The Nation: Fire on the Right

With his China initiative, the President is also taking some satirical fire from the right. William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader and conservative thinker somewhat abaft of Coriolanus, regards the Peking trip with such horror that he instituted a reader contest to rename the President's plane, now called The Spirit of '76. That title, Loeb asserted, is totally inappropriate.

The contest winner was bland enough: Freedom's Futile Flight. A few of the other, somewhat more imaginative entries: Red Airing (second prize), Ping Pong Express, Tricky Dickie's Chicken Ship, Neville Chamberlain Express, Yellow Bird, Judas Jet, Air Farce One, Asian Flew, DingALing Dickie's Rickety Red Rickshaw and Go Mao, Pay Later.