FOREIGN RELATIONS: Better than the Pros

There had been no reason to suppose that General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s European inspection trip would be anything but the most routine of journeys. The world was fed up with heroes, and he was returning to the scenes of his triumph only 17 months after the dramatic moment of victory. But almost as soon as he landed in England three weeks ago, his trip evolved into a triumphal tour such as few Americans had ever experienced.

Working girls at Prestwick, Scotland, thronged around his plane as if he were a combination of Tyrone Power and Laurence Olivier. Queen Mary, a woman with no nonsense about her, was openly captivated. Cried a London barmaid: “Nobody can say anything but the best about Ike.” Taxi drivers, fishmongers, newspapermen echoed her words. In Luxembourg, street crowds chanted “Ike! Ike! Ike!” in the most undignified and friendly manner possible. U.S. occupation troops in Austria. Italy and Germany seemed to forget that they were fed up with garrison duty.

Despite bad weather, late meals, the strain of 28 days of almost continuous travel, General Ike always seemed to be enjoying himself. Though it was obvious that he did not court adulation, he seemed unfailingly appreciative of applause and good wishes. When he was given an honorary degree, along with Field Marshal .Viscount Montgomery, at Cambridge, the Public Orator said of him (in Latin): “The truth is he himself showed such an example of kindly wisdom, such a combination of serious purpose, humanity and courtesy that the others soon had no thought in their minds save to labor with one common will for the success of all.” His tact, humor and sincerity prompted a British novelist to say: “No American visiting this country has had his unfailing gift of saying the right thing at the right time.”

So Friendly. He was forthright in the extreme. He asked a G.I. in Italy last week if he had an Italian girl friend. When the G.I. hesitated, then answered “No, sir,” Ike grinned and said: “The Army has gone to hell.” He stated the dream of peace in strictly G.I. language to soldiers at Gorizia: “We are so friendly we do not want to fight any more. We do not want anything to interfere with the World Series.” He told reporters in Berlin that he felt there was too much pessimistic talk in the world, pointed to the Allied Control Council as proof that the wartime Allies could still cooperate. But in Edinburgh he said: “Wishful thinking . . . about . . . universal peace cannot accomplish the elimination of war from human life.”

Last week, as he got back home to the U.S., a British major of artillery summed him up in words with which many an American would agree: “Ike is worth the whole lot of professional diplomats.”