The Ugly American (19 page)
Authors: Eugene Burdick,William J. Lederer
The first week of the conferences it had been relaxing for Boning to tour the city with Doctor Tsung. They had visited the Tiger Balm factory, where Boning was intrigued with the ways medicinal herbs and drugs were used by Asians. Later she took him to a street which was lined with shops which sold nothing but dried foods: shark fins, birds' nests, mushrooms that looked a thousand years old, and were as solid and hard as rocks. One shop sold the dried intestines of various sea animals, including the complete reproductive organs of a porpoise. Another shop specialized in spices: bags of saffron, and bottles of soy sauce made by so exclusive and expensive a formula that ounce for ounce the sauce was literally worth more than silver.
On another afternoon she took him to a long, low building where Ming Dynasty replicas were reproduced so expertly that no one had yet been able to disprove their authenticity.
Boning had the impression that Doctor Tsung also enjoyed their outings as a relaxation from her routine scholarly work at the University. He also had the feeling that if she dressed in feminine clothes and put on makeup, she would be an attractive woman. He did not give much thought to this, but it remained in the back of his mind.
At the end of the Friday meeting of the first week Captain Boning took Doctor Tsung to dinner at the Parisian Grill. He intended to spend that evening and Saturday and Sunday reviewing his notes, which had been locked up in the safe of the American Consul. But as he said goodbye to Doctor Tsung on the steps of the hotel, he unaccountably and suddenly became acutely aware that she was an extremely small woman; and this was extraordinarily pleasing.
At the same moment he thought of his wife, Laura. Laura was the only daughter of a wealthy Baltimore family, and her personal fortune had been a great help to Boning in his career, although he prided himself on the fact that he had won every promotion on his own merit. Laura was a tall, stately woman, and Boning had always thought that she looked aristocratic. But standing beside Doctor Tsung, he suddenly wondered whether or not one of the reasons he married Laura might not have been because he himself was short, and she was tall.
"Doctor Tsung, let me drive you to your home in a taxicab," Boning said suddenly. Doctor Tsung looked at him in surprise. On the previous days he had always put her in a cab, paid the driver, and let her go her way alone.
"Why, I would be delighted, Captain," Doctor Tsung said, "but I wouldn't want to interfere with your work."
"I won't take long," Boning said. "I'll just run you out and keep the taxi and come right back. I do have work to do, but I have the whole weekend clear."
The taxi was kept waiting outside of Doctor Tsung's modest cottage above Victoria for eight hours. When he left in the early morning hours, Boning had come to know her small body well. Not since he had left Annapolis had he felt so physically sure of himself. In the days that followed Ruby Tsung became an obsession with Boning, and he spent most of every night with her.
On the Thursday afternoon of the third week of the conference, everyone sensed that it was reaching a climax. There had been long-drawn-out exchanges of information on manpower, possible naval bases, and the use of atomic weapons by all branches of the armed forces—and endless haggling about the possible control of weapons. During all of this discussion Asch remained relatively quiet. He answered questions when they were asked, but on the whole he let the logic of the situation develop from the statements made by the Asians. Then, on that Thursday afternoon, he gave his first lengthy analysis. At the end of his presentation his voice rose lightly in pitch and became firm.
"I have been frank with you, gentlemen, and I have appreciated your frankness with us," Asch said. "I have told you of the power of our weapons, and you have discussed how they might have usefulness for you. That is your problem, not ours; but I hope that I can take back to our political and military leaders some word on your willingness to have atomic bombs stored in your respective countries."
"There is only one question on which I am still somewhat uncommitted," a tough-faced colonel of the Indian Army said. "The problem of the safety of thermonuclear bombs in time of war. We will have to have a training period; and I am afraid that, given the enormous power of these weapons, we might have an accident that would explode one of them on a training maneuver."
Asch looked quickly from the Indian colonel to Boning. Boning was sitting upright, but his eyes were barely open. Asch was not sure whether he had followed the question or not, but he knew that, if he could assure the Indian colonel on this, he'd be prepared to make a deal. If India made a deal, so would the other countries.
"Sir, that is a good question." He spoke firmly and slowly so that Boning would have the question in mind. "I will ask Captain Boning, to give you a frank answer to the question of how safe thermonuclear weapons are in time of peace." Boning's eyes snapped open and Asch cursed to himself. The damn fool had missed the entire question. Asch, bargaining for time, decided to put it another way. He looked directly at Boning as he spoke.
"India is a crowded country; so is the United States," Asch said. "We are as worried about the safety of our civilian population as you are of yours. I am certain that Captain Boning can reassure you on this matter."
Boning licked his lips, and cleared his throat. When he spoke his voice was hesitant.
"Well, gentlemen, this is a complicated problem," Boning said tentatively.
"All problems are complicated," a Burmese admiral said in a soft voice heard by Asch and perhaps half of the men in the room. The ripple of laughter added to Boning's confusion. Asch knew that Boning was reaching for an answer, but couldn't give him a moment more.
"In general, one can say that the energy level required to trigger a thermonuclear weapon is so great that normal fires or catastrophes or even the crash of a plane would not achieve it," Boning finally answered.
"Are thermonuclear bombs normally carried in such a way that all the component parts are in a position to be fired instantly?" one of the Indian generals asked.
Boning's face puckered in concentration, and a tiny dew of sweat appeared on his forehead.
The representatives began to stir restlessly at the table. Goddamn the man, Asch said to himself, this is the time when he should have snapped out the answer. They think the son of a bitch is trying to be evasive.
"A simple question, Captain Boning," Asch said crisply. "Give us the simplest answer."
"I think, sir, that substantial parts of that matter are classified and I cannot reveal them," Boning said, but his voice lacked conviction. He looked miserably at Asch.
"This is the way these conferences always end up," said a fat Indian colonel, and his voice was angry. "Just as we are about to tie things up we discover that we are not to have full access to important information. If the Western powers expect us to collaborate on life and death questions, they must treat us as equals. It is clear that Captain Boning's government does not think we are competent to evaluate these issues."
"Gentlemen, I would like to propose that we take a brief recess while Captain Boning and I have a talk," Asch said quietly. He knew the only way to save the conference was to reassure them on the safety of the bomb.
A half-hour later, after reading a sheaf of classified documents, Asch and Boning decided that in fact the answer to the question was declassified, and could be safely given. But when they returned to the meeting, the mood had changed. Obviously there had been excited talk between the Asian representatives. Now, in that maddening way so characteristic of conferences, they were utterly opposed to installation of atomic weapons in their territory.
Asch knew when he was licked. He moved that the meeting be adjourned, and returned to his office. That afternoon, in a long cable which was typically candid and direct, he wired Washington of the failure of his mission. He took full responsibility for the failure.
You can't win every one, Asch thought bitterly to himself when he had finished the report. But this was awfully close. And the margin was so damned slight.
Two days later Asch was on his way back to Washington. And Captain Boning, after buying a bolt of pure silk and a pair of solid silver earrings for Laura, was riding a MATS plane back to Hawaii.
The Ugly American
"Dammit," said Homer Atkins to himself as he looked around the room at the fashionably dressed men. The princes of bureaucracy were the same all over the world. They sat in their freshly pressed clothes, ran their clean fingers over their smooth cheeks, smiled knowingly at one another, and asked engineers like Atkins silly questions.
What Homer wanted to say was, "Listen, you damn fools, it's a simple problem. Let us engineers solve it and come back with what we've been able to do. Then, if you don't like what we've done, throw me out of the country. But don't bring up these goddam silly questions about politics and native psychology."
But Atkins didn't say it. He didn't even swear, which was unusual for him. He looked at his hands. This was a trick he had learned long ago. His hands always reminded him that he was an ugly man. Somehow this thought always made him pause, which in turn gave him time to prepare his next step. He had often used the technique during World War II when he was dealing with high government officials, or with corporation executives who wanted the products of his firm.
Atkins stared at his hands as if they belonged to a stranger.
His hands were laced with prominent veins and spotted with big, liverish freckles. His fingernails were black with grease. His fingers bore the tiny nicks and scars of a lifetime of practical engineering. The palms of his hands were calloused. Homer Atkins was worth three million dollars, every dime of which he had earned by his own efforts; but he was most proud and confident of his ugly strong hands. Atkins knew that he could always make a living with them.
Atkins was aware of the fact that he was the only man in the room not wearing a tie. In fact, he was wearing a rough khaki shirt, khaki pants, and old Marine field boots. He still had the smell of the jungle about him; the other men, Vietnamese, French, or American, all smelled of aftershave lotion. Homer heaved a slow sigh and lifted his head.
"All right, gentlemen, I'm going to say it once more," Atkins said. "The United States asked me to come out here to give you some advice on building dams and military roads. You know what I am; I'm a heavy construction man. Earth moving, concrete, road-building, that sort of thing. Now I've been here for ten months, and I've walked all over this damn country from Phan Rang to Van Gia and then back into the hills to Kontum. I've talked to a thousand people. I've surveyed dam sites and routes for military hardtop roads and airstrips."
A slender Vietnamese interrupted. He spoke English with a French accent, and Atkins supposed that he had been educated at the Sorbonne. Even with the accent his English was better than Atkins'.
"Mr. Atkins, we are very grateful to you for coming here to help us," the Vietnamese said gently. "Your government has been generous. You have been generous. Now we would like your recommendations as to where the roads and dams should be built."
"I went over all that in the report," Atkins said. "Didn't you read it?"
"Yes, Mr. Atkins, we all read it," a middle-aged Frenchman said. "But it didn't tell us where the roads and dams should go."
"Because you don't need dams and roads," Atkins said. "Maybe later, but right now you need to concentrate on first things—largely things that your own people can manufacture and use. I don't know much about fanning or city planning or that kind of thing; but I can tell you that your people need other things besides military roads. You ever hear of a food shortage being solved by someone building a military highway designed to carry tanks and trucks?"
"Mr. Atkins, I think the decision about whether we need dams and highways is a political decision which we must make for ourselves," the Vietnamese said, after whispering rapidly to the Frenchman. "Do I gather that you do not intend to recommend the building of any dams or highways in Vietnam?"
Atkins knew the Vietnamese was trying to scare him, and he felt only a dull anger. He had spent his life making bids involving hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of men (and his reputation), and it had taught him not to back down.
"Look, mister, I don't know how often you get out of Saigon and into the countryside, but you better go take a look at things," Atkins answered evenly.
Mr. Josiah Gordon, the representative from the American Embassy, was beginning to redden, but Atkins didn't care. "You want big industry," he went on. "You want big factories. You want big T. V. A.'s scattered all over the countryside. That all takes skilled workmen, and mines, and lots of money, and a whole lot of people who are production-minded. Of course you've got good people out there in the boondocks, good hardworking people who are plenty savvy. But they don't want what you want yet. It takes time for that. That's why I recommended in my report that you start small, with little things. And then after you lick them, go on to the bigger things. Hell, we could build dams and roads for you—but you don't have the skill or capacity or need for them now."
"Mr. Atkins, I think that's a political decision which goes beyond your province," Josiah Gordon cut in quickly. Atkins knew Gordon wanted to get the meeting over with. "Let's just let your report stand and we'll discuss it on a higher level."
