- William Livingston, Class of 1781, France
- Adlai Stevenson II, Class of 1922, United Nations
- George Kennan, Class of 1925, USSR and Yugoslavia
- Charles Yost, Class of 1928, United Nations, Laos, Syria and Morocco
- Gilbert MacWhite, Class of 1934, Sarkhan
- Robert Goheen, Class of 1940, India
- Donald Rumsfeld, Class of 1954, NATO
- Stapleton Roy, Class of 1956, Singapore, China and Indonesia
- David Huebner, Class of 1982, New Zealand
- Donald Lu, Class of 1988, Albania and Kyrgyzstan
- Trevor Traina, Class of 1990, Austria
If something about the list above looks off-kilter—you’re right. “Sarkhan” may sound like the former name of a Southeast Asian country, but it’s not. Sarkhan is a fiction, as is Gordon MacWhite of the Great Class of 1934. Fictional ambassador or not, MacWhite has a high degree of relevance to the roiling controversies about Yovanovitch, my classmate in the Great Class of 1980. (While I didn’t know Yovanovitch on campus, I have followed her career. She impressed me as a dedicated public servant with the international experience and language skills required to ably represent U.S. interests).
With those details to set the scene, Yovanovitch’s testimony last week exactly coincided with my reading of a novel I picked up at the Katonah Village Library.
The book was a leftover from the library’s annual sale. The title sounded familiar. The paperback’s pulp-fiction cover combined an exotic locale, a woman in a maroon form-fitting dress glancing over her shoulder at a man (clandestine intelligence operatives in love? A hapless patsy of a Commie plot?) seemingly lurking behind a wall. The cover would easily work for a James Bond novel or other saucy spy potboiler.
How wrong I was.
The book was The Ugly American, a 1958 novel about U.S. diplomats in a Southeast Asian country called Sarkhan. It caused an uproar when it appeared, inspiring Senator John F. Kennedy to send copies to all his fellow senators. Authors William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, two Navy veterans from World War II, knew the territory of inept political appointees, wretched internal security, challenges from the highly competent Russian diplomatic corps, skylarking and devious staffs, minimal language skills and an in-country aversion to venturing beyond the embassy to mix with the local population in favor of the diplomatic cocktail party circuit, described to the authors by a Thai observer as “S.I.G.G.”, meaning “Social Incest in the Golden Ghetto.” Surely SIGG would be a trending Twitter hashtag if the book appeared today.
The book intersects with Yovanovitch beyond her postings in hardship countries. It describes its main character in terms highly similar to those I applied to Yovanovitch:
The Honorable Gilbert MacWhite, Ambassador to Sarkhan, was a fit man. At the age of forty-four, he weighed exactly the same he had when he graduated from Princeton with the class of 1934. He had red hair; his body was hard and muscular. When he was in the States or England he played squash at least three times a week, and in other countries he always managed to play tennis. He smoked little, and always fine, thin, handrolled Havana cigars. He held his liquor well. He preferred martinis, and only one or two each evening. But he could, if he had to, drink immense quantities of vodka, sake, or Scotch; and his tongue never thickened and his mind seldom dulled.
MacWhite was, from his first day in the State Department, a professional foreign service officer. He needed no breaking in. He was competent, exact, and highly efficient. He also was courageous and outspoken, and he had imagination. During the McCarthy excitement he kept his head and ran his desk smoothly. By 1952 he had served as Consul General in four large foreign cities, as Deputy Chief of Mission in two cities, and was regarded by his superiors as a comer.
That description is an intriguing case of fiction foreshadowing fact. Gilbert MacBride of the Class of 1934 embodies in a novel the best traits of an ambassador. The Ugly American depicts him as an honorable diplomat, out in the field, taking risks to learn the truth of a situation, and incurring the wrath of Washington for reporting his findings as given in secret testimony. This passage shows the eerily prophetic content that laces the book, written years before the U.S. ramped up its presence in Vietnam:
Senator Corona looked down at his desk, opened a folder. It was clearly marked “Secret-Executive Session,” but his reputation was at stake.
“Ambassador MacWhite said the following,” Senator Corona said in an angry voice. He said that the Vietnamese, both Communist and anti-Communist, hated the French. He stated that the French have had to import North African mercenaries at great expense, to fight for them in Vietnam, and that all the natives resented this. He stated that the French merchants were more interested in their concessions than in developing the country. He stated that the French were miserably trapped by the Communist military leaders . . . they won no victories, and they suffered continuous defeat. He stated that we were supplying military vehicles that could not even be used in the mud of Vietnam. He stated that the French military forces refused to use guerilla tactics [earlier in the book, MacWhite urged the French to study the military writings of Mao Tse-tung, which guided the Communist forces]. He stated that the French hoodwinked the American military and diplomats into thinking everything was rosy . . .”
The roof falls in on MacWhite after Senator Corona discusses his secret testimony, the findings of which are attacked by Senator Brown, who disagreed with the assessment based on impressions gathered after being hoodwinked on a fact-finding junket to Vietnam. The Secretary of State finally sends MacWhite a handwritten letter outlining areas of concern, including his “indiscreet” comments about Vietnam. The letter ends, “I must have some assurance that your future behavior will conform to what we expect of foreign service officers.”
MacWhite responds with an impassioned outline of what must be done to enhance the performance of the foreign service in dangerous times. The response is framed in terms of the Cold War, of course, but it also applies to new times and new threats:
If we cannot get Americans overseas who are trained, self-sacrificing, and dedicated, then we will continue losing in Asia. The Russians will win without firing a shot, and the only choice open to use will be to become the aggressor with thermonuclear weapons.
Foggy Bottom leaves MacWhite to twist in the wind for three weeks, then dismisses him with a curt cable, closing,
Please explore with Sarkhanese Government their attitude toward receiving Mr. Joseph Bing as new ambassador X We consider his extensive press and recruiting experience excellent qualification high position X Signed Secretary
These passages give a small flavor of the work and character of MacWhite, Princeton in the nation’s service, albeit in a fictional world. The book’s closing chapters brilliantly pull together what seemed like disconnected episodes about other Americans—typically mavericks with little patience for nuanced global geostrategic intersectional modalities—who are making a difference in Sarkhan. Not too give anything away 60 years after the book appeared, but one such maverick is Homer Atkins, a plain-talking and dynamic engineer who doesn’t put up with any crap from the striped-pants set ensconced in their Golden Ghettos. He is “the Ugly American”—you’ll need to read the book to find out why. Hint: not because of any boorish behavior, as the term has come to mean.
The Ugly American is one of those rare books that made me pay attention and think. I can see why it hit the public discussions like a bombshell. I’m curious about what Foreign Service professionals themselves think about it and whether it still resonates.
Marie Yovanovitch’s place in Princeton’s role in U.S. foreign affairs and the history of our era is still very much being debated and will be for years; Gilbert MacWhite’s place in the annals of Princeton’s great fictional characters deserves far more visibility. I hope this post gives him a push in that direction.
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