The Ugly American (28 page)

Why our representatives abroad have not learned the languages they need or studied basic sources of information such as Mao's writings is a question which involves the entire American nation. Whatever the reasons, our overseas services attract far too few of our brightest and best qualified college graduates. The system of recruiting overseas employees we have portrayed in the stories "The Girl Who Got Recruited" and "Employment Opportunities Abroad," and Ambassador Sears's report on the kind of staff he thought he needed, represent the sort of recruiting that actually goes on.

The most recent recruiting pamphlet issued by the State Department (
Career Opportunities,
December 1956 Edition) describes salaries, living conditions, perquisites, and benefits. It shows young people boarding a sleek airplane, headed for their first assignment It shows Americans shopping in the bazaar in Isfahan, Iran, But it does not have a
single
word which indicates the work will be demanding, not a
single
word to indicate that we are locked in a quiet struggle around the world and that recruits will be a part of that struggle. It is a pamphlet designed to attract mediocrities. We believe it is successful.

In extensive interviews with superior graduating seniors, the authors have discovered that the brightest seniors reject foreign service because it is "too dull, too bureaucratic." Many of these students would be attracted to overseas duty if the standards were higher, if contact with natives were possible, if the "good living" were not stressed so much and the challenge stressed more. The lack of challenge appeals to the George Swifts, the Bridge Uptons, and Joe Bings we have known overseas.

When we do get good men—and of course we get many, but not enough—we have a tendency to misuse them. The fictional Gilbert MacWhite of our book has his counterparts. He is an able, dedicated, intelligent man who puts tremendous energy into his work. In the end, in our story, he is forced to resign, as much by his own sense of failure as by pressure from above. Statistics from our recent diplomatic history to document this sort of thing do not exist, but the resignation of George Kennan is in point In "Senator, Sir," we have made the charge that our diplomats overseas spend a great deal of time entertaining highly placed Americans instead of working at their primary jobs.

We have seen embassies in Asia which are so active in the entertainment of VIP's that they resemble tourist agencies. The time spent on arrangements, briefings, cocktail parties, protocol visits, and the care and maintenance of wives leaves almost no time for the study of the local situation. Mr. Nixon took notice of this in his statements after his recent trip through Southeast Asia.

In the story of Tom Knox, our fictional chicken expert who was first balked by official disbelief, then softened by sweet words and a rich life until even he forgot what he had been so enthusiastic about, we tried to point out the fact that we spend billions on the wrong aid projects while overlooking the almost costless and far more helpful ones.

Most American technicians abroad are involved in the planning and execution of "big" projects: dams, highways, irrigation systems. The result is that we often develop huge technical complexes which some day may pay dividends but which at this moment in Asian development are neither needed nor wanted except by a few local politicians who see such projects as a means to power and wealth. Technicians who want to work on smaller and more manageable projects are not encouraged. The authors of this book gathered statements from native economists of what projects were "most urgently needed" in various Asian countries. These included improvement of chicken and pig breeding, small pumps which did not need expensive replacement parts, knowledge on commercial fishing, canning of food, improvement of seeds, small village-size papermaking plants (illiteracy in many countries is perpetrated by the fact that no one can afford paper), sanitary use of night-soil, and the development of small industries. These are the projects which would not only make friends, while costing little, but are also prerequisite to industrialization and economic independence for Asia. They must be realized before Communism can lose its appeal. We pay for huge highways through jungles in Asian lands where there is no transport except bicycle and foot. We finance dams where the greatest immediate need is a portable pump. We provide many millions of dollars' worth of military equipment which wins no wars and raises no standard of living. This is what we meant by the story of the ugly engineer, Homer Atkins. He again is a fiction, but the authors knew just such a man working among the back-country people.

American efforts are not always misguided, of course. The Russian, and particularly the local Communist, reaction to our various programs is an interesting guide to the worth of our efforts. The story of Louis Krupitzyn, the Russian Ambassador to Sarkhan, includes a fictional account of an American shipment of rice to a starving Asian nation. In our story the Communists show their appreciation of the effectiveness of this decision by stencilling on the bags, "This rice is a gift from Russia." This, too, is a story based on fact.

Not long ago, while one of the authors was in Pakistan, our economic mission delivered a shipment of American tractors. Within a few days it was commonly accepted throughout the countryside that the tractors had been given to Pakistan by Russia. After considerable argument with a prominent Pakistani newspaper editor, the author persuaded him to inspect the tractors. They turned out to be American, of course; but on every flat surface of each tractor local Communists had stencilled a red hammer and sickle.

The picture as we saw it, then, is of an Asia where we stand relatively mute, locked in the cities, misunderstanding the temper and the needs of the Asians. We saw America spending vast sums where Russia spends far less and achieves far more. The result has been called "an uneasy balance," but actually it is nothing of the sort. We have been losing—not only in Asia, but everywhere.

Without pitting one Soviet soldier against one American soldier, the Soviet has won a staggering series of victories. In the few years since the end of World War II, Russia has added 700,000,000 people to the multitude already under direct rule. Its land empire has been swollen by about 5,000,000 square miles. In Asia alone, Communist arms have won wars in China, Indochina, and Tibet, and gained prestige and a restless stalemate in Korea. In Italy, Egypt, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, to name but a few, Communist parties have become strong contenders for power. In a recent poll taken in India, Chou En-Lai, the Chinese Communist leader, was a three-to-one favorite over President Eisenhower. In the Middle East our prestige has rapidly diminished while that of Russia has increased In South America our Vice President has been spat upon and assaulted in a shameful demonstration of antagonism toward our country.

Even among the nations which have seemed committed to us there is a rising tide of anti-Americanism. We have been attacked by the press in the Philippines, Japan, and the Republic of China, as well as in those less firmly committed lands whose friendship we seek by spending large sums in foreign aid—Laos, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. The fictional John Colvin's brutal treatment at the hands of his former friend, Deong, can stand for what has happened to America in Asia. The Communists got to Deong; the Americans did not.

We do not need the horde of 1,500,000 Americans—mostly amateurs—who are now working for the United States overseas. What we need is a small force of well-trained, well-chosen, hardworking, and dedicated professionals. They must be willing to risk their comforts and—in some lands— their health. They must go equipped to apply a positive policy promulgated by a clear-thinking government. They must speak the language of the land of their assignment, and they must be more expert in its problems than are the natives.

If the only price we are willing to pay is the dollar price, then we might as well pull out before we're thrown out. If we are not prepared to pay the human price, we had better retreat to our shores, build Fortress America, learn to live without international trade and communications, and accept the mediocrity, the low standard of living, and the loom of world Communism which would accompany such a move.

Actually, the state in which we find ourselves is far from hopeless. We have the material, and above all the human resources, to change our methods and to win. It is not the fault of the government or its leaders or any political party that we have acted as we have. It is the temper of the whole nation. If knowledge of the problem becomes widespread, and if the enthusiasm of the people can be aroused, then we can succeed. As Cordell Hull once said, "The Government of the United States is never far ahead of the American public; nor is it very far behind."

We have been offering the Asian nations the wrong kind of help. We have so lost sight of our own past that we are trying to sell guns and money alone, instead of remembering that it was the quest for the dignity of freedom that was responsible for our own way of life.

All over Asia we have found that the basic American ethic is revered and honored and imitated when possible. We must, while helping Asia toward self-sufficiency, show by example that America is still the America of freedom and hope and knowledge and law. If we succeed, we cannot lose the struggle.