Graham Greene's The Quiet American

Hess argues that the threat of the USSR and Communism “left the US no choice but to stand up to the challenge posed by Vietnam”. Direct confrontation was impossible as the USSR was a nuclear power, therefore the only choice available was “a policy of containment”; previous success in Korea gives validity to this view. Hess states Vietnam was the centre of the “Domino Theory”, that a communist Vietnam “would inexorably lead to the collapse of other non-communist states”. All communist states were believed to be puppets of the USSR so an increase in Soviet allies would tip the global power balance against the US.

As a war narrative, Greene's novel introduces the reader to modern warfare, the French use of napalm, the local warlord in the form of General, the guerilla mode of the Viet Minh, predecessors of the Viet Cong. Fowler's witnessing of a dive-bombing of a sampan and a street massacre using bicycle bombs have strong contemporary resonances to "embedded" journalists and the Middle East situation. As a political document, it anticipates developments that have come to dominate global politics, especially the use by the US of the domino theory to justify intervention in Vietnam (as in Cuba and Chile). It reflects the Cold War focus on crushing communism and then the new colonialism of spreading a particular definition and form of democracy. As a character study, the novel develops a detailed portrait and makes a close examination of the psychology of men, competition and ageing. The love triangle brings this into sharper focus, but Fowler's reactions to Pyle reveal a kind of alter-ego relationship. Pyle sees Fowler as cynical but straight, which is not totally accurate in his desperate bid to hold on to Phuong. Pyle seems more self-convinced but also far from innocent. He dies for his cause, believing he protects both a woman and a country, but without the honor he naively prizes. He represents an agent and sets the precedent for state-backed terrorism - making it unsurprising that Noyce's film of The Quiet American was shelved in September

In her book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990, author Marilyn Young examines the series of political and military struggles between the United States and Vietnam, a nation that has been distinctively separated as the South and the North. Young chooses to express the daily, weekly, monthly progresses of the affairs collectively called the Vietnam Wars, focusing on the American interventions in the foreign soil. She seeks to provide an answer to a question that has haunted the world for years: What was the reason behind the United States interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign country in which it had no claims at all? Young discloses the overt as well as covert actions undertaken by the U.S. government officials regarding the foreign affairs with Vietnam and the true nature of the multifaceted objectives of each and every person that’s involved had.

For the sake of conciseness, and in order to focus the bulk of the content on the main topic, this essay will make certain assumptions. Most importantly, the essay assumes that the conflict in Vietnam was, indeed, lost by the US. It also presupposes that � due to the political climate in the US � the war itself was unavoidable. Finally, the essay takes for granted

The book “The Other America”, written by Michael Harrington, describes poverty in America in the 1950s and 1960s, when America became one of the most affluent and advanced nations in the world. The book was written in 1962, and Harrington states that there were about 50,000,000 (about 25% of the total population) poor in America at that time. The author did extensive research with respect to the family income levels to derive the poverty numbers, and used his own observations and experiences to write this book. This book addresses the reasons for poverty, the nature of poverty, the culture of poverty, the blindness of Middle Class America with respect to poverty, and the responsibility of all Americans in addressing the issue of poverty in America.

From “The Other America,” in Major Problems by Michael Harrington is a document that tells of the poverty present in America that is often skillfully and unintentionally concealed and also speaks of Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty and briefly of how poverty rose during the Reagan administration. After Johnson’s declaration of war on poverty, there was significant change regarding the climate of the social, economic, and political in the America of those times. And while Johnson’s countless social programs helped decrease poverty immensely, it also left a huge number drowning in it still. Later Reagan’s administration would cite George Gilder on the fact that welfare did not reduce poverty but increase it to explain why the levels of poverty rose during the first few months of Reagan’s administration. Democrats and liberals would argue against this and say that poverty

The United States was full of prosperity in the 1950s. The standard of living was higher that it had been in years, and many people were living in luxury. Although there were many who were enjoying the lives they lived, there were also many Americans who were trapped living well below the standard of living. Michael Harrington shed light on this situation when he published The Other America in 1962. In his expose’, Harrington exposed how 40 to 50 million American citizens were living in poverty, and that to most Americans these people were invisible. He expressed how the lifestyle of people living in poverty was so different from those who were not that it created a “culture” of poverty. Harrington believed

As the Vietnam War continued, the North Vietnamese reported on the public opinion in the United States. Specifically the American public’s reaction to any massacre of innocent civilians. After careful research they saw the Americans showing sympathy. Vietnamese then began to orchestrate a program to denigrate the U.S. military. They showed this by saying that the killing of the innocents was not accidental but a policy deliberately fostered by the U.S. High Command in Vietnam. General William Westmoreland was one such person singled out by the

Relating to Appy’s claim, as escalation grew after the Tonkin Gulf, America began to wage an unmoral war that was not supported by the Americans and Vietnamese or understood by American soldiers. Agreeing with Appy’s claim, the prime issue of an immoral and unjust war is one that America must realize and understand the full consequences that this has had on the nation if it is to learn any lessons from Vietnam. Originally told that the war was fought to contain communism, bombing campaigns as Operation Rolling Thunder annihilated many villages and the countryside where it was believed that the Viet Cong were stationed. Proven more often than not to be unsuccessful, only to produce the numbers of unidentified Vietnamese bodies and remains that

In his book titled “The Vietnam War: A Concise International History,” Mark Lawrence suggests that the United States’ Cold War foreign policy began to play a main portion in Vietnam. U.S. policy at the time was controlled by the domino theory. Which believed that the collapse of North Vietnam to Communism might cause all of Southeast Asia to descent, setting off a type of Communist chain reaction. The reason is that philosophy played a lashing force in policymaking, shows the notion that Vietnam had more to do with the global context of the cold war than it did the country itself. Losing a country of Vietnam to communist rulers in military totalitarianism was an example of failure to the US. Therefore, it was essential for the US to quickly respond in Vietnam’s

They believe that they are not causing any serious harm because they are different in their cause. That is what American exceptionalism encompasses. Pyle and those like him want to be the ones who save Vietnam: the heroes. They choose to ignore the costs in the hopes that they will benefit the nation in the end. As long as their forces eliminate communism and all traces of it, they will believe that have succeeded, despite the harm they caused along the

it mentioned about the Vietnam War as well as the Indochina War and the involvement of America, British, and French. Alden Pyle, an America CIA that worked under cover, was a symbol of how the American political role took place in Vietnam. Pyle used to be an excellent student at school and he liked to apply what he saw in the books into real life. York Harding was his inspiration. He accepted the theory that he saw in the book of York Harding; he followed and applied the idea to Vietnam and Vietnamese people because he thought that it was true. “York wrote that what the East needed was a Third Force” (17). Pyle wanted to use the Third Force as an ideal form of government to bring democracy to Vietnam. He had trusts in himself that his beliefs

He believed that democracy and “the third force” would change the whole situation in Vietnam better and destroy communism and overall had aggravating views on what the United States was doing for the world as he himself was American. Fowler, unlike Pyle, did not have a clear opinion on things and mostly tried to stay neutral. He thought that the thing about Pyle was that he had taken someone’s thoughts about “the third force” and had put them into practice. Fowler on the other hand chose not to take sides at all because he found himself more of a reporter whose job is to report events and situations. However he eventually formed his opinion based on different situations that he had seen and after seeing the explosion organized by the General

“The failure of the United States against North Vietnam was due to their inefficient use of military machines” (Gibbons, 2014:107). These tactics used by the US soldiers included bombs that the soldiers did not use efficiently, because if they used the military advantage that they had, this would have been a victorious war for the US. However, due to their use of these military machines inefficiently, they were left in humiliation. “The US threw bombs on Vietnam and was equipped with every existing kind of weapon, engaged in the longest and most brutal war” (Buttinger, 1977:169). The US army should not have bombed strategic routes of the Viet Cong because they wanted to get back at them, but they should have attacked with bombs and weapons on the battle once the Viet Cong had started attacking. Their lack when to use their tactics led to their failure. “One of the US’s mistakes which led to their defeat was the bombing of Laos when they launched the defoliant Agent Orange which destroyed homes” (Kaiser, 1973:412). Due to this action, the US lost not only the support of Laos citizens but also the rest of the Vietnamese people, because this was evidence that the only important factor for the US soldiers was to win the war against the Viet Cong and not the lives of the Vietnamese

How long can you sit on the fence and not get involved? How long before you're forced to choose sides? Thomas Fowler learns the answers to this dilemma the hard way.