Pages of History

The President of the U.S., standing in the moving Rolls-Royce with King Paul of Greece early last week, clasped his hands over his midriff and laughed in wonderment at the evident warmth of the welcome that showered around him on the streets of Athens. "I think he's absolutely getting to love this," said a tired staffer. "He doesn't say so, but he'd have to be superhuman not to feel this way." In the third week of his 22,000-mile journey, Dwight Eisenhower indeed was having a wonderful time. In Iran, in Greece and in Tunisia, where monuments of great ancient civilizations still stand, the glowing pageant of people seemed to rush by like pages riffled in a history book.

After his triumph of India, Ike moved on to Teheran, where for six chilly hours (28DEG) the Shah of Iran was his host. The Shah turned out some splendid Persian-style opulence for the visiting American: beautiful rugs were laid on the streets under ceremonial arches and along the final 200 yards of the route to the Shah's marble palace. After lunch with the Shah, Ike told the Iranian Parliament: "I well know you and the people of Iran are not standing on the sidelines in this struggle [for peace among nations]. Without flinching, you have borne the force of a powerful propaganda assault." Privately, the Shah worried about the military buildup, with Communist arms, in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq, and warned the President to beware of the Russians at the summit. Ike praised the Shah for bearing up under Soviet propaganda blasts and threats, assured him that he would support continued U.S. aid to Iran.

Frilled Skirts. By evening, Ike was in Athens, and cheering throngs lined Poseidon Avenue and the streets of the suburb of Phaleron (where St. Paul is said to have landed when he journeyed to Greece). Rose petals pelted him as the procession moved past half a million people. "Viva!" they yelled (while the Communists chanted "Hyphesis"--Down with Tension). Ike could see the Parthenon glowing in light on the Acropolis, the ruins of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and a small obelisk monument to Americans who were killed in Greece's 1821-29 war for independence from the Ottoman Empire. At the Parliament Building, the royal guard of evzones, in their familiar red fezzes and frilled skirts, were drawn up to watch Ike lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier.

Such Greek problems as Cyprus and the threat of Iron Curtain countries to the north got a thorough going-over during Ike's talks with Premier Constantin Karamanlis. The Greeks, too, delicately hinted that the President should not put too much stock in Russian peace talk, reminded him that they had fought a bitter civil war to drive the Communists out of the country after World War II. Greece had staked out a priority interest in all Balkan affairs, and got from Ike his assurances that the U.S. and Greece would consult on such affairs.

Marching Saints. By helicopter, Ike swung down to the deck of the U.S. Cruiser Des Moines, flagship of Vice Admiral George W. Anderson Jr.'s Sixth Fleet. On his cruise through the Mediterranean, the President finally got a chance to unwind. He slipped into a sports coat and slacks, watched an after-dinner movie, turned in early, slept one night for nine hours.

The Navy put on a show of bombing and strafing tactics next day for the benefit of the press party that was billeted aboard the accompanying aircraft carrier Essex, and Ike watched that for a short time. All hands got a glimpse of fine old Navy tradition when Des Moines steamed past Britain's cruiser H.M.S. Tiger, the flagship of NATO Mediterranean Commander Admiral Sir Alexander Bingley. Tiger boomed a 21-gun salute, her band blared out The Star-Spangled Banner, Des Moines's band blasted back God Save the Queen, and Essex's band tootled out with When the Saints Go Marching In.

You-You-You. On the morning of the third day out, the fleet dropped anchor in the Bay of Tunis, and Ike and his party buzzed by helicopter to the Tunis suburb of La Marsa, just north of the old Punic ruins of Carthage. There, on a small asphalt lot, 500 yards from the presidential summer and guest palace Dar es Saada ("House of Happiness"), Ike shook hands with Tunisia's stubby, vigorous President Habib Bourguiba. In his warm words of welcome, Bourguiba put in a plug for anticolonialism. "This visit," said he, "will bring high hope and promise to the peoples of Africa fighting a decisive battle for human dignity: a battle both to liquidate the last outposts of a stubborn colonialism, and to rescue themselves from backwardness and privation."

Breakfast (mutton chops) was followed by an hour-and-a-half discussion of African problems, in which they agreed--as a communique later put it--that there is "cause of grave concern" because the Algerian problem has not been solved. With an effervescent Bourguiba tugging at his arm, Ike went off to view Tunisia's gifts to the President: a delicately boned little Persian-Arabian gelding called Ghali (Precious) and two yearling desert gazelles. The two Presidents then drove to the nearby American cemetery, past crowds of women who hailed Ike with a birdlike warbling that sounded like you-you-you. Ike laid a red, white and blue wreath, stood bareheaded for a long two minutes in tribute to the dead of his former North Africa command. Then he drove on past big, shouting crowds to the airport, and four hours after he landed in Tunisia, was steaming toward Toulon.

For a good part of his nine-hour train trip north to Paris, Ike was closeted with Secretary of State Christian Herter, who had come down from Paris to meet him and brief him on NATO matters. At Paris, about 500 people jostled into the Lyon Station at 10:30 p.m. to watch as Eisenhower and President de Gaulle shook hands. It was a businesslike welcome, with little pomp, and after they chatted for a few moments the two men parted for the night. It was late, and ahead for Ike were three hard days of talks with other Western leaders, brief stops at Madrid and Casablanca, and--having written a few pages of history himself--the long flight back to Washington and Christmas Eve at home.

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