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Connections with Toughness: the Novels of Eugene Burdick*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
Extract
As the principal materials for a study of values, The Ugly American (1958) and Fail-Safe (1962) fit well together. Though each was written by two authors, they have one author in common, the late Eugene Burdick. Both were best-selling novels and made into movies. Both were political cautionary tales, seeking to present dire realities in fictional form. The Ugly American, making the case for a more adept social and economic war on communism in South-east Asia, prompted a Congressional investigation of foreign aid and formed part of the climate which later produced the “ low-technology ” Peace Corps and the Kennedy interest in sophisticated-seeming counter-insurgency. Fail-Safe, attacking the beautiful but dangerous, “ high-technology ” nuclear weapons systems of the Cold War, was written in part as a deliberate campaign for arms control and caused a secret Pentagon review of safeguards against accidental war. Both books attracted attention at the Kennedy White House, and in keeping with New Frontier images, both featured the tough but humane professional, socially sensitive but highly controlled. Self-reliant and resourceful individualists, the heroes of these books are, nevertheless, geared to draw on highly-tuned supporting organizations as well as intensive training or experience.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977
References
1 Lederer, William J. and Burdick, Eugene, The Ugly American (New York: Norton, 1958)Google Scholar; Burdick, Eugene and Wheeler, Harvey, Fail-Safe (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962)Google Scholar.
2 Burdick's novels are, in order of publication: The Ninth Wave (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1956)Google Scholar; The Ugly American, with Lederer (New York: Norton, 1958)Google Scholar; Fail-Safe, with Wheeler (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962)Google Scholar; The 480 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964)Google Scholar; Nina's Book (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965)Google Scholar; and Sarkhan, with Lederer (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965)Google Scholar. This study also makes use of Burdick, , The Blue of Capricorn (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961)Google Scholar which combines a popular-level ethnography and geography with fictional and semi-fictional episodes. Otherwise I have not used Burdick's short stories: cf. Burdick, , A Role in Manila, 15 Tales of War, Postwar, Peace and Adventure (New York: New American Library, 1966)Google Scholar.
3 It is impossible to separate very far the influences of the two authors concerned in any of these co-written books. According to Lederer, most of the characters in The Ugly American originated with him, but Burdick was largely responsible for “describing what goes on within the heads of the characters” and for using details to create “an atmosphere of reality.” Letter from Lederer to R.W., 20 July 1976. Lederer's own novel, Ensign O'Toole and Me (New York: Norton, 1957)Google Scholar, carries much of The Ugly American's message, and like Burdick's fiction, features the tough and culturally adept hero, but its style is more peppery and racily tough-guy without making Burdick's constant and explicit references to toughness itself. On the other hand, Lederer's books mount more of an attack on American civilian passivity, softness and consumer self-indulgence, often from the standpoint of the rugged but flexible Marine. Cf. Lederer, , A Nation of Sheep (New York: Norton, 1961)Google Scholar, and Our Own Worst Enemy (New York: Norton, 1968)Google Scholar, a significant title.
4 Thus, the short story by Wheeler, on which Fail-Safe is based, has none of the novel's thrilled description of crisp heroes and dynamic action: see Aitken, F. B. (Wheeler's pseudonym), “Abraham '59 — A Nuclear Fantasy,” Dissent (Winter, 1959), pp. 18–24Google Scholar. This is in line with points made by Wheeler in extensive correspondence with me, describing (with respect and loyalty) the stylistic rewriting which Burdick gave to the novel and the different predilections of the two authors.
5 Cf. Wilkinson, Rupert, “On the Toughness of the Tough-Guy,” Encounter, 269 (London: 02, 1976), pp. 35–42Google Scholar: a preliminary historical and sociological survey.
6 Burdick, Eugene L. and Brodbeck, Arthur J., eds., American Voting Behavior (Glencoe: Free Press, 1969)Google Scholar.
7 This is not a study of literary genres. It would be interesting among other things, to discuss Burdick's writing in relation to different kinds of war novel. Even from the standpoint of toughness and mastery per se, Burdick's style would bear more analysis than can be given here.
8 Burdick and Lederer usually spelt “communism” with a capital “C,” as one would expect.
9 Fail-Safe, p. 61.
10 Burdick, , The Ninth Wave, p. 76Google Scholar.
11 The term has some echoes of William James' original usage, but was popular in Washington and on publishers' blurbs from the 1960s. Cf. James, William, Pragmatism, 1907 (New York: Meridan edition, 1955), pp. 20–23Google Scholar.
12 Fail-Safe, pp. 93–96.
13 Burdick, , The Blue of Capricorn, pp. 191–211Google Scholar.
14 Edwin Hillandale is based on Edward Lansdale, the Air Force adviser and confidant to the Philippine President, Ramon Magsaysay. He became a CIA man in Vietnam. Cf. Burdick and Lederer, Sarkhan, where the two American “cultural operators” are a local businessman and a college professor.
15 The one exception to Burdick's trigger anti-communism is Fail-Safe which, portraying the Soviet leaders as humane Russian patriots, explicitly rejects the view that they are fanatical Marxist-Leninists. According to his co-author, Harvey Wheeler, Burdick accepted this portrayal with considerable reluctance, in part to get the book read by Russian leaders. (Letter from Wheeler to R.W., 22 Sept. 1975.) In Nina's Book, Burdick has more to say about syndicalists, who make a humane contrast with the communists; yet halfway through the book he suddenly drops one of them, the wise and able Faures, without explanation.
16 Fail-Safe, pp. 134–36: the jet bomber pilot and his crew.
17 Jews intrigued Burdick (who was not himself Jewish). His novels are generally philosemitic, using Jews to portray humane toughness, brains and material achievement, just as he praises colour-blind standards of excellence. Jewish backgrounds are given a slightly mysterious potency, but one variation is a refugee or immigrant experience which has instilled deep fear. Cf. the character, Notestein, in Burdick, The Ninth Wave. In the case of Groteschele, Wheeler apparently first conceived of the character. Burdick elaborated the description and provided the sexual element. Letter from Harvey Wheeler to R.W., 2 Mar. 1976.
18 See Tanner, Tony, City of Words, American Fiction 1950–1970 (London: Cape, 1971)Google Scholar.
19 I am grateful to John Whitley for suggesting this point.
20 Largely because of this I have not analysed Burdick's themes here in terms of masculinity concerns and male roles, for although his treatment of sex roles and sexuality has cultural dimensions, his is no simple case. Unlike many past genres of tough-guy populariser, he does not split love from sex, or crudely subordinate women, or put them on gilded pedestals. Most of his heroes are men (sometimes identified only by surname), but his female characters include various combinations of toughness and femininity. On the other hand, his writing is obsessed with the violent element in sex and a woman's potential for ensnaring and castrating as well as nourishing and expanding a man. He is likewise obsessed with food and eating, which are linked to both weakness and strength. I think his writing reflects a tension between fluid sensuality and artistic impressionability, on the one hand, and a value on ascetic and systematic self-control needed for professional achievement. Does this in turn reflect, partly, a Californian tension between the Arcadian and the success-minded? Cf. the portrait of Nash, Jack in The Blue of Capricorn, pp. 72–116Google Scholar.