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The Ambassador
The confused U.S. Ambassador to war-torn Vietnam must make some drastic decisions which will affect the nation's destiny
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
17 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Morris L. West
133 books174 followersMorris Langlo West was born in St Kilda, Melbourne in 1916. At the age of fourteen, he entered the Christian Brothers seminary ‘as a kind of refuge’ from a difficult childhood. He attended the University of Melbourne and worked as a teacher. In 1941 he left the Christian Brothers without taking final vows. In World War II he worked as a code-breaker, and for a time he was private secretary to former prime minister Billy Hughes.
After the war, West became a successful writer and producer of radio serials. In 1955 he left Australia to build an international career as a writer. With his family, he lived in Austria, Italy, England and the USA, including a stint as the Vatican correspondent for the British newspaper, the Daily Mail. He returned to Australia in 1982.
Morris West wrote 30 books and many plays, and several of his novels were adapted for film. His books were published in 28 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 received many awards and accolades over his long writing career, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the W.H. Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature for The Devil's Advocate. In 1978 he was elected a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1985, and was made an Officer of the Order (AO) in 1997.
Morris West died at his desk in 1999.
After the war, West became a successful writer and producer of radio serials. In 1955 he left Australia to build an international career as a writer. With his family, he lived in Austria, Italy, England and the USA, including a stint as the Vatican correspondent for the British newspaper, the Daily Mail. He returned to Australia in 1982.
Morris West wrote 30 books and many plays, and several of his novels were adapted for film. His books were published in 28 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 received many awards and accolades over his long writing career, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the W.H. Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature for The Devil's Advocate. In 1978 he was elected a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1985, and was made an Officer of the Order (AO) in 1997.
Morris West died at his desk in 1999.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 13, 2016
This has by far been one of my favorite books for sometime. The way West captured the darkness of the early days of the Vietnam war (in particular, the backroom political dealings and the fight between the the intelligence community and communist guerrillas) is astounding. The Ambassadors studies of buddism being part of the story added a unique view to the events of the time. This book is by far one of Morris L Wests best pieces of writing. It's unfortunate that it has never gotten the credit it truly deserves.
November 7, 2018
Like The Ugly American, The Ambassador begins with a prefatory note: “This is a work of fiction, built by the time-honored literary method of peopling an historic situation with characters construed out of the imagination of the author.”
In the novel, an embattled Prime Minister of South Vietnam, under intense political pressure from the United States to resign, grants an interview to a visiting Australian novelist. In real life, Morris West was Australia’s best-selling novelist (“The Devil’s Advocate”, “The Shoes of the Fisherman”) when he interviewed South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem in October 1963. West felt compelled to report Diem’s views to Australia’s ambassador and his notes were passed along to the American ambassador. A month later, on November 2, 1963, Diem was ousted by his Army generals and assassinated after attending morning Mass. President John F. Kennedy approved the CIA’s decision to support the generals over Diem.
In the year following the assassination, West plumbed his imagination to create American characters and portray inside-the-Embassy conversations and gut-wrenching rationalizations. Peeling away layers of religious, spiritual, pragmatic and patriotic reasoning, the characters explore the morality -- and the military options -- behind their decision to betray a despotic but democratically elected South Vietnamese leader.
On a deeper level, a guilt-ridden West delves into what right America and its anti-Communist Western allies, including Australia, had to interfere in the politics of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. What right did they have to choose sides, employing massive economic and military might – and ultimately resorting to war – to stand in the way of self-determination in Southeast Asia?
Though the author has construed a dozen or so American characters in the Saigon embassy and the halls of power in Washington, three well-drawn, highly complex characters stand in the crux of the morality play.
The ambassador of the title, Maxwell Gordon Amberley, is the newly arrived U.S. envoy in Saigon. Modest, mature, elegantly mannered, and measured in his approach to his awesome responsibility, the erudite Amberley appears to be the embodiment of what every U.S. ambassador should be.
Like Amberley, the dapper CIA Director Harry Yaffa is a true professional. But as the top CIA agent for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, he is amoral, and without moral scruples. He takes on the Agency’s most sordid chores with efficiency and a near-sexual excitement. On Amberley’s first day on the job, Yaffa hands the ambassador an automatic pistol and warns, “This is an assassin’s town.”
The embassy’s First Secretary, Melville Adams, is intended as a study in contrast, reserving to himself the right to question and even refuse his Government’s bidding when it runs counter to his own beliefs. Like Amberley, Adams must make difficult decisions in a morass of morally ambivalent situations.
Reflecting West’s fervid Catholicism and intellectual interest in Buddhist philosophy, Amberley veers between the yin and yang of Yaffa and Adams. He cannot function in Saigon without Yaffa. He cannot live without the conscience of well-meaning Americans like Adams.
In the end, Amberley acts as he must, as the instrument of United States policy.. “…(W)hat else was left to me?” the ambassador asks. “My small inheritance of good manners, polite custom and traditional morality had been laid waste by the processional march of history. My action, any action, was a futile gesture against the trampling might of elephants.”
The CIA-backed coup that led to Diem’s assassination continues to haunt U.S. policy around the world and its lessons, so artfully illustrated by West in this novel, go unheeded. As I write this, The New York Times is reporting that the United States is being accused of plotting with Army generals who oppose embattled Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
In the novel, an embattled Prime Minister of South Vietnam, under intense political pressure from the United States to resign, grants an interview to a visiting Australian novelist. In real life, Morris West was Australia’s best-selling novelist (“The Devil’s Advocate”, “The Shoes of the Fisherman”) when he interviewed South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem in October 1963. West felt compelled to report Diem’s views to Australia’s ambassador and his notes were passed along to the American ambassador. A month later, on November 2, 1963, Diem was ousted by his Army generals and assassinated after attending morning Mass. President John F. Kennedy approved the CIA’s decision to support the generals over Diem.
In the year following the assassination, West plumbed his imagination to create American characters and portray inside-the-Embassy conversations and gut-wrenching rationalizations. Peeling away layers of religious, spiritual, pragmatic and patriotic reasoning, the characters explore the morality -- and the military options -- behind their decision to betray a despotic but democratically elected South Vietnamese leader.
On a deeper level, a guilt-ridden West delves into what right America and its anti-Communist Western allies, including Australia, had to interfere in the politics of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. What right did they have to choose sides, employing massive economic and military might – and ultimately resorting to war – to stand in the way of self-determination in Southeast Asia?
Though the author has construed a dozen or so American characters in the Saigon embassy and the halls of power in Washington, three well-drawn, highly complex characters stand in the crux of the morality play.
The ambassador of the title, Maxwell Gordon Amberley, is the newly arrived U.S. envoy in Saigon. Modest, mature, elegantly mannered, and measured in his approach to his awesome responsibility, the erudite Amberley appears to be the embodiment of what every U.S. ambassador should be.
Like Amberley, the dapper CIA Director Harry Yaffa is a true professional. But as the top CIA agent for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, he is amoral, and without moral scruples. He takes on the Agency’s most sordid chores with efficiency and a near-sexual excitement. On Amberley’s first day on the job, Yaffa hands the ambassador an automatic pistol and warns, “This is an assassin’s town.”
The embassy’s First Secretary, Melville Adams, is intended as a study in contrast, reserving to himself the right to question and even refuse his Government’s bidding when it runs counter to his own beliefs. Like Amberley, Adams must make difficult decisions in a morass of morally ambivalent situations.
Reflecting West’s fervid Catholicism and intellectual interest in Buddhist philosophy, Amberley veers between the yin and yang of Yaffa and Adams. He cannot function in Saigon without Yaffa. He cannot live without the conscience of well-meaning Americans like Adams.
In the end, Amberley acts as he must, as the instrument of United States policy.. “…(W)hat else was left to me?” the ambassador asks. “My small inheritance of good manners, polite custom and traditional morality had been laid waste by the processional march of history. My action, any action, was a futile gesture against the trampling might of elephants.”
The CIA-backed coup that led to Diem’s assassination continues to haunt U.S. policy around the world and its lessons, so artfully illustrated by West in this novel, go unheeded. As I write this, The New York Times is reporting that the United States is being accused of plotting with Army generals who oppose embattled Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
June 19, 2012
O Embaixador poderia não ser mais do que uma crónica de acontecimentos sempre presentes em todas as memórias e cujas consequências ainda não deixaram de se fazer sentir. Com uma arte excepcional, Morris West soube, contudo, fazer não só uma evocação apaixonante da guerra do Vietname do Sul e das suas implicações, e do papel que nela desempenharam diferentes personagens mais ou menos obscuras - diplomatas, agente secretos, conspiradores profissionais -, mas também um romance sobre o drama de um homem ultrapassado pela sua missão, dilacerado pelas exigências da sua profissão e da sua consciência. Este livro excepcional, cujo interesse humano é tão grande como o seu interesse histórico e documental, constitui, assim, a vários títulos, a obra mais notável que Morris West escreveu depois de O Advogado do Diabo.
Contracapa
Contracapa
September 13, 2025
A complex study of the role of an American ambassador in the political evolution of south Vietnam in the early 1960’s and in the events leading up to the start of the Vietnam war. My understanding is the book was borne out of West’s, seemingly small contribution and intervention as a celebrated author at the time and the subsequent guilt he felt about the consequences of his actions.
As always West writes beautifully and with authority. He understands the complexity and nuances of an impossible situation the Ambassador is caught up in and the dilemma and paradox of what is moral and what is pragmatic, what serves the interest of America and that of the people of Vietnam. It’s a book that offers no easy answers but accurately depicts the messiness and blurred lines these situations inevitably arrive at. But what it further tries to depict is the effect on the mental and spiritual welfare of a man who has to bear the brunt of these moral dilemmas and ultimate decisions. I absolutley recommend what is perhaps one of West’s very best novels.
As always West writes beautifully and with authority. He understands the complexity and nuances of an impossible situation the Ambassador is caught up in and the dilemma and paradox of what is moral and what is pragmatic, what serves the interest of America and that of the people of Vietnam. It’s a book that offers no easy answers but accurately depicts the messiness and blurred lines these situations inevitably arrive at. But what it further tries to depict is the effect on the mental and spiritual welfare of a man who has to bear the brunt of these moral dilemmas and ultimate decisions. I absolutley recommend what is perhaps one of West’s very best novels.
February 25, 2020
This book was very dry and littered with typos. I really wanted to like it because the topic was interesting to me, but I just couldn’t even finish the book. Only got half way through.
October 23, 2021
Excellent study of a man questioning his struggles and decisions as Ambassador during turbulent times in Vietnam
April 22, 2023
This book explores what is the heart of every human. It is the best exploration of the philosophy of Buddhism and Christianity and how much we have in common. Well done Mr West.
November 27, 2024
Libro muy interesante sobre el desarrollo de un conflicto internacional, a la par que ético y de si actuar de manera pragmática a los intereses que debes servir o seguir la propia moral
December 30, 2021
El embajador es ficción en el marco de acontecimientos históricos y traumáticos, y he de reconocer que esperaba algo distinto. El autor es Morris West, así que está bien escrito, pero qué aburrido es.
El relato está contado desde el punto de vista del embajador de EE.UU. en Vietnam del Sur, un enclave estratégico con un gobierno aliado a quien sus valedores, los EE.UU., no hacen sino poner trampas y trabas. La trama en sí es el relato de las sucesivas reuniones del señor embajador con unos y con otros y de sus opiniones sobre sus interlocutores, pero, sobre todo, es el relato de unas maquinaciones viles. En todo momento tenía la impresión de que cada paso que se daba desde la embajada era un error y un desatino. No tiene sentido insultar a los aliados, conspirar contra ellos, imponerles sanciones... sobre todo cuando no hay alternativa mejor. Y era evidente que no la había.
Simplemente se narra un empecinamiento. Por parte del presidente Cung, no tiene más remedio que aceptar la ayuda extranjera, pero no está dipuesto a aceptar sus órdenes y convertirse en un títere, lo que me parece una postura muy razonable. Por parte de los presuntos aliados, dejan claro que no son amigos de nadie y que para ellos lo importante era tener un títere a su servicio y, como no lo logran, no dudan en echarlo a los leones.
Sucede además que en todo el relato solo hay un personaje femenino y su papel es muy limitado. Ello es coherente con lo que cuenta y hubiese sido irreal inventarse embajadoras y cargos pesados desempeñados por mujeres de la política de mediados del siglo pasado, pero el exceso de testosterona no contribuía al buen clima del relato.
En suma, no me ha gustado el desarrollo, la historia de George Groton parecía innecesaria, solo para dar humanidad a un personaje, el del embajador, muy antipático y hubiese preferido que los embajadores australiano e italiano, los únicos que muestran algo de sentido común y de humanidad, hubiesen tenido más peso.
El relato está contado desde el punto de vista del embajador de EE.UU. en Vietnam del Sur, un enclave estratégico con un gobierno aliado a quien sus valedores, los EE.UU., no hacen sino poner trampas y trabas. La trama en sí es el relato de las sucesivas reuniones del señor embajador con unos y con otros y de sus opiniones sobre sus interlocutores, pero, sobre todo, es el relato de unas maquinaciones viles. En todo momento tenía la impresión de que cada paso que se daba desde la embajada era un error y un desatino. No tiene sentido insultar a los aliados, conspirar contra ellos, imponerles sanciones... sobre todo cuando no hay alternativa mejor. Y era evidente que no la había.
Simplemente se narra un empecinamiento. Por parte del presidente Cung, no tiene más remedio que aceptar la ayuda extranjera, pero no está dipuesto a aceptar sus órdenes y convertirse en un títere, lo que me parece una postura muy razonable. Por parte de los presuntos aliados, dejan claro que no son amigos de nadie y que para ellos lo importante era tener un títere a su servicio y, como no lo logran, no dudan en echarlo a los leones.
Sucede además que en todo el relato solo hay un personaje femenino y su papel es muy limitado. Ello es coherente con lo que cuenta y hubiese sido irreal inventarse embajadoras y cargos pesados desempeñados por mujeres de la política de mediados del siglo pasado, pero el exceso de testosterona no contribuía al buen clima del relato.
En suma, no me ha gustado el desarrollo, la historia de George Groton parecía innecesaria, solo para dar humanidad a un personaje, el del embajador, muy antipático y hubiese preferido que los embajadores australiano e italiano, los únicos que muestran algo de sentido común y de humanidad, hubiesen tenido más peso.
November 15, 2023
This book is suiting my purposes. Even though this is an old book, copyright 1965, it feels very relevant to today's international picture. It has been many years since I read The Shoes of The Fisherman. Morris West shows interesting insight about Vietnam War, most of which was still to come at the time of his writing.
Currently I am on chapter 7 page 140. I believe I am reading an earlier printing of this book. This was published by Morrow and Company, not Heinemann.
Currently I am on chapter 7 page 140. I believe I am reading an earlier printing of this book. This was published by Morrow and Company, not Heinemann.
August 7, 2015
A hidden gem. Well, what can I say other then I am genuinely intrigued. The plot moves quite effortlessly and fast, yet the book itself felt large and stuffed. For me, what can I ask for? Plausible political scenerio? Check! Philosophy? Check! Human nature? Check! and a lot more check. A novel that illustrates life of those who have high responsibility from a well researched novelist perspective.
July 29, 2019
An interesting scenario.
April 21, 2019
I last read a Morris West book in the late 70's early 80's, where Blaise Meredith, as Devil's Advocate, went to Calabria to disprove the saintly claims but seemed to be on the other side. At that age, I was finding new writers though I'd grown up with the books of my parents. Morris West didn't seem dated then, but reading the Ambassador now (written in 1965) I'm struggling with the writing style. The central character Amberley a career diplomat for 35 years, Ambassador for ten, sent to South Vietnam. The Americans are pouring money into the country, the country is full of american "advisors", and military and CIA and they want to add to the instability with some weird belief it will create stability. I'm not sure I'll bother finishing it, for now it's back in the shelf with the bookmark.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews