Presidential Emissary

President Eisenhower gave dramatic proof this week that his Administration is not going to neglect Latin America. He addressed a special meeting of the Council of the Organization of American States, held in connection with the observance of Pan American Day. It was the first time since 1946 that a President of the U.S. had appeared at this annual ceremony.

Before the entire diplomatic corps (21 ambassadors with their staffs), the President paid tribute to hemispheric unity as "triumphant testimony before all the world that peace and trust and fellowship can rule the conduct of nations," and pledged that cooperation, not intervention, would continue to be the ruling principle of U.S. Latin American policy.

Because "current duties make impossible, my making personal visits of courtesy to the countries of Latin America," said the President, he had asked his brother, Milton Eisenhower, president of Pennsylvania State College, to make a fact-finding tour of Latin American countries for him.

"He will report to me," said Ike, "to Secretary of State Dulles and to Assistant Secretary Cabot, on ways to be recommended for strengthening the bonds between us and all our neighbors."

Milton Eisenhower's choice as the President's personal representative abroad pointed up his important, though unpublicized, position in the Administration. He knows the President's mind more intimately than any other adviser. Youngest of the five Eisenhower brothers, he is the closest to Ike. Their close association dates from the years they served together in Washington in the '20s and '30s, Ike as a staff major and Milton as the Agriculture Department's information chief.

The two men think much alike and set great store by each other's opinion. Milton went over Ike's memoirs, Crusade in Europe, in manuscript. When Milton moved from the presidency of Kansas State to Penn State in 1950, Ike counseled him and was on hand to help install him in his new office. Says the President: "[Milton's] breadth of experience is really quite a remarkable thing. He is at once at home with ideas and also so practical. I think I'd rather take his views than those of anyone else. He's a unique baby brother--he's got the respect of all the older ones."

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