One Man's Purpose

In his pre-take-off message, the President of the U.S. spoke with quiet precision of the reason for his eleven-nation, 22,370-mile global mission.

"In every country," said he, "I hope to make widely known America's deepest desire: a world in which all nations may prosper in freedom, justice and peace, unmolested and unafraid."

At a time when many a politico and philosopher was scratching around for words to express U.S. national purpose (TIME, Nov. 16), Dwight Eisenhower's definition of purpose was a simple and uncluttered articulation of a lofty U.S. purpose. And the people for whom it was primarily intended got the message.

Wrote Journalist Luigi Barzini in Corriere Delia Sera on the day after Ike's arrival in Rome: "We welcome this man who speaks to us with the accent of Kansas of farmers who cultivate fields of wheat as vast as seas, of pioneers who went West not long before his birth. He speaks without rhetoric before the imminent peril as he calls for 'Peace, Peace,' --but not peace for the sake of quiet or lack of principle, but peace in which free men believe."

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