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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>
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<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>
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<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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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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