The Deceptive American

In 1965, the authors of The Ugly American published the novel Sarkhan, a book which they felt had an even more dramatic message than their great best-seller. Sarkhan was greeted with high praise, was a selection of both the Literary Guild and the Reader’s Digest Condensed Book Club. Many tens of thousands of copies of Sarkhan were in the bookstores on publication day. Suddenly it seemed to vanish. Mr. Lederer and the late Mr. Burdick were convinced that the book had been suppressed by agencies of the government, and certainly it contains much that might make such agencies unhappy. In a highly dramatic narrative, it tells of blundering by our intelligence community in Southeast Asia, of error and incompetence—as well as heroics by Americans who understood Asia. Today, brought back to life after twelve years in limbo, ironically retitled The Deceptive American, and given a new, explanatory introduction, it is still relevant. The prescience of its message has been proved by events. The drama of its people and the drive of its narrative are undiminished.