rearing its ugly head (12. 223)

The 1958 political novel by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, considered an iconic Cold War text, portrays the failures and frustrations the authors had with the US south-east Asian diplomatic corps and America’s trailing position geopolitically and depicts the shortcomings of the consular missions as aloof and out of touch with the countries where they were stationed. The Soviet Union was making significant strides technologically and militarily and were securing allies by liberating nations still in thrall to former colonial powers, fearing more and more would turn to Communism and the decline of Western influence. Serialised and a best-seller, the work informed JFK’s statecraft and influenced foreign policy in terms of pursuing soft-power in the form of aid and outreach, directly contributing to the creation of the Peace Corps and USAID. The title, soon becoming a pejorative but accurate term to describe the generally offensive and obnoxious behaviour demonstrated abroad, is a play on the Graham Greene book The Quiet American, published three years prior and set in Vietnam, questioning the US involvment in the region. The shuttering of such programmes recreates the political milieu of the early 1960s that prompted their creation in the first place.