FOREIGN RELATIONS: Pilgrim Making Progress

An order from President Eisenhower sent his personal plane, the Columbine III, across the Pacific to Honolulu last week to pick up important passengers: Indonesia's President Sukarno, his twelve-year-old son Guntur, and a retinue of 14 other Indonesians. When the plane reached Washington National Airport, Vice President Nixon and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles—both old Sukarno acquaintances—stepped forward and beamed warm greetings. The Army band boomed Indonesia Raya (the national anthem), and Nixon put a fatherly hand on Guntur's shoulder. With that, the U.S. began an all-out diplomatic effort, as carefully prepared as a major military operation, to win the mind of Indonesia's President (see box).

Sukarno, Asia's No. 2 neutralist (after India's Nehru), rose to Washington's warmth like a veteran actor responding to a friendly audience. He made a thoughtful yet noncommittal statement: "I have come here to confirm or modify the impressions of your country which I have collected for so many years." On the way through Washington, Sukarno suddenly halted the Imperial in which he was riding, leaped out nimbly and began shaking hands. While Secret Service men paled, he tousled a five-year-old's head, walked up to an elderly housewife, Mrs. Lenore Coon, and said: "Dear Mother, may I kiss you?" Bussing her heartily on the cheek, he said: "That was an Indonesian kiss." Stoutly, Mrs. Coon replied: "It certainly wasn't a Washington kiss."

As he took the city's keys, he said: "Man's life is unpredictable. I am the son of poor parents. My father was a small schoolteacher, but now I am being honored by you. There is a feeling of brotherhood here."

Revere's Bowl. At the White House President Eisenhower, waiting on the portico, took his guest into his home, gave him a state lunch, then handed him a particularly thoughtful gift. Opening the Bandung Asian-African Conference on April 18, 1955, Sukarno had recalled to his audience, mostly anti-American, that it was the anniversary of Paul Revere's famous ride, and had quoted lines from Longfellow's poem. Now Ike and Mamie gave Sukarno a replica of the silver bowl that Silversmith Paul Revere wrought to commemorate Massachusetts' resistance to British oppression. A lovely gift, it made a neat point: the U.S., too, has a glorious anticolonial past.

At noon the next day, before a joint session of Congress, the Indonesian asked, "May I be frank?" Then, in faultless, forceful English, he was. Said he: "Nationalism may be an out-of-date doctrine for many in the world; for us of Asia and Africa, it is the mainspring of our efforts. Fail to understand it, and no amount of thinking, no torrent of words, no Niagara of dollars will produce anything but bitterness and disillusionment. We of Indonesia are in the stage of national turmoil through which America passed some 150 years ago. We ask you to understand."