William J. Lederer (1912–2009)

Yes, a how-to, and how-not-to, manual for winning hearts and minds in the Cold War, but the important point is that it was a brilliant inspiration to present it as a series of fictional vignettes. A genuine manual, or a non-fiction analysis, might have sold a few thousand copies and gathered dust in university libraries; The Ugly American was a multi-million copy bestseller which apparently remains in print. It had significant impact on politicians at the time. A concrete example of its own show more pragmatic philosophy. Cleverly conceived and entertainingly written. No need to be an admirer of American Imperialism to appreciate the authors' strategic approach. show less

A connected collection of vignettes, all centered around the fictional Southeast Asian country of Sarkhan and the Americans stationed there by the US government. I honestly didn't think I'd enjoy this one at all, because war and politics are very much not my reading jam, generally. But these stories are so well told, the characters so well drawn, and the point of the authors so well made that, in fact, I loved it. I never would have picked it up had the book not been on the list of banned show more books I've been working through for ages. It was banned for political reasons, and it's not difficult to see why: Lederer and Burdick wrote the thing to draw attention to the ridiculous attitudes Americans had toward the people in SE Asia, their self-isolation once stationed there (all-US cocktail parties and only shopping at the commissaries and such), and the buffoonery of the official decisions and (in)actions that resulted. Very readable and still relevant. show less

Orson Welles' ornate, twisting noir is a superb exercise in cinematic style. The plot has Michael O'Hara (Wells) being seduced into the ambit of the beautiful Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth), her crippled hot-shot lawyer husband Arthur (Everett Sloane) and his law partner, the scheming George Grisby (Glenn Anders). Grisby plans on staging his own disappearance with the help of Michael, but things go murderously wrong. The script has all the dark meanderings and tortured twists that you would show more expect from a film noir and the leading cast is uniformly first rate. It is Welles' stylish direction and brilliant set pieces (allied to Charles Lawton, Jr.'s magnificent photography) that set this film apart. Each individual scene is expertly composed and choreographed and they lead incrementally to a stunning German Expressionistic-heavy climactic scene in a hall of mirrors. A stunning climax to a first rate noir thriller. show less

Written by the co-author of the novel, The Ugly American, this non-fiction work, first published in 1960, reinforces many of the same ideas offered in its famous predecessor.

In A Nation of Sheep, Lederer, a foreign service and Navy veteran begins by outlining several recent U.S. foreign policy blunders, including years-long wrong-headedness in China, Laos and Korea. Lederer traces our troubles to an inability to do basic things like understand the language of countries we're trying to show more influence or help. The result is that we ended up relying for our information on the very ruling classes we should have been investigating, the people taking and spending our aid money and supposedly ruling their countries in their own peoples' interests. Hence, we received bad, self-serving information, and spent decades backing poor, sometimes criminally so, tyrants like Chiang Kai Shek and Syngman Rhee. This all sounds distressingly familiar, doesn't it?

Lederer also outlines the problems brought on by the growing pervasiveness of government secrecy and an over-arching CYA culture in U.S.diplomatic and government circles; a gullible and disinterested press; and (the source of the book's title), a complacent and apathetic U.S. citizenry.

Brief, clearly written and refreshingly straight-forward, this book serves as a reminder that when it comes to U.S. foreign policy blunders, there's little that's new under the sun. It's been going on in this fashion, according to Lederer, anyway, at least since the days of FDR.

Lederer's warning was that we would end up succumbing to the Communists, who he claimed were much wilier when it came to communicating with the average citizen, in their own languages, in the countries they wished to influence. Well, we survived that threat, but the lessons still seem relevant, nevertheless. show less