As time marches on most movies and books are relegated to the dustbin of history. Some survive the grand cull as they tell a very good story, have original insight, are just a damn good trip down memory lane and of course, the best of the best become classics. Still others have a sting that bites deep as there is a message as true then as it is now-and then some. The movie, The Ugly American, starring Marlon Brando is now fifty plus years old and is probably more pertinent today than when it was made. The presence of the ugly American is now more pervasive and nastier than ever, and now as then, there is a steadfast unwillingness to address the issue of a corrupted and malevolent US foreign policy.
The late great Marlon Brando shows his range as an actor in a capable portrayal of the idealistic Harrison MacWhite, the newly appointed US ambassador to the fictional Southeast Asia country of Sarkhan. His appointment marks his return to a region where during WWII, some fifteen years earlier, he fought behind enemy lines to help defeat the Japanese. During that time he befriended, Deon, a Sarkhanese who has emerged as a populist leader wanting to free his country from a US backed puppet regime and establish a democracy. Deon does not want to see his country become another Cold War casualty dominated by either the US or Soviet Russia. As MacWhite looks forward to a reunion with his wartime buddy the two men in their new roles are destined to become adversaries.
The movie is based on the book co-authored by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. Where the book is a documentation of a seriously flawed American foreign policy based on actual incidents and fictionalized by the authors the movie is a dramatization of one such incident where MacWhite’s misjudgement leads to the death of his friend and the take over of the Sarkhanese government by communist forces.
The authors outline how the US foreign service was ill-prepared to meet the global communist threat of that day. US ambassadors to Asian countries were most often political appointments, rather than professional diplomats, who did not have the training, languages skills or knowledge of their host countries to be effective. In contrast Soviet Russian diplomats were fluent in the language of the host country and thoroughly knowledgeable of the host country’s history and customs before assuming their posts. The book documents the utter futility of a foreign service reliant on interpreters.
In their “Factual Epilogue” the authors quote James Reston from the March 18th,1958 New York Times, “fifty per cent of the entire Foreign Service officer corps do not have a speaking knowledge of any foreign language. Seventy per cent of the new men coming into the service are in the same state.” They also point that in only one instance was the ambassador’s language skills matched to his posting, that being the US ambassador to Moscow.
Tragically, it is as true today as it was then. In the aftermath of 9/11 the US found itself desperately short of diplomats and scholars fluent in Arab languages. Operating in Iraq and Afghanistan they are again dependant on local interpreters who can easily corrupt messaging and information, and who in turn have paid with their lives for being seen as collaborating with the occupying forces.
Lederer and Burdick also outline how the French lost the first Indo-China war, culminating with the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, largely because they were not knowledgeable in Asian war strategies, most notably the political writings of Mao Tse-tung. Years later the US retreated from Viet Nam, losing the second Indo–China war, for much the same reason after committing a half-million troops, and absorbing over 50,000 casualties. Just as today US and NATO forces are fighting a losing battle in countries like Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan because they refuse to accept that indigenous guerrilla fighters, in spite of their vastly inferior weaponry, have a huge advantage over occupying armies, and once again Western forces refuse to acknowledge that tanks, aerial bombardment, killing fields and conventional Western military strategies will not win these wars.
One of the searing issues in the movie is the branding of ideologies. Before going to his post in Sarkhan, MacWhite had to go through a Senate confirmation hearing. He is interrogated by a senator who suggests that his special relationship with Deon might compromise him as an effective ambassador. MacWhite effectively refutes this allegation. He also denies the allegation that Deon is a communist. But when he arrives in Sarkhan he and Deon go drinking together and MacWhite draws the conclusion that Deon is a communist and the friendship ends in a violent argument.
During the argument Deon (Japanese actor Eiji Okada) makes the claim, “Your democracy is a fraud. It is for white people only.” Based on American military aggression over the past fifty years Deon’s claim becomes prophetic.
Deon is then encouraged by the communists to takeover the government with a populist uprising and they promise not interfere. They do however betray Deon. He is assassinated, and the government falls to the communists.
MacWhite belatedly realizes he has misjudged the situation entirely. Deon was simply a Sarkhan nationalist who wanted to establish a true and neutral democracy. MacWhite becomes the ugly American who drove Deon into the hands of the communists and to his death.
Now branding has become standard practice. Any group or individual that challenges US foreign policy is expediently branded terrorist, islamo-fascist, anti-American or any other convenient slur. Branding and vilification have become standard practice as the first step in dealing with designated enemies-most often more manufactured than real.
The plea by Lederer and Burdick for a more credible and humane foreign policy in the context of today marks their era as one of utter innocence. Even though the book and movie caused a stir in official Washington and their message was read and seen by millions it all came to nothing. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War America emerged as the world’s singular super power opportunists seized this opening for an even more rapacious and corrupted foreign policy.
One of the most astounding and thoroughly ignored stories concerning the 2003 invasion of Iraq comes from the New York Times on line edition a few weeks before the invasion. It tells how Saddam Hussein, when he saw that the US attack was imminent sent out emissaries to petition for peace. One such emissary was a Lebanese business man who met with the infamous Richard Perle. He advised Perle that Hussein did not want to see the further destruction of his country and was willing to offer complete capitulation. Perle’s reply was, “Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad.”
The only reference this writer has ever seen to this story is in New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s book, Bushworld. War was entirely avoidable yet it went ahead anyway!
Dowd with her acerbic wit suggests the following reasons this petition for peace was turned down:
Mr. Rumsfeld thought the war could showcase his transformation of the military to be leaner and more agile. Paul Wolfowitz thought the war could showcase his transformation of Iraq into a democracy. Mr. Cheney thought the war could showcase his transformation of America into a dominatrix superpower. Karl Rove thought the war could showcase his transformation of W. into a conquering hero. And Mr. Bush thought the war would showcase his transformation from family black sheep into historic white hat.
Dowd’s reasons while satiric also have the stark ring of truth. Given the offer of a walk-over why did the Bush administration insist on going to war? As long as this question remains unanswered these facetious reasons prevail, as they do so, they become a stunning condemnation of US foreign policy.
Now there is speculation as to whether the US is going to mount a nuclear attack on Iran before Bush finishes his term.
Iran has been thoroughly vilified, the politics of denial are epidemic and three presidential candidates of opposing parties appear amenable to just such an attack. The stage is set.
In their Factual Epilogue Lederer and Burdick point out one of the truisms of history, “a nation can lose its power and integrity in minute particles”-or; in huge chunks as the US is doing now; to where foreign policy degenerates into the abyss of serial warfare, torture, a fraudulent war of terror and flouting hard won legal and democratic principles.
In the final moments of the movie Brando’s MacWhite is giving a televised news conference where he is grilled by anxious reporters. MacWhite points out to reporters that, “The only time we are hated is when we stop trying to be what we started out to be 200 years ago.” In other words, anti-Americanism occurs when Americans themselves deny other peoples the same right to self-determination that they themselves fought for and won. MacWhite’s “misjudgment,” by his own admission, was that he realized only too late that Deon wanted for his people just what the founding fathers of America wanted for their people.
MacWhite does not blame America, he blames, “the indifference that some of us show to its promises.” Then, the “us” MacWhite refers to includes himself, but today it is the political elites who have allowed US foreign policy to be reduced to a pitiful state and a crisis that can no longer be ignored.
As MacWhite makes his comments the camera pans back to America, back to a typical American living room, a television with his image speaking and an anonymous American standing to the side consulting his TV Guide. As MacWhite is about to issue his concluding appeal to his fellow Americans the figure moves across the room and turns off the television. His message is turned off, the film ends. Fifty years later it remains turned off and the crisis deepens.
Robert Billyard © 2008
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