How Not to Make Friends

S. Thava Rajah, 33, is one of the top labor leaders in Johore, the southernmost state of Malaya.' Last month he came to the U.S. to spend 90 days as the guest of the U.S. State Department. His visit is part of State's program to bring foreign leaders and specialists to the U.S. to learn about the country. Sole aim of the program: to make friends for the U.S.

In its inimitable way, Washington, D.C. immediately went about defeating this aim. With an Egyptian exchange student, Rajah went to a drugstore in the Longfellow Building, the same building that houses State's Office of International Information, which sponsored Rajah's visit. He and his friend wanted ice-cream sodas. They waited, signaled to waitresses and tapped the counter, but "were ignored for half an hour. They left without being served.

Next day Rajah and another exchange student, a German, went sightseeing, then stopped at another drugstore. After they had sat at a table a few minutes, a waitress came up and said: "We don't serve colored people here." Despite Rajah's explanation that he was a foreigner and a guest of the U.S. Government, he and his companion were refused service.

A few days later, Rajah, a Burmese judge and a Malayan university lecturer went to a restaurant for an after-theater snack. Said a waitress: "We don't serve black people in here." Said the manager: "It's the law." But when the three visitors tried to find out about the law, they got nowhere, because there is no such law.

After these incidents, Malayan Rajah last week was not necessarily unfriendly, but he was vastly puzzled. Said he: "After all, isn't white a color? I am terribly surprised by all this. You people talk democracy, and you must be careful to practice what you preach."

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