The Ambassador
Set against the military deadlock in South Vietnam and the crisis of Western diplomacy in the Far East, this novel traces the fortunes of a US ambassador who, in moral confusion and tortured by self-doubt, is made arbiter of his nation's fate, and of life and death for the ruling house of Vietnam.

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A diplomat has been sent to Vietnam to negotiate a tentative peace in the midst of political turmoil. The Viet Cong is raiding villages, the Vietnamese president is unbending, and the US has larger, selfish goals in mind. No one is without ulterior motives, and no one will walk away unscathed. The ambassador, Maxwell Amberley, is in the midst of his own personal crisis, trying to reconcile his questions, his frozen heart, and his job's requirements with his own dignity.

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"The novel is a most fascinating account of all the complexities of the struggle in Vietnam in fictional form. The author knows the situation in depth and detail. The tension between the shaky 'democratic' government and the military; and the tension above all between the local government and the baffled USA officials are all so vividly portrayed that I am persuaded by the novel that the best way of presenting a baffling and, to Americans, a hopeless situation is to present it fictionally in a roman a clef. A most impressive fictional interpretation." - Reinhold Niebuhr.
Australian Science fiction, Fiction, general, Vietnam War, 1961-1975, Fiction, Ambassadors
Morris West
Morris Langlo West AO was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels The Devil's Advocate (1959), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963) and The Clowns of God (1981). His books were published in 27 languages and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. Each new book he wrote after he became an established writer sold more than one million copies.

West's works were often focused on international politics and the role of the Roman Catholic Church in international affairs. One of his best known works, The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), described the election and career of a Slav as Pope, 15 years before the historic election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II. The sequel, The Clowns of God, described a successor Pope, who resigned the papacy to live in seclusion.

West was awarded the 1959 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Devil's Advocate. In the early 1960s, he helped found the Australian Society of Authors. He presented the 1986 Playford Lecture. In 1993, West announced that he had written his last book and a formal valedictory dinner was held in his honour. However, he found he could not retire as he had planned and wrote a further three novels and two non-fiction books. West died while working at his desk on the final chapters of his novel The Last Confession, about the trials and imprisonment of Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1600. - wikipedia