SOUTH VIET NAM: The Disquieted Americans

The Holy See was at Tanyin. A pope and female cardinals. Prophecy by planchette. Saint Victor Hugo. Christ and Buddha looking down from the roof of the cathedral on a Walt Disney fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in Technicolor.

Thus tersely, in his bestselling The Quiet American, Novelist Graham Greene described Cao Daism, a gaudy gallimaufry of Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity whose followers number at least one million and play a significant part in the confused politics of South Viet Nam.

Hollywood Magic. Like Greene's naive hero himself, few Americans are...

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