I recently finished reading the book titled “The Ugly American.”
Although published in 1958 during the height of the cold war, and colored with the now-discredited ‘international communist conspiracy’ paranoia, the book does give an interesting insight into the workings of the US diplomatic corps overseas.
The book describes the bumbling, arrogance, cynicism, opportunistic careerism, and incompetence of US embassy diplomats, their American staff, and various ‘experts’ in Southeast Asia. The story starts in a fictitious country named Sarkhan, but also includes the real nearby nations of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
In the book, all these countries are backward and striving for development, and all face the ‘communist menace.’
The US ambassadors and other Americans there are pampered, privileged, untrained people who don’t bother associating with the regular natives or learning their language. These Americans stay within their comfortable embassy compounds, get whatever they need cheap at the US-built commissary and PX, and hob-nob with other American staff and French dignitaries at dinners and cocktail parties.
The book also tells the stories of Americans who really do want to make a difference for the better by starting small, spending little, and making the native peoples self-sufficient in producing what the need. They frown on the big multi-million-dollar projects that aren't practical and which don’t do anything to address the basic necessities of the peasants in the country who can barely eke out a subsistence living.
The book is fictional, but it’s based on real-life experiences of the authors, who served in diplomatic positions overseas.
There are some sobering chapters on how the US diplomatic corps operates, and why it failed more often than it succeeded.
One story deals with a man who spent time in the countryside talking with Cambodian peasants. He saw that they could really benefit from getting a stock of chickens from the US which would improve their native ones, and get more eggs out of them. This would increase the peoples protein intake, making them more productive.
He came up with a plan to just that, but when he presented it to the US ambassador and the Cambodian government, they shot it down in favor of ‘big’ (read expensive and profitable) projects like a multi-lane highway (in a country with very little vehicular traffic) and military aid.
When the man said he’d go back to Washington to complain, he was hustled by a French officer who took him on a tour of Asian countries, France, and back to New York, all expenses paid. The man was wined, dined, given expensive gifts all the way home.
After he arrived back in the US, he didn’t think writing a letter of complaint was worth it anymore. It’s not hard to see what happened here.
Another story involves a US Navy Captain, a weapons expert, who was to attend a very important conference where military aid and weapons would be discussed. At the same time he also met a Chinese lady who studied in the states, as well as in a school on the ‘outskirts of Moscow.’ He ended up having an affair with the lady, which distracted him so much that he made a fool of himself at the conference, and insulted all the Asian attendees with his lack of attention. The conference was a failure.
There are other stories where good ideas and good advice given by people who genuinely cared was ignored or even reprimanded in favor of the ‘big picture,’ namely politics, propaganda, and various officials career prospects in Washington.
There are things that this book teaches, but also things that it omits. Part of the reason is that it came out in the late 1950s, a decade before the worst excesses and failures of the Vietnam war.
The book’s positive attributes are:
1. It admits that US diplomatic corps personnel are driven by self-interest, propaganda, and career prospects
2. US diplomatic staff are ignorant of the country they serve in. They don’t know the local language, customs, traditions, and don’t spend any time with the native populations. They only associate with the wealthy and influential English-speaking elites
3. Aid efforts are concentrated on big projects that benefit the pockets of US-based companies which reap great profits from supplying equipment and materials, and serve pro-US propaganda purposes
4. Very little, if any projects are undertaken to genuinely help the native people by teaching them to become self-sufficient by starting and running their own industries
5. The admission that the Russians were better at engaging the populations of the countries where they had a diplomatic presence. The Russian ambassador knew the language and customs of the country he served in, and so did his staff, which was all Russian. The Russians also sent their workers to live among the people and teach them basic techniques for farming and automation so they could be self-sufficient
6. It admitted that the writings and tactics of major communist revolutionaries like Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were valuable information that should be studied by western diplomats, not ignored
The book’s negative attributes are:
1. It tends to label those who resist westerners as ‘communists.’ It never considers those ‘communists’ as people who are simply fighting to be free of foreign control and colonization
2. It never makes the connection between hatred of the west and embrace of communism, which is quite simple: the people in Southeast Asia were colonized, oppressed, and exploited by westerners, not Russians Therefore, in the minds of the people everything associated with the west, especially the capitalist system, was seen as bad. These people then saw that Russia and communism also were against the western system. Russians also offered real help on the ground where the Americans wouldn’t go. This made Russia and communism look good. This is why countries like Laos and Vietnam gravitated toward socialism. The enemy of their enemy was their friend.
3. It never asked why the US seems compelled to occupy, and order a country half a world away to do things their way. It’s very involvement in a country’s internal affairs is testimony to America’s disregard for real freedom of those countries
This book politely admits that the Russian and communist ways of operating were more effective because the Russians associated with the common people.
When we add the experience of the Vietnam war to the mix, it only reinforces the above fact with another very important one: It was the westerners, first the French then the Americans, who bombed, killed, and devastated while saying they’re there to ‘help.’ The Russians didn’t fire a single bullet in Vietnam. This is the chief reason why the US lost in Vietnam. Its actions contradicted its words and propaganda, while the Russians supported the Vietnamese from a distance, both economically and militarily.
The Vietnamese weren't fighting so much for communism as they were against colonialism. The US failed to learn from the mistakes of the french before them, and ended up being much worse than the French.
This book also presents another important, but unfortunate reality about Americans.
There are intelligent Americans that genuinely care about others, and truly want to help. The problem was, and is, that these types of Americans are a scant, unnoticed—and ignored--minority.
The majority of Americans are ignorant, self-centered fools who don’t give a shit about the world, and those their government exploits and hurts.
This sad tradition continues to this day, and in fact has gotten worse.
The US seems to have this notion that just because some country out there likes them, that that country is automatically willing to be exploited and abused by the US.
This kind of disgusting attitude isn’t winning the US any friends, and frankly has been responsible for more countries dissociating themselves from it.
The diplomatic shortcomings and lack of respect and professionalism of US diplomats described in this book haven’t changed. If anything, they've gotten more brazen.
The fallout and failures from such behavior are also sure to become more frequent.
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