"The argument that America's presence in Indochina was dangerous had a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called The Quiet American. It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism--and dangerous naiveté. Another character describes Alden this way: 'I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.'
"After America entered the Vietnam War, the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people."
--President Bush, addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars, August 22
When George W. Bush introduced Graham Greene and The Quiet American into his argument about Vietnam and the Iraq war, he must have felt a little like Ivan Pavlov tantalizing his dogs. Sure enough, within minutes of completing his speech at the VFW convention, the salivation began.
Frank James of the Chicago Tribune adopted a passive-aggressive voice to advance the standard progressive theory that Bush is a dangerous marionette:
Even more astonishing is that Bush's speechwriters included in the president's speech a mention of the very fictional character some of the president's critics have used for years to lambaste him for what they consider a major strategic blunder.
To which the redoubtable Joe Klein of Time added this elegant thought:
I love that the President's (or his speechwriter's) book-reading
yielded a reference in the speech to Graham Greene's splendid The Quiet American. . . . I would hope that the President will re-read, or perhaps just read the book, as soon as possible because it is as good a description as there is about the futility of trying to forcibly impose western ways on an ancient culture.
One last example is supplied by the editor of Editor & Publisher, the newspaper trade magazine, who complained that
Bush cited my favorite 20th century novel and its author . . . in his speech on Wednesday that drew several dubious links between the catastrophic Vietnam and Iraq conflicts. Perhaps because it's unlikely he's ever read the book it was difficult to figure out exactly what the president meant.
No, it wasn't. Bush's meaning is clear, and bears repeating.
The Quiet American is set in Saigon after the French have withdrawn and before the Americans have arrived. Its narrator is a cynical, hard-drinking British journalist named Thomas Fowler, and its protagonist is a crew-cut American embassy official named Alden Pyle. Since this is a British novel and its author is Graham Greene, Fowler is a complicated, worldly-wise Englishman while Pyle is an earnest, buffoonish Yank. Pyle, who wants South Vietnam to enjoy the benefits of American-style democracy, does not quite comprehend the local culture, and his bumptious efforts yield more misery than success. Fowler, who represents a marriage between Greene's Catholic fatalism and lost dreams of empire, is at once bemused and repelled by Pyle--and, ultimately, betrays him to the Communists.
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