DRAGON IN PARADISE

Paradise is Thailand with its ""Mai Ben Rai"" or maybe-never mystique, a ar Eastern variant of manana. Communists are perched on the border, ready to in- and within there is an American unit known as MAAG (Military Assistance Ad Group- to help foreign countries defend themselves in the cold war). Newly arrived there is General Mason, and his aide Jim Cooper, superseding an American olonel whose bureaucratic and insular administration has done little for the Thais or the U.S. While the General re-styles the operation, Cooper falls in love with Tongchai, disregards the warning of another native friend and all the eyerows raised at Government House, until he learns that East is East and the twain saving met must part.... A romance with a counterpoint of military activity (McNally was an Army man), this with the Ugly Americanism of its theme and occasional cidents may double (the word is not used quantitatively) for that audience. In oite of its stereo-prototypes, it is a steadily readable story.