Title: A prophetic look at the U.S. in Indochina
Review: On second reading 40-plus years after original publication, Graham Greene's short and masterful novel "The Quiet American" seems profound and prophetic. (To many of us it seemed arrogant, stereotyped and anti-American in 1957). Alden Pyle, the quiet American,has been said by Greene biographers to be a takeoff of Edwin Lansdale, the model for William Lederer's "The Ugly American," a favorable account of America in Asia written contemporaneous with Greene's novel. Today Alden Pyle could be seen as a character based on the Robert McNamara, Maxwell Taylor, Henry Cabot Lodge or Robert Komer of the 1960s. Greene's moral vision is as keen here as in any of his novels.
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