Bush Hat, Black Tie is a novelist's wry, firsthand look at life as an American diplomat. Howard R. Simpson takes the reader on his own challenging assignments in wartime French Indochina, Nigeria, France, wartime South Vietnam, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Algeria, and the United States, as he witnesses the end of the colonial era and serves in the diplomatic front lines of the Cold War.

Thoroughly dispelling the stuffy, "striped pants" image of diplomacy, he reveals the often strange, always interesting realities of representing one's country overseas, whether while wearing a bush hat in the battlefields of Indochina or a tuxedo at the Cannes Film Festival. The colorful personalities he encounters along the way range from Dwight Eisenhower and Charles DeGaulle to Alfred Hitchcock and Henry Miller.