Nixon Africanus

Time and again, as the official motorcade edged its way through Casablanca's thronged streets, the smiling guest of honor left his blue Chevrolet convertible to mingle with the cheering crowds, shake hands, pass out ballpoint pens (left over from the U.S. presidential campaign) marked "Vice President Richard Nixon." Right beside him was Pat, with hard candies and bonbons for the children. Gashed Moroccan Foreign Minister Ahmed Balafrej, whose country was celebrating the first anniversary of its independence from France: "This is unprecedented."

Commissioned by the President to make an eight-nation, 18,000-mile goodwill trip across newly stirring Africa, Ike's No. 1 roving ambassador had landed at Rabat, Morocco's capital, a day earlier, and at once plunged into the person-to-person, handshake-and-smile campaign with which--on five previous overseas missions--he had won new friends for the U.S. from Manila to Guatemala. And already the trip was showing a policy profit. In private talks with Mohammed V, Sultan of Morocco, during which the two leaders discussed the future of U.S. bases in the country, U.S. economic aid, etc., Nixon got the Sultan's approval for the Eisenhower Doctrine, in turn assured Mohammed that the U.S. would soon help him with his economic problems. As for strategic air bases, the U.S. was in "no danger" that they would be lost.

At week's end Nixon and party--including Congresswoman Frances P. Bolton, Congressman Charles C. Diggs Jr. (one of the three Negroes in the House) and Walter A. Gordon, Negro governor of the Virgin Islands--flew into Accra, capital of the Gold Coast, to represent the U.S. at ceremonies marking the transformation of that British colony into the independent Commonwealth State of Ghana.

As his DC-6B rolled to a stop on the tarmac, Nixon was still going strong despite a feverish head cold and the wearing effects of the bumpy, eleven-hour flight. He exchanged formal speeches with government leaders, remained at the airport for 20 minutes to acknowledge the thunderous cheers ("Freedom! Freedom!") of some thousands of Ghanians massed behind a fence at the edge of the flag-ringed field to greet him. Quipped the Vice President, leaning over the white fence to shake hands: "In America, we call this the boardinghouse reach." By late this month, when Nixon plans to wind up his current trip, the new Nixon-style boardinghouse reach will have spread far and wide over Moslem and Negro Africa the personal good will of the no longer so distant U.S.

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