MEXICO: New President, Old Job

After the motorcade had passed, the sad-faced peons stood in little clumps for hours, looking like bunches of dry cactus blossom in their earthy blues, reds, yellows, talking of the parade of the Señor Henry Wallace. They said that he was of much sympathy, a plougher of ground like themselves, a gringo with the proper sort of gentle eyes. They put too much emphasis on his first name, for he spoke a kind of Spanish and they supposed that like Hispano-Mexicans he used both parents' names, Henry for his father, Wallace after his mother. The bolder among them spoke of having peeked into the automobiles, of having seen the strange weapon of the Señor Henry Wallace (his tennis racket).

Farther along the Pan-American Highway, where the foothills with their sharp banks crowd each other like a pack of the cruel little boars of the Mexican brush, the Señor Henry Wallace saw signs of the event for which he had made his first crossing of the Rio Grande. Painted on the rock cuts near Tamazunchale (an old Huasteca Indian name pronounced by gringos Thomas & Charlie) were huge letters: TODO MEXICO CON AVILA CAMACHO —All Mexico with Avila Camacho.

Beyond Tamazunchale the real climb into the Mexican sierras began, but the party was shut off from the incredible views by a blanket of mist. For a time Henry Wallace was a little carsick from the dizzy curves, and got out and walked until it passed off. Up on the plateau the peasants had decorated the bridges with stalks of corn to welcome him.

But in Mexico City there was another sort of welcome. Henry Wallace, Good Neighbor, got his first shock. As his party arrived at the U. S. Embassy there were more clumps of Mexicans chatting and laughing as they waited, but these were young intellectuals and fanatical women. Seeing them, the official Mexican chaperons had the good sense to hurry their distinguished guest into the Embassy by a side door before he was noticed. Members of the Embassy staff and newspapermen waited on the front steps. LIFE photographer Carl Mydans wandered into the crowd and snapped some pictures. The groups began mumbling a chant, which gradually grew to not "Viva Wallace," not "Viva Avila Camacho," but "Viva Almazán." This was a crowd of supporters of the defeated Presidential candidate, protesting U. S. recognition of Avila Camacho.

A group rushed Photographer Mydans. He stood his ground, snapped them, got cracked on the back of the neck.* Now the crowd realized it had been tricked out of seeing the U. S. Vice President-elect. In blind fury they charged the Embassy steps. A brawl ensued. A policeman by mistake slugged U. S. Naval Attaché for Air Commander Wallace M. Dillon on the crown with a blackjack. A bemused Mexican singled out huge, tough U. S. Military Attaché Lieut. Colonel Gordon H. McCoy to sock on the chin and was flattened by the colonel for his pains. There were indications that the riot was not altogether spontaneous. U. S. Intelligencers on the spot positively identified three of the leading Mexico City German agents circulating in the crowd. Almazán himself, who had just flown to Mexico City and renounced his claims to the Presidency, said later: "I have recommended to my friends that they refrain from acts of violence. My sincere friends have adhered to this recommendation."