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Golden Ghetto. Opposed to the no-goodniks are the do-gooders, who, according to the Lederer-Burdick ideal, live at the native level, stay outside the Americans' "ingrown social life," also known as S.I.G.G. (Social Incest in the Golden Ghetto), never shop at the PX, work with their hands, and do winsome things like playing the harmonica. Among the best of these is "the ugly American" of the title, a big, homely engineering genius full of bright, simple, technical ideas that the overambitious Asians want no part of. Like most of the "good" Americans in the book, he is eventually brought down by stuffy and hidebound U.S. officialdom.
What Lederer-Burdick say they want in the U.S. Foreign Service is "a small force of well-trained professionals" who are willing "to risk their comforts and—in some lands—their health." What the authors really want (and no one can deny that it would be fine, if it were possible) is a bunch of saints with engineering degrees.
New Brooms. For all its blatant oversimplification, The Ugly American (a title that seeks to go beyond and below Graham Greene's The Quiet American) has the great merit of drawing the reader into a vital subject rarely treated by fiction. And this Book of the Month Club selection does illustrate the fact that no nation in history has ever faced the problems the U.S. encounters. Like proconsuls of General Napier's type, U.S. officials are held responsible for the welfare of millions, are expected to attend to their wants and hopes, from plumbing to higher education. But, unlike proconsuls, they have no power to enforce their policies.
And there is, after all, the wife of the "ugly American," a lady readers will enjoy meeting. Looking over the situation in Sarkhan, she decides that the people's backs are bent because they use short brooms. Hustling into action, she discovers a 5-ft. reed instead of a 2-ft. reed to be used for broom handles, a technological revolution for which the villagers reward her with a small shrine bearing the inscription. "In memory of the woman who unbent the backs of our people."
Even General Sir Charles Napier could not be more gloriously remembered.