The Quiet American is a 1955 novel by English author Graham Greene. Narrated in the first person by journalist Thomas Fowler, the novel depicts the breakdown of French colonialism in Vietnam and early American involvement in the Vietnam War. A subplot concerns a love triangle between Fowler, an American CIA agent named Alden Pyle, and Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman. The novel implicitly questions the foundations of growing American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s, exploring the subject through links among its three main characters – Fowler, Pyle and Phuong. The novel has received much attention due to its prediction of the outcome of the Vietnam War and subsequent American foreign policy since the 1950s. Greene portrays Pyle as so blinded by American exceptionalism that he cannot see the calamities he brings upon the Vietnamese. The book uses Greene's experiences as a war correspondent for The Times and Le Figaro in French Indochina 1951–1954. He was apparently inspired to write The Quiet American during October 1951 while driving back to Saigon from Ben Tre province, accompanied by an American aid worker who lectured him about finding a "third force in Vietnam". It was twice adapted for film, in 1958 and in 2002. Plot Thomas Fowler is a British journalist in his fifties who has covered the French war in Vietnam for more than two years. He meets a young American idealist named Alden Pyle, a CIA agent working undercover. Pyle lives his life and forms his opinions based on foreign policy books written by York Harding with no real experience in Southeast Asia matters. Harding's theory is that neither communism nor colonialism are proper in foreign lands like Vietnam, but rather a "Third Force"—usually a combination of traditions—works best. When they first meet, the earnest Pyle asks Fowler to help him understand more about the country, but the older man's cynical realism does not sink in. Pyle is certain that American power can put the Third Force in charge, but he knows little about Indochina and is recasting it into theoretical categories. Fowler has a live-in lover, Phuong, who is only 20 years old and was previously a dancer at The Arc-en-Ciel (Rainbow) on Jaccareo Road, in Cholon. Her sister's intent is to arrange a marriage for Phuong that will benefit herself and her family. The sister disapproves of their relationship, as Fowler is already married and an atheist. So,