The Anti-Communist Congressman

The Anti-Communist Congressman is a Southern California politician, former Green Beret, and prominent advocate for Vietnamese refugees whose welcome combines genuine assistance with a forceful anti-communist agenda. He publicly presents the refugees as fellow Americans and future patriots, yet declines to pursue official congressional support for their veterans’ organization. His political influence thus offers The General a route to local allies and cultural visibility, but not an uncomplicated return to power.

Identity and Political Standing

A former Green Beret who served in Vietnam from 1962 to 1964, The Anti-Communist Congressman represents the district where the refugees have settled and has become an up-and-coming politician in Southern California. His military service carries particular weight in Orange County. Depending on the listener’s mood and the crisis at hand, he is called Napalm Ned, Knock-'em-Dead Ned, or Nuke-'em-All Ned. The affectionate quality of these nicknames reflects the political environment around him: his anti-communism is so pronounced that his martial past and aggressive reputation register as credentials rather than liabilities.

The Anti-Communist Congressman stands out against the broader American response to the refugees. Many Americans regard them with ambivalence or distaste, in part because they embody the memory of a humiliating defeat. He instead writes editorials welcoming the émigrés to his district and defending them. His position gives the refugees a public advocate, while also linking their welcome to a familiar American story of military service, immigration, and resistance to communism.

Public Welcome and Anti-Communist Rhetoric

At a wedding celebration for two young Vietnamese people in a Chinese restaurant, The Anti-Communist Congressman appears as a surprise guest, introduced by Clark Gable. He addresses the audience as fellow Americans and invokes the setting—the wedding, California soil, and a Christian universe—as evidence of their place in the country. He recalls his two years among Vietnamese people in the Highlands, where he fought alongside their soldiers and shared their fears. He describes the refugees’ defeat as a temporary reversal, blaming the failure of American support on political opponents at home: Democrats, the media, antiwar activists, college students, radicals, and communists.

His speech makes the refugees both witnesses to American failure and proof of American promise. He casts them as immigrants who have sacrificed for democracy and liberty, and tells them that the land they lost will one day be theirs again. The audience responds with loud applause and cheers. Raising his arms in a V, The Anti-Communist Congressman calls out Vietnam Muon Nam! in Vietnamese; the crowd rises and answers with the refrain rendered in the narrative as Vietnam Forever. The celebration then turns to the South Vietnamese national anthem, sung by The Anti-Communist Congressman, Clark Gable, The General, Madame, and the audience. The moment gives the refugees a collective public voice, even as its message folds their hopes into the politician’s campaign language about America’s future and the recovery of their homeland.

Sonny, present with a notepad and pen, observes that the slogan is also used by the Communist Party. Sofia Mori replies that a slogan can be worn by anyone. The exchange exposes the malleability beneath the spectacle: the same words can serve opposing political projects. The Anti-Communist Congressman’s fluency in Vietnamese and his ability to elicit the crowd’s response establish his skill at symbolic inclusion, but do not make his politics neutral.

Alliance with The General and Madame

The following weekend, The Anti-Communist Congressman invites The General and Madame to lunch at his home in Huntington Beach. The narrator drives them from Hollywood in a Chevrolet Nova, a modest car that nonetheless lets the couple briefly inhabit the appearance of their former status, with a chauffeur at their service. On the drive, Madame complains that Lana’s public singing and appearance represent American permissiveness and moral corruption. At lunch, Rita, The Anti-Communist Congressman’s wife and a refugee from Castro’s revolution, identifies Cubans and Vietnamese people as allies in the shared struggle against communism. Her remarks help establish an affinity between the couples, who discuss political danger through the language of family, morality, and ideological contamination.

The Anti-Communist Congressman’s private manner is quieter and more measured than his public oratory. He argues that political excesses should be checked from within and that the struggle begins in the home. He wants parents to control what their children read, hear, and watch, but recognizes that television and radio make such control difficult. When The General points out that The Anti-Communist Congressman is himself part of the government, he answers that regulating movies and music is one of his priorities. He describes the proposed legislation as advice backed by enforcement rather than censorship, and says that his work on a subcommittee has brought him into contact with Hollywood figures.

The two couples’ alliance is political as well as social. The Anti-Communist Congressman tells The General about a Hollywood war film concerning the Phoenix Program and asks for his expertise. The General directs him to the narrator, his cultural attaché, who can read the screenplay and offer an informed response. The revelation that the film is called Hamlet gives The General a chance to bring Vietnamese knowledge into a production about the war, while giving The Anti-Communist Congressman a connection to a military authority whose experience can shape the film’s representation.

Political Support and Its Limits

The Anti-Communist Congressman’s office displays an American flag and photographs of him with Republican figures, including Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, John Wayne, Bob Hope, and Richard Hedd. During a meeting there, The General invokes the principle that people who cannot represent themselves must be represented by others, applying it to the Vietnamese refugees and Hollywood’s power to portray them. The narrator argues that they need to secure a better representation of themselves, even when they cannot control the medium.

When The General explains the functions of the Benevolent Fraternity of Former Soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, The Anti-Communist Congressman praises the idea but says that Congress will not support it. He explains that no one in Congress even wants to say the name of the refugees’ country. The General accepts that official public support is unlikely; the narrator distinguishes it from unofficial support, which remains available. This refusal marks the boundary of The Anti-Communist Congressman’s assistance: he can welcome refugees, lend them visibility, connect The General to influential Americans, and open a channel into Hollywood, but he will not ask Congress to formally endorse the organization.

That boundary complicates his role as an ally. His rhetoric promises solidarity and a future restoration, while his practical support operates through personal relationships, public performance, and cultural influence rather than congressional commitment. His interest in regulating movies and music also reveals that representation is not merely a matter of correcting inaccuracies: he wants government power to shape what Americans can watch and hear. In the novel, The Anti-Communist Congressman joins refugee advocacy to anti-communism and cultural control, making his welcome consequential without making it unconditional.