Quick-Change Statesman

THE CABINET

Quick-Change Statesman

Last February Dr. Enrique Olaya Herrera, for eight years the Colombian minister at Washington, was elected President of Colombia. It was a unique election in that no one was killed in the campaign, no one contested the victory afterward.

When Dr. Olaya sailed back to the U. S. in April, New York welcomed him as a President-elect. Once aboard the train for Washington, however, he voluntarily reverted to Minister. This role he quietly maintained until last week when, to comply with the demands of international etiquette, he strangely changed himself back to President-elect for four days, only to revert to Minister once more.

Originally Dr. Olaya had arranged with the State Department to come out of his ministerial cocoon as a butterfly head-of-state in mid-June. Unexpectedly the State Department learned that Julio Prestes, President-elect of Brazil, planned to return President Hoover's goodwill visit in mid-June. The prospect of two Latin-American Presidents-elect simultaneously in Washington unnerved the State Department's master of protocol to the point of requesting Dr. Olaya to advance his transmogrification.

Diplomatic custom requires that one must go away before one can be received back with due ceremony. Therefore Minister Olaya, unattended, went to the Union Station, handed his bag to a redcap, boarded an ordinary Pullman to New York where he went into seclusion. A few days later the U. S. rode him back to Washington in a special train. At the Union Station top-hatted officials from the State Department lined up to greet him. Military and naval units snapped to salute. The Marine Band groped its way through the Colombian national anthem (El Himno National). Guns fired 21 rounds.

President-elect Olaya called formally on President Hoover for 15 minutes. President Hoover called formally on President-elect Olaya for 13 minutes. He was No. 1 guest at a State dinner at the White House, at another at Woodley, home of Secretary of State Stimson. He got a presidential salute at Annapolis, laid a wreath on the Washington tomb at Mt. Vernon, wreathed the Unknown Soldier's tomb at Arlington National Cemetery. He was ceremoniously lunched at the Pan-American Union.

Then, just before he boarded a train for Chicago, Dr. Olaya switched back from President-elect to Minister, took his leave without ceremony. This week he planned to return to Washington incognito, hide himself in the Colombian legation, come forth June 16--once more as President-elect--to receive the customary honors of an official farewell.

In the course of his transformations back and forth Dr. Olaya found time to execute Colombia's business in the U. S. One act: to engage Professor Edwin Walter Kemmerer, famed Princeton fiscal physician, for a survey of Colombia's governmental finances (TIME, May 13). Professor Kemmerer will go to Colombia in September under a contract guaranteeing him a fee of $100,000 and $20,000 for expenses.

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