Foreign Relations: Have Talking Cell, Will Travel

“Look! It’s Bob Hope!” cried one canal dweller as the aquatic parade set houseboats arocking on a Bangkok klong. Well, almost. On his far-flung tour of the Far East last week, Hubert Horatio Humphrey everywhere displayed his infectious euphoria, dispensed pharmaceutical advice and ad-libbed some passable one-liners. Before leaving South Viet Nam, he was invited by Chief of State Nguyen Van Thieu to come back and hunt an elephant some time. “I spend most of my time at home,” replied Humphrey, “hunting elephants.”

Between klong calling and baby bussing, Humphrey worked hard and happily at the serious business of representing his Government on the impromptu, nine-nation, 41,000-mile tour that Lyndon Johnson decreed as a fitting epilogue to the strategy conference in Hawaii. The Vice President carried it off with verve and style.

Infiltrated Pigs? His mission was to promulgate the two-war theme enunciated in the Declaration of Honolulu. “Yes, indeed,” he declared in South Viet Nam, “two wars can be won—the war to defeat the aggressor and the war to defeat the ancient and persistent enemies, disease, poverty, ignorance and despair. The people of South Viet Nam will make their choice.

They will choose their government and the opportunity for a decent, finer life for the humblest of citizens, and they will reject the Communist system of terror and torture, extortion and fear. And when that choice is finally made, then the Viet Cong will wither and fade away.”

Weariness could not wither nor repetition stale Hubert’s infinite exuberance. Whether addressing U.S. combat units in Viet Nam or discussing the merits of U.S. tractors with Laotian officials, handing out Senate gallery passes to giggling Pakistani nurses or teaching Thai children to say “O.K.” and “Goodbye,” Humphrey was on center stage every minute of his trip. His only moment of humiliation came in, of all places, friendly Saigon, where, despite his blandishments and some rafter-ringing hooo-ees, the black Berkshire hogs at an agricultural-experiment station haughtily ignored the Vice President—evidence, no doubt, that the Viet Cong have even infiltrated the porcine population.

Ball Deferred. In Thailand, Humphrey inspected the ornate wats (temples) and expertly demonstrated the wai—the traditional Thai greeting that consists of a slight bow with palms pressed together at the chest. Visiting the impoverished, Red-infiltrated northeast of Thailand, Humphrey told Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman: “You have some fine country here. It looks like Minnesota.” His main aim in Bangkok was to assure the Thai government that the Administration’s new emphasis on social goals in Southeast Asia portended no diminution of the military effort to repel Communist aggression. The joint communique issued by Humphrey and Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn reaffirmed the “urgent necessity” of strengthening Thailand’s U.S.-equipped armed forces.

Next came a three-hour visit to Laos. A military band welcomed Humphrey with Marching Through Georgia, and Premier Souvanna Phouma made no secret of his concern over the Communist military on the march in his divided country. But Souvanna, who hugs the fiction of neutralism as closely as the Communist rebels allow him, wanted no talk of military countermeasures. “The people must go on improving their way of life despite the war,” he told Humphrey. “That is why we would prefer to see tractors arrive rather than weapons.” Agreeing, Humphrey expounded eloquently on the TVA-style Mekong Valley development, one of Washington’s pet pilot projects for an Asia at peace. “If we only had more time,” sighed Humphrey at one point, “boy, I could have a ball.” But the White House kept piling on new instructions and added assignments. And Jack Valenti, President Johnson’s assistant, was along to fill out a report card for the boss’s later scrutiny.

Good Tidings. Humphrey went next to Karachi, where the populace was cool and the press preachy. The Vice President got a graphic reminder of past strains in U.S.-Pakistan relations (despite the $4.7 billion that the nation has received in American aid) when his motorcade took him past the ruins of a U.S. Information Service center that was set afire in anti-Washington riots last September. To both Pakistan and India, which are still smarting over suspension of U.S. aid programs as a result of their border war over Kashmir, Humphrey bore good, if modest, tidings. After conferring with Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan, Humphrey announced a new $50 million loan. When he saw India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he was able to promise a $100 million loan.

In both nations, Humphrey reasserted the President’s fish-or-cut-bait foreign-policy line. Further economic aid, he made clear, depends on observance of the Tashkent agreement to a cease-fire and a pullback in Kashmir. Also, the two countries must take realistic self-help measures and, in view of the shared threat of Communist China, spare the Administration gratuitous criticism of U.S. foreign policy. Finally, Humphrey intimated that some non-military assistance for South Viet Nam would not be ill-received in Washington, though this was not made a condition of continuing U.S. aid.

At week’s end Humphrey landed in Australia to spend two days before making the last stops of his 15-day journey in New Zealand, the Philippines—where President Ferdinand Marcos anticipated his arrival by asking his Congress to send 2,000 troops to South Viet Nam—and South Korea. At an official luncheon in Canberra, Harold Holt, Australia’s new Prime Minister, gave him such a warm introduction that the tanned but tired traveler confessed: “You touched the favorite nerve cell in my body—namely, the talking cell.” Whereupon the Vice President delivered yet another speech. He reassured his audience that, despite Senator Fulbright’s damaging confession Down Under that he was unaware of Australia’s troop commitment to Viet Nam, the U.S. is grateful for the Diggers there. Humphrey was blithely unconcerned by Vietnik pickets who called him a war criminal. In fact, they inspired a Hubertism. Said Humphrey of the demonstrators: “What this Prime Minister will do to make me feel at home!”