the introduction that the work represents "the rendering of fact into fiction." Plot summary In one vignette, a Burmese journalist says, "For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They are loud and ostentatious." The American Ambassador "Lucky" Lou Sears confines himself to his comfortable diplomatic compound in the capital. The Soviet ambassador speaks the local language and understands the local culture. He informs his Moscow superiors that Sears "keeps his people tied up with meetings, social events, and greeting and briefing the scores of senators, congressmen, generals, admirals, under secretaries of state and defense, and so on, who come pouring through here to 'look for themselves.'" Sears undermines the creative efforts to head off the communist insurgency. Characters in real life According to an article published in Newsweek in May 1959, the "real" "Ugly American" was identified as an International Cooperation Administration technician named Otto Hunerwadel, who, with his wife Helen, served in Burma from 1949 until his death in 1952. They lived in the villages, where they taught farming techniques, and helped to start home canning industries. Another of the book's characters, Colonel Hillandale, appears to have been modeled on the real-life U.S. Air Force Major General Edward Lansdale, who was an expert in counter-guerrilla operations. Popularity The book was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post in the Fall of 1958, and came out as a Book of the Month Club selection in October. The book became an instant bestseller, going through 20 printings from July to November 1958, remaining on the bestseller list for a year and a half, and ultimately selling four million copies. The book caused a sensation in diplomatic circles. John F. Kennedy was so impressed with the book that he sent a copy to each of his colleagues in the United States Senate. The book was one of the biggest bestsellers in the U.S., has been in print continuously since it appeared, and is one of the most politically influential novels in all of American literature. After the book had gained wide readership, the term "Ugly American" came to be used to refer to the "loud and ostentatious" type of visitor in another country rather