The Ugly American and the Foreign Area Officer

by Rob Propst

The ability to speak the language an understanding of local customs and a deep-rooted grasp of a country's or region's history the ability to put historical religious, political, and military events into analysis and understanding of current events the strategic skills to apply these strategic scout capabilities to good use as a thoughtful advisor to senior leaders -- these several skills are easily recognizable to the modern Foreign Area Officer (FAO) as those requisite to be successful in one's chosen field of professional military endeavor.

Even the newest FAO in the field understands that these are the minimum tools needed to be a "value-added" to those senior military and civilian leaders the FAO will inform throughout one's career. But outside the FAO community--at both senior ranks and at the most junior FAO ranks-- the understanding of the absolute requirement for possession of these attributes in order to advise and to advance the success of the military mission was not always recognized. The growth, development, and acceptance of the Services' foreign area specialists were not always guaranteed. Hard-won experience--with the failure to understand the regional context in which our military and civilian government operates--led, often painfully, to the recognition of the need to develop a skill set, which all modern FAOs must master.

Long before the official creation of the Foreign Area Officer, the military had many examples of officers possessing the several skills listed at the beginning of this article. One of the bright stars among these early "FAOs" was Air Force Lieutenant General Edward Lansdale. Lansdale, an OSS veteran and an early clandestine operator for the CIA, had been a trusted military advisor for Ramon Magsaysay in the Philippines during the counterinsurgency war against the Huks in the 50s. As an old Asia hand, he was sent to Vietnam by the Eisenhower administration, as the French presence ended there with the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. His knowledge of the country, combined with the trust placed in him by future Vietnam President Diem and his experience in unconventional warfare, ensured that Lansdale had a seat at the small table of advisors for John F. Kennedy (whose interest in Indochina began as early as 1953). By 1960, Lansdale began a fact-finding mission to the region at the request of the young Kennedy administration. Back home, Lansdale presented a briefing of that visit to the National Security Council on April 27, 1961. Lansdale's reputation, understanding of the country and its culture, and the legend surrounding his earlier exploits in the region, led to President Kennedy's suggestion that he be the ambassador to Vietnam. Although that never led to fruition, certainly Lansdale represents many of the best attributes required of the FAO; without a doubt his placement and access as an area advisor are of what most FAOs only dream.

Lansdale's 1972 book, In the Midst of Wars, provides an excellent example of how FAOs can present their hard-won knowledge to leaders, as do many of his mid-fifties OSD studies, covering both regional studies and unconventional warfare. Lansdale, as a character, was so influential that he became a central figure in novels. He was treated less than flatteringly in Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Conversely, he was presented to the world more positively, as Colonel Hillandale, in William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick's The Ugly American. It is this last selection, The Ugly American, that the author of this article recommends all new FOAs read, as part of their early professional preparation, regardless of the region to which they are assigned.

The Ugly American is a short casebook on how to do it right and how to do it wrong as a representative of our government. Lederer was the U.S. Navy FAO-equivalent when he gained the insights represented in the book. He served as the Special Assistant to Admiral Felix Stump, commander of Pacific forces; he was widely traveled and experienced in Asian affairs, and influential in his role as a strategic scout and advisor for DoD and our government. Burdick, a political scientist, has written studies of political power theory, with a specialization in Asian affairs. The combination of their talents and insights in politics, coupled with their understanding of the requirement for regional and local familiarity when one represents the United States abroad, led to this informal "how-to" handbook, which is the strength of The Ugly American.

The authors' use of the term "ugly American" has several meanings. One of the best examples in the book on doing it right is the "get your hands dirty" American engineer, Homer Atkins; Atkins, by chance, happens to be quite literally physically ugly. His strength is in his ability to both understand and reach out to locals and to assist in solving their problems, while representing the U.S. in an exemplary manner. The locals with whom he works don't notice the ugly nose and ugly hands; they see Atkins as a God-send, the antithesis of the ugly American.

The true "ugly American" is of an entirely different sort than Atkins. These are the Americans who only shop for food at the Embassy commissary, refusing to eat local food. These are the Americans who refuse to learn the local language, while insisting that the natives of the country in which they are guests be able to speak English. These are the Americans who remain in the capitol city, never once venturing out to see the country, learning its customs, understanding its people, or gaining even the simplest of insights useful to decision-makers. In the book, these characteristics are represented by Ambassador Louis Sears, a political appointee who always knows what's best for the country he visits, despite a complete lack of understanding of the country or its people. There is the Defense Attaché Major Ernest Kravath, who lacks the courage to tell his ambassador the needed truth. Joe Bing, the ugly American press attaché, gets the story by always talking at the top levels, never checking the story with the facts on the ground. Bing compounds his negative status as a State Department recruiter, promising a "first class" life and telling the potential recruits, "You'll have to work among foreigners, but we don't expect you to love 'em " and "You can buy the same food in Asia that you can buy in Peoria When you live overseas it's still on the high American standard." Bing, despite these shortcomings, is eventually awarded an ambassadorship, replacing an ambassador with the courage and foresight to do it right (MacWhite).

The book is full of examples of good people doing it the preferred FAO way. You'll meet Tom Knox, who began as many FAOs begin with a dream, " certain words meant enchantment to him They suggested strange countries, mysterious reaches of green water, smells that he had never smelled, and people he had never yet seen. Later on, when he learned what the words meant, he wanted to see the places and things for which the words stood." You'll see the good Ambassador MacWhite, who makes it his personal business to learn the language, to eat the food, to learn the history, to study the culture, to get out and meet real people outside of the diplomatic context. You'll learn, as MacWhite does, that "everyone has ears", some of them may be employed in your house and office, and not all of them are on your side. The reader cringes when the exemplary MacWhite is replaced by the hack, Bing. You'll meet Jesuit priest, Father John X. Finian, who creates the conditions for defeating communism by listening to the people and letting them decide for themselves what is best for their future, and then guiding them to move in a positive direction. You'll be introduced to Emma Atkins, the quintessential FAO wife, who works with local peasants and even introduces them to the long-handled broom; she best represents the value a spouse can bring to working relationships overseas, with language and other training provided by DoD. You'll travel with good Senator Jonathan Brown, who realizes too late that in his two-week fact-finding mission, he has " talked to only two natives, and to only three officers below the rank of general " and who " for a moment [correctly] distrusts all his impressions of the visit." And you'll learn the names of many others, both ugly and not.

But one will return always to COL Edwin Barnum Hillandale, based on the real General Lansdale. You'll see him interacting with locals, eating their food in their houses and restaurants. You'll see him in the smallest of towns, breaking out his American harmonica and playing traditional native folk songs of the country he's visiting. You'll see him struggle to gain a proper understanding of the political and military context, in order to best complete his strategic scout duties and to advise American leaders. One of the good guys, the showboating "Barnum" Hillandale, shames the "ugly Americans" by comparison. While fictional, and occasionally over-the- top, Hillandale exemplifies what is best in the regional specialist FAO field. Like Once An Eagle's Sam Damon, one could pick a worse fictional example to emulate.

Neither time nor its focus on Southeast Asia dates The Ugly American. As Ambassador MacWhite's final letter to the Secretary of State says, " The little things we do must be moral acts and they must be done in the real interest of the peoples whose friendship we need [Those] who have sacrificed and labored here are not romantic or sentimental. They are tough and they are hard. But they agree with me that to the extent that our foreign policy is humane and reasonable, it will be successful. To the extent that it is imperialistic and grandiose, it will fail." MacWhite continues with suggestions that represent the best aspects of the FAOs who continue to serve our country abroad--"I request that every American (and his dependents) be able to read and speak [the language]... I request that all Americans serving in [country] be required to read books [to expand their understanding of the region and its political drivers] I request that we make all these conditions clear to any perspective [USG/military] employee. It has been my experience that superior people are attracted only by challenge."

In The Ugly American's factual epilogue, Lederer and Burdick sum up ably. "Americans who cannot speak the language can have no more than an academic understanding of a country's customs, beliefs, religion, and humor. Restricted to communication with only that special, small, and usually well-to-do segment of the native population fluent in English, they receive a limited and often misleading picture of the nation about them." They continue, "What we need is a small force of well-trained, well-chosen, hard-working, and dedicated professionals. They must be willing to risk their comforts and in some lands their health. [We would add a willingness to risk life on occasion.] 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." This defines the foreign area officer corps of our armed Services. Its lessons are as vital and as relevant today to both new and experienced FAO strategic scouts as they were when written over thirty years ago in the 1958 publication of The Ugly American.

Rod Propst is a retired Army FAO with extensive Latin America experience, including a tour as a Defense Attaché in Mexico. He is the Manager of the Technical Assessments Division at Analytic Services (ANSER), Inc. in Arlington, Virginia--leading ANSER's support to Special Operations Forces and Personnel Recovery and S.E.R.E.

2001, Foreign Area Officer Association
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