The Man who Invented The Ugly American

Gary Mason, a columnist in The Globe and Mail, wrote a column this week titled “The return of the ugly American.” It brought to mind the time I interviewed the guy who coined the term. Or, at least co-coined it.

Seriously.

As Mason mentions in the column (and apologies to anyone who clicked on the link but encountered the paywall), the term “The Ugly American” came from a 1958 book of that title, written by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer.  About 20 years ago, I interviewed Lederer. He was well into his declining years and the interview produced no useful information, but there was a bitter-sweet pleasure in chatting with this old-timer about his younger years in China.

The Ugly American told of American foreign officials going to developing nations with the goal of aiding economic growth but creating resentment through their obnoxious behavior. The novel (and the movie based on it starring Marlon Brando) are forgettable. But it didn’t take long for the term “ugly American” to become part of the popular lexicon, in and outside the U.S.A. The term can be found in both the Collins and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.

I read the book early in the century when I was researching my own book Hemingway on the China Front, which was published in 2006. It chronicles the journey by Ernest Hemingway and his third wife Martha Gellhorn to Hong Kong and China in 1941 to report on the Sino-Japanese War. It was the one under-researched segment of Hemingway’s life and, as I had a huge interest in both Hemingway’s work and China (I was working for The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong when I started my research). I wanted to fill in the gap in the Hemingway story. I learned that Carlos Baker, Hemingway’s first and to my mind best biographer, had dug up a Reader’s Digest article by William Lederer about meeting Hemingway in Chungking during the trip. (There are a few different versions of the story out there. I’m relying on the Reader’s Digest version, written by Lederer himself.)

Lederer at the time was a young U.S. naval officer stationed in the Chinese war capital, conducting patrols on the Yangtze River. Having already traveled through southern China, Hemingway was getting low on alcohol by the time he reached Chungking and heard that a guy called Bill Lederer had bought a stash of whisky – a rare and coveted commodity. According to Lederer’s account, the novelist sought him out and asked what he wanted for his stash. Though he was saving his precious liquor for a special occasion, Lederer had literary ambitions, so he asked for lessons in writing in return for a couple bottles of his hooch. Deal done, Hemingway took a few bottles away and over the next week tutored Lederer on the art of writing.

In their final meeting before he left Chungking, Hemingway told Lederer there was no time like the present to enjoy his whisky. Lederer should open at least one bottle immediately, Hemingway said. Once Hemingway and Gellhorn had left the city, Lederer cracked a seal and poured himself a shot of whisky. It was tea. Old, stale, gross tea. Hemingway had known Lederer had been ripped off but he’d kept quiet about it and kept coming to deliver the writing lessons.

As I researched my book, I learned that William Lederer was still alive, living in a retirement home in Florida. Throughout my research, I had been trying to find people who met Hemingway during this trip, but with no luck. In Hong Kong, I’d met with several ancient expats who had lived in the city before and during the Japanese occupation. They were remarkable men. It was a privilege to meet and chat with them, but none remembered Hemingway coming to the colony.

I arranged a phone interview with Lederer through his nursing home, and was warned he could be “vague.” Within a minute or two, I realized that Lederer was suffering from dementia. He could carry on a conversation, but it was rambling and gave me nothing I could use in my book. He told me he had often visited Hemingway after the war and that they went fishing together. Lederer was at work, he told me repeatedly, on his own book that he intended to call, Ernesto and Me. He didn’t want to discuss the meeting in China as he was saving it for his own book. If I visited him in Florida, he said, he’d tell me more.

Lederer seemed happy to chat that day. My visit was likely a welcome break from the routine of the rest home. And I enjoyed the chat as well, even if it was a fruitless exercise in terms of research. It’s not every day you get to meet someone who added a famous phrase to the dictionary.