Controversy's The Ugly America

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The Ugly America, a novel that faced a lot of controversy by attacking and putting in question of the effectiveness of the U.S with their foreign policies. The book heavily parallels the events of when JFK and Nixon where in the white house. The Ugly American is a book that dishes out the cold truth of the cold war. The book takes lace in the fictional; country of Sarkhan but real countries such as Thailand and Vietnam do appear inside the novel. This may be a work of fiction but it draws the lines of good and evil of what went down. Characters inside the book are used to perfection, they are used to show what was right and wrong inside the American Government. The performance of Father Finian, Gilbert MacWhite, Col. Hillandale, Homer…show more content…
These characters may at first succeed in the beginning but in the end some of them do fail the fail. Religion is a path that can put a person on the path of justice or a path that can corrupt and stop them from growing. Father Finian, a Boston proud Jesuit priest, who is a wise and noble scholar, is sent to Burma to use the divine light of God to smite the evils of communism. Once Finian arrives in Burma he is at first very tough minded of the area he is in. At first it is very hard for Finian to grasp the new world he is thrown into which is nothing like Boston. Finian uses his intellect to figure out what he should do using rational thinking, and a bit of Social Darwinism Finian decides in order to survive he needs to adapt to his environment. At first it’s a challenge for Finian, but he learns the language and eats local food to better understand his surroundings. During this…show more content…
ambassador however in the end, even a skilled man like himself gets the short end of the stick. MacWhite replaces Ambassador Louis Sears as the new U.S. ambassador to Sarkhan in 1954. MacWhite is a very courageous and bold man, from the mistakes he makes he learns how to correct them unlike other ambassadors. Just like Finian, MacWhite wants to get rid of communism so MacWhite travels all over Southern Asia. Being the professional he learns the Sarkhanese language history and politics from the many books. MacWhite also observes the French Military in Vietnam and the result of the battle of Dien Bien Phu to learn from the French mistakes and gain new tactics to apply them to his counterstrike on communist. He is determined to fix the corruption inside Southern Asia. MacWhite is opened to the ideas of others and how to apply those ideas to stopping communism. He used the aid of Homer Atkins, The Ugly American and invites him to visit Sarkhan to apply some of those practices. Over time MacWhite becomes the ideal ambassador that the United States needs. MacWhite writes to the U.S State Senate telling them that changes need to be applied in Sarkhan, however another report is brought to the U.S. State Senate contradicting the works of MacWhite saying how bad everything has gone down in Sarkhan. This one has the U.S. Senate dismiss MacWhites original report of Vietnam leading to the dismissal of

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