On with the Trip

It was only 48 hours after his arrival in Manila from Alaska that President Eisenhower got the news from Japan. P:In the span of those few hours, Ike's reception had been a blazing triumph, hailed by more than a million Filipinos, flower-laden girls, boisterous, cheering mobs, tons of gaily colored confetti--the warmest welcome he had received since his historic visit to India. Now hundreds of thousands of Filipinos gathered in Manila's bayside Luneta park for a civic reception. Ike and President Carlos Garcia were standing on the ramp of a concrete bandstand, reviewing a military parade. A U.S. Army Signal Corps team had installed a White House telephone near by; it had been left on an upturned yellow oilcan. As Ike watched the parade, the phone suddenly jangled. A U.S. Secret Service agent picked it up. listened for a moment, then quickly got hold of White House Secret Service Boss Jim Rowley, who took the phone, and then passed it over to White House Staff Secretary Brigadier General Andrew Goodpaster.

As Ike settled into his leather chair, Goodpaster leaned forward and began whispering into the President's left ear. Ike's head snapped around. The two talked for about a minute, as President Garcia, sitting at Ike's side, politely assumed an air of interest in the parade. When Ike turned again, his face told the story: his mouth turned down; his eyes, framed with crowfoot lines, squinted. Then he shook his head and pursed his lips. Turning back to Goodpaster and to Press Secretary Jim Hagerty, who was close by, Ike said: "We better get something out on this as soon as we can. You fellows ride over to the palace with me after this thing. And get Doug MacArthur on the phone." He faced front again, mouthing a single, soundless word. Abruptly he whispered to President Garcia, swung around to tell Mrs. Garcia, then looked out over the grassy park for a long moment.

The Single Cause. Ike shrugged off his brief reverie to accept the Order of Sikatuna, rank of Raja, from Garcia (the Philippines' highest decoration for foreign heads of state). When the speeches were done, he met with his staff at Malacanan Palace, dictated a statement that expressed his "full and sympathetic understanding of the decision taken by the Japanese government," and his "regrets that a small, organized minority, led by professional Communist agitators . . . have been able by resort to force and violence" to prevent the good-will visit. Said Ike that night: "I would have liked to go--I still wish I could."

Despite his initial discouragement, the President quickly fell in with the swift rush of ceremony that crowded his three days in Manila. His address to a joint session of the Filipino Congress was a telling comparison between the modern-day colonialism of Communist nations and the American ideal of a world of free, sovereign nations. "The basic antagonism of the Communist system to anything which it cannot control is the single, most important cause of the tension between the free nations . . . and the rigidly controlled Communist bloc. Since 1945, 33 lands that were once subject to Western control have peaceably achieved self-determination. These 33 countries have a population of almost a billion people. During the same period, twelve countries in the Sino-Soviet sphere have been forcibly deprived of their independence. The question might be asked: 'Who are today the colonialists?' "

80,000-Gun Salute. Steaming along the coast of Luzon aboard the U.S. cruiser St. Paul (and flanked by an armada of 125 Seventh Fleet warships), the President got a chance to relax for a day and two nights before he arrived in Formosa. He moved out into the sun, met with his staff to rearrange his schedule. The Japanese situation still nagged him, and in one of the rare occasions in his staff's memory, he ordered the State Department to forward him a brief on world reaction to the cancellation of the Tokyo trip.

Though the Nationalist Chinese went all-out to welcome him--300,000 crowded the streets of Taipei, waving flags, shouting, dancing--the Communist Chinese on the mainland provided their own cynical reception by pouring 85,965 shells onto Quemoy and the rest of the islands in the offshore archipelago. (Said a newsman: "Ike's the only chief of state who ever got an 80,000-gun salute.") Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang turned out a huge ceremonial dinner, and, as with Garcia, Ike sealed U.S. friendship with Chiang in a communique of hope and promise.

Uncowed. In teeming Seoul more than 1,000,000 Koreans gave the President a cyclonic reception. Time and again, the presidential motorcade was halted smack in the middle of the wild, uncontrollable, cheering crowds. Police swung clubs in menacing arcs, and slashed about with light bamboo switches. Still, the Koreans could not be cowed. They grabbed at Ike's open Lincoln as he stood waving and smiling, tore off the radio aerial and a side mirror. People fainted in the crush, as voluntary student leaders in sports shirts trotted ahead of the motorcade trying to slice through the thick sea of humanity.

An old man fell down in front of Ike's car, and the President had to shout to Jim Rowley to stop the car in time. Again and again, the jerking starts and stops of the car almost sent Ike toppling into his seat, until Acting Prime Minister Huh Chung rose and held the President up by pushing against his back. One Korean man reached out and grabbed the President's hand and held on tight, nearly pulling Ike off his feet, until Rowley grabbed the man's hand and expertly twisted it loose.

The cares of the Japanese mess vanished from Ike's face as he turned on a half-moon smile, hunched his shoulders, jerked a thumb upward, waved, laughed. At length, the mobs grew so tight along the route that the motorcade dodged into an odoriferous alley and swept by side streets to the U.S. embassy residence.

Happily for Ike's week, the explosion of the Korean welcome still echoed next day as the President headed for Hawaii and. ultimately, for home.

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