readily conceded...
...delegation to an all-Asia armament conference...
...But, having devastated this complex, the authors might then themselves have avoided exporting other aspects that, while less egregious, are also harmful to an effective posture abroad...
...Quite properly, to begin with, these tackle the Sarkhanese language the first day off the boat, generally avoid the "nice, respectable, rich people" in the cities, and spend a good deal of their time out in the "boon-docks," among the villagers...
...and George Swift, Charge d'Affaires, whose protocol blunder loses us a chance to commit the Sarkhanese against the Soviet Union...
...Marie MacIntosh, a servant-swaddled Embassy clerk, who makes the happy discovery that a hardship post and gracious living are almost synonymous terms...
...There, among conveniently swelling populations, the small professional groups, including Army officers, are preparing the political future...
...After six months in Sarkhan, this Hopalong Cassidy of the foreign service has "an absolutely flawless plan for getting [the Communists] out of the country...
...Where in the book is an embodiment of these forces...
...With his harmonica, a pleasing manner, and a few droll stories about Americans not being so rich actually as most people think, he enraptures a province despaired of as lost to the Communists...
...In the stories, the Americans who are not directly engaged in combatting the Communists are busy developing Point-Four-type projects for the peasants...
...Unfortunately, this reviewer found himself as much disturbed by the authors' "professionals," a few of whom do turn up in Sarkhan, as by the "horde," who, besides, seem drawn from the protest literature of the '20s, whatever the basis in fact...
...For the record...
...How are these to be used...
...the question is asked by the Asians...
...To be included in this company are: "Lucky Lou" Sears, the first Ambassador to Sarkhan, under whose fumbling aegis the Russians assume credit for a shipment of American wheat...
...It is not the villages that transmit the waves of neutralism and nationalism now galvanizing that continent...
...What we need is a small force of well-trained, hard-working and dedicated professionals...
...At age 42, he has served as Deputy Chief of Mission in two cities, and as Consul General in four, having, during a previous career, at an age not disclosed, amassed a fortune in business...
...At least, that is the burden of the otherwise unconnected stories in The Ugly American, whose two authors—one a Navy captain, the other a political scientist—have made quite a specialty of Southeast Asia, where Sarkhan is situated...
...Aside from this disposition to mythologize the conduct of foreign affairs, there is one other factor about The Ugly American that requires comment...
...With the exception of an enfeebled Prime Minister and several other government officials, the Sarkhanese, it would appear, are all out in the boondocks with the professional Americans...
...The reference here is to the compound of hero-worship, wishful thinking and moral simplism that has gone into the making of the "good" Americans...
...That is your problem, not ours," answers Asch...
...More fortunate is Colonel Edwin F. Hillandale, who is known throughout the area as the "Ragtime Kid...
...One is left uncaring whether the Communists gobble up Sarkhan or not, just as long as someone gets to Bing...
...This, to repeat, is unfortunate, for broad as they are the targets chosen are valid ones and the anger expanded in hitting them seems sincere...
...The Ugly American is a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post...
...The "ugly American" of the title (he is homely, really) is an engineer who perfects a simple irrigation pump out of bicycle parts...
...It relates to an omission of emphasis that is surprising in view of the authors' experience in Asia...
...and a well-organized Communist party...
...A life-long union negotiator — unaccountably, without experience in either diplomacy or armaments—his skill at the round-table is such that the Indian Government is almost won over to accept an offer of U.S...
...Then, like distracted children, the Indian and other delegates become so annoyed with a security-sensitive member of the U.S...
...We do not need," the theme is stated, "the horde of 1,500,000 Americans—mostly amateurs— who are now working overseas...
...These, for the most part, are such obnoxious bunglers that Soviet penetration of the country is likely to be facilitated rather than impeded by their presence...
...But, in addition, Sarkhan suffers from one complaint not so commonly identified : the Americans who are stationed there...
...Reviewed by Hugo Jaeckel THE FICTIONAL Kingdom of Sarkhan has been given a set of ailments by now classic for most of the underdeveloped countries in the world— a large, impoverished peasantry...
...One catches an occasional glimpse of what may be a member of the middle-class, but nowhere a literate dialogue between Sarkhanese and American on politics or any other intellectual topic...
...Gilbert MacWhite, the one able Ambassador to Sarkhan, is as blatant in his way as Bing...
...a weak, excitable government...
...representatives in Asia have their main job cut out for them in the cities and towns...
...staff that the H-bombs are finally rejected...
...On election day, the vote is 95 per cent in favor of the pro-American candidate...
...While this Main Street derivative is regarded as an outgoing, lovahle type among his colleagues in Washington, he is not likely to cast a glow among the Sarkhanese...
...Unquestionably, this form of aid is important, and some very genuine passages are devoted to it, but U.S...
...thermonuclear weapons...
...Two of MacWhite's servants turn out to be Communist spies...
...He is "a recognized expert on Soviet theory," including the Titoist and Maoist versions, has a decided flair for military tactics and is a good enough linguist to learn Sarkhanese in 15 weeks...
...We are never told what the plan is, but in any event it would be of no present use to the State Department, as the Soviet Union already knows about it...
...Bing's international-relations expertise consists mainly of such oddments as "the price of alligator shoes in Brazil, the cost of Scotch in Japan, and the availability of servants in Viet Nam...
...This new leadership is generally non-Communist, often the opposite of "nice, respectable and rich," and nearly always vocal, opinionated and politics-centered...
Vol. 42 • January 1959 • No. 1
