The ugly american

I started reading "The Ugly American" again. It is by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, it was published in 1958. When I picked it back up I was reading about the American Ambassador in Sarkhan, his name is Mr. Sears. He is being interviewed by an American news reporter about an Airbase in Sarkhan. Rumour has it that the airbase was constructed then was demolished for land to be sold. The American people would be very unhappy if that happened. The reporter asked Mr. Sears he had a comment on it and Sears replied he didn't know what was going to happen.
The next chapter was completely different. It was about a man named Gilbert Macwhite who succeeded Mr. Sears. Macwhite had two servants who he thought did not know english. One was Sarkhanese and the other was Chinese. He was having a meeting with a man from Sarkhan who was against the communists. The man he was meeting with was named Li. The servants were in the room that Macwhite and Li had their meeting. Macwhite asked Li who were the men who needed to escape from the government of China who were against communism. Li looked at Macwhite and called him an idiot. Li knew that one of the men did not know English but had a hunch the other one did. He investigated the other man and figured out that he was a spy for the Chinese government. Macwhite was very shocked and felt very dumb.