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The Quiet American
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Thomas Fowler, a British journalist in French Indochina, becomes involved with the idealistic American Alden Pyle. Pyle believes that a democratic third force can replace both French colonial rule and communist revolution, while Fowler distrusts political theories that ignore the people who will suffer when they are applied.
Their argument is made personal by Phuong, Fowler’s Vietnamese partner, whom Pyle hopes to marry. When bombings kill civilians in Saigon, Fowler learns how far Pyle’s covert support for a nationalist general has gone. The novel links romantic rivalry to the early expansion of American intervention during the First Indochina War.
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