American ambassador Maxwell Gordon Amberley has a reputation as a tough negotiator. Yet when he is sent to Vietnam, the dilemma he faces throws him into self-doubt. He is made arbiter of his nation’s fate on the one hand and of the life and death of the ruling house of Vietnam on the other. Out of every international crisis comes at least one great story. From the explosive, bitter and savage battlefront of Vietnam, Morris West's The Ambassador, brings to life the early days of the Vietnam...

Thailand and Southeast Asia in the late 1950s moves inexorably towards the Vietnam War. American, British and Australian agents are moving in. Businessmen, diplomats, aid personnel - entrepreneurs of all kinds - have come to the streets of Bangkok to ply their trades. Stephen Brasch, a young American lawyer working for the Rockefeller Foundation, comes to Thailand to ‘do good'. When Brasch blows the whistle on a scandalous plot involving Thai government ministers, British and American busi...