A Nation of Sheep

People who say The Ugly American reads as if it had been "written in a hurry" usually don't know how right they are. Six days before a similar, completely factual version of the slashing attack on American diplomatic methods was to go to the publisher, co-authors William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick decided the book would be more successful as a novel. They burned every page of every copy, hired four dictating machines and four stenographers, and started from scratch. They made the publisher's deadline.

Behind the switch from fact to fiction is one of Lederer's pet theories on writing: "When you write, you want to communicate with as many people as possible. In this case, that meant a novel."

They had no qualms about either the accuracy of facts carefully garnered over many months' research, both in the United States and Asia, or about the reaction to what is unquestionably a controversial book. Rather, the change stemmed from ideas in another book Lederer had written some ten years earlier, when he was a Nieman fellow at Harvard. A do-it-yourselfer entitled Spare Time Article Writing for Money, the book had two main points. Significantly, one was a sharp criticism of writers who ennoble "arty" literature on the theory that authors write "for themselves." Lederer says that this just isn't so.

After Burdick had joined him for the completion of final details on the original Ugly American, "We both realized, at exactly the same time, that readers instinctively believe fiction more than non-fiction."

The other point made in Spare Time Article Writing--that most full-time authors started with incidental, part-time writing--is equally well illustrated in Lederer's own work, which he began on a rather relaxed basis early in his 28-year career in the Navy. The first full-length book he wrote on the part-time author, part-time serviceman plan was as a humorous description of life at sea, put together in such a way that each chapter is a complete unit, and therefore much more attractive to the eye of a magazine publisher hunting for reprint possibilities. Lederer describes this approach to writing as a concession to the trade's "economic perils."

By the time he wrote his next naval comedy, called Ensign O'Toole and Me, Lederer had chopped the humorous element to half its previous importance. In its place arose the concern for American relationships overseas that was to form the entire basis for the book following Ensign O'Toole--The Ugly American, written in cooperation with Eugene Burdick.

"If first met Bud (Burdick)," Lederer explains, "when we were both fellow students at the Bread-loaf writers' conference, the summer session of Middlebury College. Then I went out to the Pacific with the Navy, and he won a Rhodes Scholarship. We met again 10 years later, just after he had been in the Pacific doing an article for Holiday magazine. We both had ideas about American diplomacy, and so we decided to write a book together about it."

The two came up with an interesting solution to the problem of co-authorship. They "wrote the book by mail."

Burdick was living at the University of California, and the Navy had stationed Lederer in Honolulu, where he still lives. After both had done a considerable amount of independent research and formed definite ideas on the content of the proposed book, Lederer flew to California for a weekend. While there, he and Burdick outlined every chapter even remotely possible--over 60, of which about 20 were finally used. Lederer then returned to Honolulu, and the actual writing was begun.

Each author took half the chapters, bought a small, portable dictating machine, and outlined his sections on one side of the machine's small records. He would then mail the record to the other, who would inscribe suggestions on the back of the record. After one or two further crossings, each in a more complete form, a given chapter would be written out, mailed once more, and edited. Thus each man wrote half the book and edited the other.

Little need be said of The Ugly American's impact upon the reading public. Close to 1,750,000 copies were sold, and in the months after the book appeared on the stands, Lederer and Burdick received over 8,000 letters. Each of them answered half.

"Of the 3,500 I took," says Lederer, "90 per cent asked 'What can I do about this situation?' After I had spent 18 months answering letters, it dawned upon me that it was odd these people had to ask me. So I started on another book, trying to tell them what to do." This second book, entitled A Nation of Sheep, was completed five days ago in a fourth-floor room of Lowell House's AA entry. He wrote it alone.

A Nation of Sheep, to be released this spring, "points out, without so stating" that the average American doesn't know enough to do anything. Lederer takes a few of the more prominent recent foreign issues, attempting to demonstrate that the public has received little true information, from either the government or the press. "I want to let the average guy know he's been had."

He decided to finish his book at Harvard about three weeks ago. After Lederer had lectured at a law school forum, Elliott Perkins, Master of Lowell House, invited him to return for a few days to the place where he had stayed as a Nieman fellow. Lederer remained here for the longer period for three reasons: "First, the atmosphere was perfect for working; second, there were a great many scholars nearby to consult on factual details; and third, it was interesting to talk with the students, especially since the book emphasizes that the future of the country is with the young. It starts off jammed with scandals, and ends with tremendous optimism."

Lederer left Cambridge early Monday morning, heading back to Honolulu. On the way, he plan to stop in California to discuss the possibilities of beginning a "pure" novel--"no message"--with Burdick. Its subject? "I'm going back to humor."