Jesus Salcedo
Government 5
Mr. Sarcone
23 November 2012
The ugly American
Novel by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick
Directed by George Englund
I. Introduction
II. U.S. Ambassador Gilbert Macwhite.
III. Sarkhan Revolutionary leader Deong
IV. Conclusion
V. Discuss “Battle of little rock”
VI. Discuss the domin theory
VII. Discuss the Vietnam war PG 497
VIII. Discuss the undeclasred war PG 401
The ugly American was a story that took place about the same time the cold war/ Vietnam War was occurring. In a little country called south Sarkhan, the U.S. wanted to stop the spread of communism and did not want the domino theory to happen with sarkhan. With that being said the U.S. helped Sarkhan in the battle to save their country, but at the same time used Sarkhan for their own good. A couple of the main characters in this story to help save Sarkhan were good friends U.S. ambassador Gilbert Macwhite and revolutionary leader Deong. Little did these two know that this would turn into a political war?
During the movie, Macwhite is interviewed by the U.S. congress. He talks about Deong not being and communist and the congress disagreed. He later thinks Deong is a communist but finally comes to a conclusion at the end of the movie and says he is not a communist. He also spoke about the policy of containment and the domino theory which related to sarkhan. The U.S. ambassador Macwhite met Deong during a war and after that they became friends and kept a good friendship. Before becoming U.S. ambassador, Macwhite was the vice president of Macwhite publications (really did not have any experience in the government).
Revolutionary leader of Sarkhan (Deong), had many political views about the U.S. as well. He viewed America as an imperialistic country. He also thought that democracy was a fraud and stated that it is for “white people only”. Deong later “said that ‘America will always be a military industrial’ (Wall Street builds tanks).” Despite Deongs political views, the communist also had different types of views of Deong. The communist viewed Deong as a good way to get to more countries into becoming communist. They wanted to use him to gain more power. The communist were looking to take Sarkhan completely.
Overall, Cold war/Vietnam war really impacted the lives of the sarkhanese people and the good friendship of Deong and Ambassador Macwhite. This political view really stirred up conflicts with the U.S. and Sarkhan as well as conflicts with communism. At the end of the day, nothing was really solved in Sarkhan and neither did the political war stop and is still going on all over the world today.
DOMINO THEORY
In my opinion, a domino theory is when something gets affected, and then everything else does as well. For example, when one country is affected by communism, it will spread and the rest of the countries or territories around it will be affected as well.
VIETNAM WAR
The Vietnam War was a conflict between the communist and the capitalist. North Vietnam was communist and South Vietnam was not yet communist. With that being said the U.S. came in immediately and helped out South Vietnam as much as possible to stop the spread of communism (containment). But at the end the communist came out victorious and took South Vietnam.
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