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<span class="gmail-hed-heading" href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/01/are-americans-as-ugly-as-ever/">
    <h1 class="gmail-hed">Are Americans as ‘Ugly’ as Ever?</h1>
</span>
<h2 class="gmail-dek-heading">"The Ugly American" remains relevant, 60 years after it changed the way the United States saw itself in the world.</h2>
<div class="gmail-meta-data">
    <address class="gmail-author-list">
    <span class="gmail-pre">By</span>
    <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/author/daniel-runde/" rel="author" class="gmail-author">
    Daniel Runde</a></address>
    <span class="gmail-separator">|</span>
    <time datetime="2018-02-01" title="February 1st, 2018" class="gmail-date-time">
February 1, 2018, 11:51 AM</time>
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        <img alt="Four Grotesque Male Heads. (Wenzel Hollar/Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University)" style="width: auto;" class="gmail-image gmail--fit gmail--loaded" src="https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/hollar_wenzel_four_grotesque_male_heads_etching_2002-32-1389.jpg?w=1500&h=1000&crop=0,0,0,0">
        
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            Four Grotesque Male Heads. (Wenzel Hollar/Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University)            <span class="gmail-attribution"></span>
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                                                                <p>The commonly used phrase “ugly American” has come to depict 
an overseas American who is too loud, too ostentatious, or too arrogant 
(or all three). The popular expression emerged from the title of a <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/The-Ugly-American/">novel</a>
 published 60 years ago. It caused a sensation, the way that few books 
have in U.S. history. The novel is a series of linked vignettes about 
Americans working overseas in the fictional Southeast Asian country of 
Sarkhan, at the center of American and Soviet competition in the late 
1950s. In the text, the titular ugly American is actually a kind, 
practical, wealthy engineer who is humble, speaks the local language, 
and works with people in their villages solving local problems — the 
exact opposite of what the term has come to mean.</p>
<p>The book, by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, was a national best 
seller and sold more than 4 million copies. Then Senator John F. Kennedy
 sent copies of the book to all of his colleagues. At the time, it 
seemed as though almost all of America’s educated set had read the 
novel. Today, few people under the age of 60 actually have, yet its 
message still resonates.</p>
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</div><p><span class="gmail-pull-quote gmail-has-quote"><em>The Ugly American</em> is easily the<em> Silent Spring </em>of U.S. diplomatic and foreign assistance policy.</span></p><blockquote class="gmail-pullquote-left"><em>The Ugly American</em> is easily the<em> Silent Spring </em>of U.S. diplomatic and foreign assistance policy.</blockquote>
 It was also an indictment of American counterinsurgency tactics and 
U.S. public diplomacy efforts. At the time of its publication, several 
significant American political figures, including Republican Vice 
President Richard Nixon and Democratic Senator William Fulbright, <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/ugly-american">denounced</a> it.<p></p>
<p>The novel, however, is credited with spurring a massive 
reorganization of America’s economic and diplomatic engagement with 
developing countries then emerging from European colonialism. Kennedy 
set about taking a series of sweeping steps in 1961: He set up the <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Alliance-for-Progress.aspx">Alliance for Progress</a> in Latin America, added to U.S. Army special forces (the <a href="https://www.military.com/military-fitness/army-special-operations/army-green-beret-training">Green Berets</a>), proposed the reorganization of foreign assistance through the 1961 <a href="https://legcounsel.house.gov/Comps/Foreign%20Assistance%20Act%20Of%201961.pdf">Foreign Assistance Act</a>, and created the <a href="https://www.peacecorps.gov">Peace Corps</a>.</p>
<p>The thinly veiled, fictional accounts of Americans in Asia remain 
disturbing. Foreign Service officers lacking proper language skills, an 
ambassador focused on making the rounds at cocktail parties instead of 
talking to potential leaders outside the capital city, a military 
attaché being seduced by a Chinese communist spy thus undermining U.S. 
negotiating capabilities at a critical moment, and U.S. foreign aid 
redistributed by the Soviets are a small part of the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYkmsgrUpVMC&lpg=PA81&ots=3tZRtCPI5A&dq=Besides%20its%20better%20to%20make%20the%20Asians%20learn%20English.%20Helps%20them%2C%20too&pg=PA81#v=onepage&q&f=false">indictment</a> of the late 1950s U.S. foreign policy.</p>
<p>“What about learning to speak a foreign language?” a small wiry girl 
asked…. “Now, just a minute” Joe said … “How many people do you think we
 could round up in this country who can speak Cambodian or Japanese or 
even German? Well, not very many. I don’t <em>parlez vous</em> very well
 myself, but I’ve always made out pretty well in foreign countries. And 
besides, it’s better to make the Asians learn English. Helps them, too.”</p>
<p><em>The Ugly American</em> also describes the minority of successful 
role models that the authors find: an American Catholic priest who 
organizes an anticommunist paramilitary force, the eponymous ugly 
American volunteer engineer, an air force officer, an army officer, and a
 creative ambassador.</p>
<p>For example, Colonel Hillandale, of the Air Force, modelled after the
 real-life Colonel Edward Lansdale, speaks Tagaglog in the Philippines, 
eats the local food, and learns the local culture.  He ventures into 
unfriendly territory and wins over the locals with his language skills, 
his appreciation of everything Filipino, and his ability to play 
Filipino music. Max Boot’s new <a href="https://www.cfr.org/project/road-not-taken-edward-lansdale-and-american-tragedy-vietnam">book</a>, <em>The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam</em>, <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/16/edward-lansdale-and-americas-vietnam-demons-vietnam-war-max-boot/">chronicles</a> the real Lansdale’s life and impact.</p>
<p>The predominate bumbling and insensitive Americans, however, undermine the successful role models throughout the novel.</p>
<p>Reviews and critiques of the book after 1989 look upon its strong 
anti-communist message as naive and outdated. Certainly, there are parts
 of the book that give one the same feeling as watching the original 
1984 version of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_I4WgBfETc">film</a> <em>Red Dawn</em> — set in an alternative timeline in which the Soviets have invaded the United States.</p><div class="gmail-fp-trending-wrapper gmail-trending-articles--no-video">
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<p>The novel moved the American public because it spoke to America’s 
deepest fears about overseas threats. The authors wrote the book because
 they believed that the stakes were high. It was a best seller because 
the American people believed that communism was a threat and that they 
actually were engaged in a struggle to not only win the hearts and minds
 of people abroad, but also that if the United States did not succeed in
 its objectives around the world, it would end up fighting at home.</p>
<p>In truth, the book prompted many constructive changes. In the 
epilogue, the authors call for a “small force of well-trained, 
well-chosen, hard-working, and dedicated professionals…. They must be 
more expert in [a country’s] problems than are the natives.”  The Peace 
Corps, and certainly the <a href="http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pcaab142.pdfhttp:/pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pcaab142.pdf">U.S. Agency for International Development</a>, reflected this approach.</p>
<p>Imagine an updated <em>Ugly American,</em> which one could set in 
a fragile state like Afghanistan, or amid the growing economic 
competition in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. The novel painted a picture
 that spurred improvements<em>. </em>But there still remain gaps between what the United States is doing and what it could do to shape the outside world.</p>
<p>Today, although the United States has <a href="https://cis.org/One-Five-US-Residents-Speaks-Foreign-Language-Home-Record-618-million">more</a> foreign language speakers than it once did, it still lags behind in some <a href="http://www.clscholarship.org">critical languages</a>.
 International development has come a long way since the 1950s, but in 
fragile and conflict-affected areas, the U.S. government could do a 
better job of working collectively across development, diplomacy, and 
defense. While the United States was able to weather communism, it has 
had less success against geopolitical competitors that reap the benefits
 of the post-World War II liberal, rules-based order without full 
willingness to participate in it (China and Russia, for example).</p>
<p>Although the world has changed radically over the past 70 years, the 
United States still needs to remain involved, train specialized 
professionals for global engagement, and  adapt to shifting 
circumstances.</p></div>

<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies                     <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone:  (215) 898-7475<br>Fax:  (215) 573-2138                                      <br><br>Email:  <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a>    <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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