Mr. Willkie Lands

When Wendell Willkie arrived by plane in England one day this week, the country was enjoying comparative quiet. A transport had shuttled him from Lisbon to a western England airport. As the plane came down, Mr. Willkie was impatiently striding up & down the aisle; the bump of the landing threw Mr. Willkie flat. Back on his feet and brushed off, he burst out of the cabin door. "I never felt better in my life," he exclaimed. To reporters who knew who he was but wanted to know what he was, he said, "I am just Wendell Willkie," and hopped off to London by another plane.

To awestruck newsmen in London, who noted his rumpled suit, his rumpled hair, his Willkie campaign necktie--a blue four-in-hand with white stripes spelling his name--he declared: "I have nothing to say except that I have had a fine passage over and that I am here." In Lisbon he had made it as plain as he could that he and the President saw eye to eye on one matter: "The objective of giving full aid to Great Britain finds myself in full accord with President Roosevelt." First of the many Britons whom he questioned was the chambermaid who served him early morning tea in his hotel room. "How's the war going?" Mr. Willkie asked. Said she: "Of course we're going to win but I think we'd like a little more help from America." To the waiter at breakfast he shot the same question, got much the same answer.

Off went energetic Mr. Willkie for a quick tour of the devastated district around St. Paul's, a call on Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, lunch at No. 10 Downing Street with Winston Churchill. Two hours later he emerged. "I knew he was a great man," said Mr. Willkie. "I know it now even more." Although the British press had been--as far as was deemed politic--all for Roosevelt's reelection, a shaken London paper murmured: "Willkie is the most interesting personality with the exception of Mr. Roosevelt who has appeared in American public life since the other Roosevelt withdrew from it nearly 30 years ago."

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