Chapter 13, "What Would You Do If You Were President?" Summary

Journalist U Maung Swe of Burma is a devout anti-communist who speaks English and had fought beside the Americans in Northern Burma and Southern China. In 1954 at a dinner party for MacWhite in Rangoon, U Maung Swe is asked about British and American prestige in Asia. U Maung Swe answers, "Poor America. It took the British a hundred years to lose their prestige in Asia. America has managed to lose hers in ten years". He explains that the Americans behave differently in foreign countries than they do at home. In particular, they tend to socialize only among themselves and Europeans, and they act superior toward the locals.

Swe cites a good example of diplomacy in the way the Ford Foundation brought jobs to Indonesia. The...