Neighbors

The big man with the smile and the seersucker suit extended a big hand. "I'm glad you're here," he said simply. The trim, high-domed man in the brownish-purplish suit answered: "I'm glad to be here."

Other men at such a meeting might have searched their minds for more memorable words. Not so Good Neighbor Franklin Roosevelt and Good Neighbor Manuel Prado Ugarteche of Peru. But it was a memorable occasion: Senor Prado was the first incumbent President of a South American country ever to visit Washington.

The air-minded President had strato-clippered the 2,875 miles from Lima to Bolling Field, where waited Franklin Roosevelt and pomp & circumstance. Although no parade had been scheduled, seven military bands and guards of honor at "present arms" flanked the four-mile route. In sockets on Franklin Roosevelt's "Sunshine Special," his big, shiny limousine, stood the Presidential flag and Peru's red-and-white banner. Government workers hung out of office windows. It was Washington's first parade since Pearl Harbor.

The simple friendliness of the Roosevelt greeting made sense to President Prado. Peru's executive is no stuffed shirt. His father was twice President of Peru; a brother, the late Leoncio, is a national hero. Manuel Prado was a scientist, an industrial manager, a banker. But his rise had been a hard grind. His first political experience, as superintendent of a polling station in the elections of 1912, was a beating by a hostile mob. While an undergraduate at Peru's University of San Marcos, he enlisted in the Army as a private, saw front-line service during the war with Ecuador in 1910. He had struggled along on the salary of an assistant professor in infinitesimal analysis at San Marcos. Accused by the Government of revolutionary sympathies, he was imprisoned, deported, was for ten years a European exile.

Smooth, tough-minded President Prado had supported the anti-Axis front. Even as President Prado flew north, Peru and the U.S. were completing a reciprocal trade agreement. The bonds between the nations were those of common sense and common interest.

President Prado presented his White House hosts with a hand-hammered silver plate, an assortment of ancient Inca pottery and water jugs; for four days went to formal luncheons, dinners and receptions. Then he addressed Congress--the first Latin American President to do so--and headed for Detroit.

In the next ten days President Prado, visiting U.S. war-production centers, would plainly see how the once-feared Colossus of the North was pouring its fabulous wealth of men and money and guns against an enemy that threatened Peru too.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.