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                                                                                May 26, 1958

Epochal Journey



     They began arriving at 10 a.m. by the dozens, then by the
hundreds. By noon there were nearly 15,000 -- ordinary citizens,
students with placards of welcome, brass bands, civil servants,
diplomats, Congressmen, Cabinet members and the President of the
U.S. -- crushing around the DC-6B just landed at Washington's
National Airport. In the plane's doorway appeared Vice President
and Mrs. Richard Nixon, back from their tumultuous 18-day tour of
Latin America. This was their homecoming, rare in its deep-felt
warmth.

     The receiving line broke up, swirled around the Nixons. "You
did a great job, damn your soul," beamed South Carolina's
Democratic Representative Mendel Rivers to Republican Nixon. And
then, to President Eisenhower: "Didn't he do a wonderful job?"
Pennsylvania's Republican Representative James Fulton shouted to
Mrs. Nixon: "How about a kiss for the President, Pat?" The
President ducked away, grinning, lifting a shielding arm: "Dick is
here, and Dick still carries a wallop." On a temporary speaker's
stand President Eisenhower nudged Pat Nixon, pointed to one of the
dozens of placards bobbing above the crowd. Its legend: "Viva la
Blond!"

     Finally, the President waved for quiet, spoke into a battery
of microphones. "All America welcomes them home," said Dwight
Eisenhower. "We stand together in condemning any kind of Communist
leadership of any such incidents as endangered our beloved Vice
President and his wife." Replied Nixon: "I don't think that either
of us has ever been so moved . . . returning as we do." Minutes
later the homecoming caravan rolled away from the airport, along
streets lined with 100,000 people, under a triumphant arch of
fire-engine ladders, to the White House, where Nixon spent the
next hour and a half reporting on his trip to the President and
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

     Nip & Tuck. Both the President and Dulles had been living
anxiously on the edge of Nixon's trip since Tuesday, when Ike got
first word at a White House luncheon of the Venezuelan mob attack
on the Nixons. The President's first move was to order Dulles to
find out from the Venezuelan embassy if its government was able to
protect the Nixons. He added: "We had better find out what we have
militarily in the area." The President called Defense Secretary
Neil NcElroy and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Nathan Twining.
Under Secretary of State Christian Herter, who had, through aides,
been in touch with the Nixon party in Venezuela, called McElroy,
reported the situation as "nip and tuck."

     When Herter's report came, McElroy was in conference with the
Joint Chiefs. The Army's Maxwell Taylor arose, asked McElroy
crisply: "May I use your phone?" Permission granted, Taylor
snapped out orders for the 101st Airborne Division at Fort
Campbell, Ky. to alert two companies. Equipment: "Packet A" --
i.e., anti-riot weapons, such as billy clubs and tear gas.

     That afternoon President Eisenhower made his decision: he
ordered Army paratroopers and Marines flown to U.S. bases in Cuba
and Puerto Rico, there to stand ready to protect the Vice
President. A fundamental condition: the troops would be sent into
Venezuela only at the request of the Venezuelan government. The
Joint Chiefs drew up a provisional plan: if Nixon should be
actually besieged, two companies of the 101st Airborne would
parachute into Caracas to secure the airfield, followed by two
Marine companies, about 500 men, making a sea landing from the
missile cruiser Boston. The carrier Tarawa would be steaming
toward Caracas with another 250 Marines. Helicopters would be sent
from the airport to the embassy for the Nixons, then the troops
would pull out fast.

     But such action did not prove necessary; next morning
President Eisenhower talked to Nixon by telephone, learned that
Caracas was calmer. That day, needled by questions about Yanqui
diplomacy at his press conference, the President replied calmly:
"Well, it is the most, the simplest precautionary type of measure
in the world."

     Cheers & Jeers. The press conference questions signaled the
U.S. uproar to come. The last welcoming cheer for Richard Nixon's
homecoming had barely died away when the political outcry began.
Oregon's Nixon-hating Democrat Wayne Morse announced that his
Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Latin America would
investigate the whole Nixon tour, calling in State Department,
Central Intelligence Agency and other witnesses "to learn what
they knew of the potential for the outbreaks of violence and anti-
Americanism before the Vice President scheduled his trip." The
full Senate Foreign Relations Committee promptly took over the
investigation, scheduled its own hearings and widened the scope.
Democratic National Chairman Paul Butler got into the act,
declared Nixon's good-will trips abroad were mere propaganda
designed to get him on Page One. Replied White House Press
Secretary James Hagerty: "How silly can you get?"

     The nation's press leaped freely into the growing national
fray. New York Times Pundit Arthur Krock found one Democratic
leader who blamed Nixon for "trying to argue U.S. democracy
through an interpreter at a loss to this country's dignity and his
own." The Washington Post & Times Herald's Robert C. Albright
quoted "several Democrats" who wondered "how much of the hostility
exhibited at Lima and Caracas was directed against Nixon himself
as a controversial individual." One or two even wondered whether
Adlai Stevenson or some other prominent Democrat might not have
had better treatment on a similar South American tour.

     For the Republicans, Army Secretary Wilber Brucker added
heat, but no light, to the debate by saying that Nixon's "sole
offense as a cause of the rioting is that he is anti-Communist and
anti-Alger Hiss." Connecticut's G.O.P. Representative Albert
Morano and Pennsylvania's Republican James Fulton invited all
their colleagues to sign up for "Nixon in '60." Six did.

     "We Should Be Proud." Beyond the simple political name-
calling were two substantive questions: Had the U.S. received
adequate advance warning of the riots that might greet Nixon in
South America? If so, should Nixon have gone? In fact, U.S.
intelligence had considered it probable that there would be
Communist-led demonstrations, even while underestimating their
intensity and overestimating the ability of the Latin American
governments to handle them. As to whether Nixon should have gone
under such circumstances, the best-informed answer lay in the fact
that his having gone brought important long-range benefits far
out-weighing temporary embarrassments.

     Richard Nixon returned from South America convinced that it
has undergone considerable social and economic revolution in the
last decade -- and that U.S. diplomacy has not caught up with the
change. As he had on his trip to Africa, he found some U.S.
diplomats mingling only with the thin upper-crust of society,
totally unaware of the aspirations of the restless students and
intellectuals. He arrived in Washington determined to throw all
his influence into revamping U.S. policy toward Latin America.

     "The people there," said he, "are concerned, as they should
be, about poverty, misery and disease. They are determined to do
something about it. And the U.S. is, and should be, proud to work
with them as partners in moving toward democracy, toward freedom,
toward economic progress." If achievement of that partnership is
the outcome, then Nixon's troubled trip to Latin America may at
the final summing have been a historic success.


____________________________________________________________
NIXON: TARGET ON THE HOME FRONT


     NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE:

     All Americans, of whatever party, will wish to honor the
unflinching courage both the Nixons displayed in very grave
danger. We urge Congress to strike a special medal in their honor.

     Americans always put politics aside when the nation's honor
is involved. The flag that was dragged in the dirt at Caracas was
the flag of all of us. The spittle that struck Nixon and his wife
was meant for all of us. And the perils which the Nixons braved
were braved for all of us.

     NEW YORK POST:

     Vice President Nixon's Latin American journey has ended in a
total debacle for the U.S. No one can question the concern for
Nixon's safety voiced by President Eisenhower. But the flamboyant
flight of American troops to the scene will surely be recorded as
one of the most monstrous blunders of our ill-fated Latin American
diplomacy. The President, whose capacity for indecision has become
historic, chose exactly the wrong moment and the wrong method to
prove that he is a man of action. The President acted like the
Communist caricature of the Yankee imperialist. As for Nixon, he
has greatly diminished sympathy for his behavior by a vulgar
attempt to convert this dismal tour into a presidential campaign
trip. He had established his valor in Peru; his insistence on a
repeat performance in Venezuela indicated that he was utterly
seduced by his press notices, and incapable of recognizing his
own limitations.

     Columnist ELEANOR ROOSEVELT:

     Everyone in this country must have been concerned at the
demonstration in Peru against the U.S. and Vice President Nixon,
who is our goodwill ambassador. But it certainly was not wise for
the Vice President to go against the advice of the people who knew
the area and begged him not to try and keep his appointment at the
university. Like all young men, however, he wanted to prove his
courage. This is understandable but sometimes leads to unfortunate
results.

     Our policy of giving military aid to foreign nations instead
of actually raising the living standards in those countries has
been a mistake.

     Columnist WALTER LIPPMANN:

     After all the official regrets and apologies have been
received and accepted, the immediate question before us is how it
happened that the Nixons were exposed to these outrages. It is
manifest that the whole South American tour was misconceived, that
it was planned by men who did not know what was the state of mind
in the cities the Vice President was to visit. For what has
happened should never have been allowed to happen and those who
are responsible for the management of our relations with South
America must answer to the charge of gross incompetence. We must
fix and we must correct the causes that led our officials into
this fiasco -- into what it would not be exaggeration to call a
diplomatic Pearl Harbor.

     Columnist DAVID LAWRENCE:

     What a cowardly thing it would be for the United States
Government to refuse to go ahead with a trip previously announced
and to give as the reason that it couldn't expect -- from friendly
governments -- protection or security for a visiting delegation!

     Not only would the governments of Latin America have been
offended, but they would have winced under the charge that they
couldn't protect the distinguished visitors they themselves had
invited.

     The Kremlin has declared "war" against the U.S. in Latin
America. It is called a "cold war," and it takes the form of
demonstrations, but underneath there is an apparatus designed to
aid the strategic purpose of the communist regime. Formenting of
hostile demonstrations against the Vice President of the U.S. on
his visit to various South American countries could only be
achieved by direct orders of the Moscow government.

     CHICAGO TRIBUNE:

     To give the impression of an intention to take over the
internal policing of a neighbor country with whose government the
U.S. is on technically friendly terms, no matter what excesses may
be charged to its citizens, is not only unfortunate but a blunder.
It recalls the era in which the Marines were policing banana
republics and represents gratuitous support of the Communist
propaganda line that the U.S. follows a policy of imperialism.

     NEW YORK TIMES:

     The public dispatch of 1,000 Marines and paratroopers to
Caribbean bases in reply to the outrageous attack in Venezuela on
Vice President and Mrs. Nixon could not do anyone any good and
seems certain to do the United States harm.

     The Venezuelan Government was extremely remiss in failing to
provide adequate protection for the Nixons, who were its guests;
but the United States did not add to its prestige by making this
publicly threatening and futile gesture.

     NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:

     USA: EAGLE OR PIGEON?

     SAN FRANCISCO NEWS:

     The mood of our Government should not be punitive, but we
think, in all decency, that in the light of these events there
would be more public acknowledgment in South America of the
tremendous amounts we spend for their products; a friendlier
attitude toward our Point Four and other aid programs, and some
show of disapproval at all the anti-Yanqui propaganda.

     WASHINGTON STAR:

     With all deference, we venture to suggest that those
Democrats who are trying to capitalize on the President's dispatch
of troops to the Caribbean after the Caracas incident have
embarked on what will prove to be the most unrewarding political
venture of this generation.

     Perhaps the President should have waited to see whether the
mob was going to storm the American Embassy and drag Mr. and Mrs.
Nixon into the street. But we don't think so. And we don't believe
the American people will think so, either.

     JOURNAL OF COMMERCE:

     We cannot entirely suppress a wish that Mr. Nixon could have
been accompanied on his present tour by those twelve Western
Senators who are working so hard to clamp new restrictions on lead
and zinc imports. They would, we are sure, have found the trip
instructive.

     THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY:

     Anybody who has any conception at all of the interdependence
of all nations must have known all the time that South American
countries are understandably jittery about what the fluctuations
in our economy and in our neighborly concern will mean for them.
Anyone who has traveled at all in South America must have felt the
uneasiness in recent years. Anyone with any sense at all must have
known that radical agitators would have been making as much
illicit hay as possible among honestly worried peoples. But
apparently all of us had to see Vice President Nixon despised and
rejected by university students and less raucously snooted by
plenty of plain citizens before we could get the idea that South
Americans aren't taking us for granted the way we've been taking
them for granted.