Looker & Listener

Predicting there will be no general war this year, Herbert Hoover sailed into Manhattan this week on the French liner Normandie, wound up a tour of 15 countries in nearly all of which he is as popular as Santa Claus, was rousingly cheered, hailed as an American Liberal.

Arriving in France six weeks ago, Mr. Hoover headed straight for Belgium, which country he had served with over $500,000,000 of food, clothing and funds from 1915 to 1919. The Chamber of Representatives stood and cheered as it was announced that the "Friend of Belgium," the title conferred by the late King Albert I, was on his way (TIME, Feb. 28). In a seven-day "sentimental journey" he toured reconstructed War areas, which he had not visited since he accompanied President Wilson in 1919. After conversing with young King Leopold III, Premier Paul Emile Janson and Foreign Minister Paul Spaak, the former President left for Lille, France, two medals the richer.

"Vive l' Amerique!", "Vive Monsieur le President!" echoed in the cobbled streets as Mr. Hoover, accompanied S. Pinkney Tuck, today U. S. Embassy Counselor at Brussels and in Paris often host to the Duchess of Windsor when she was Mrs. Simpson, drove into Lille. Day before, Mr. Hoover had informed correspondents that he was off on a swing through Europe. Asked if he intended to gather political information firsthand, he replied, smiling: "I intend to look and listen."

For his first look, he headed for Paris, had his car sideswiped on the way in the reconstructed town of Arras, called in the top-flight Paris correspondents, questioned them closely on the European political situation. Next day Looker & Listener Hoover conferred with President Albert Lebrun in his Elysee Palace. During a brief stay in Geneva he piqued League officials by ignoring their new $10,000,000 palace, instead motored to nearby Morges and chatted "about old times" with his friend of 40 years, 77-year-old Pianist-Politician Ignacy Jan Paderewski, former Premier of Poland, now in Switzerland.

Mr. Hoover warmed to his task and, month ago, pushed on up into Austria to confer with chunky President Wilhelm Miklas. To cheering Viennese engineering students he proclaimed "Statesmen seek peace through laws and conferences, sometimes forgetting that engineers can give them the things that make peace." Nine days later, with Guest Hoover then in Poland, Austrian Host Miklas lost his job and German troops took possession of Austria.

After a stay in Czechoslovakia, where he talked with "Europe's Smartest Little Statesman," President Eduard Benes, Premier Milan Hodza and Foreign Minister Kamil Krofta, Mr. Hoover had moved on to Berlin. At his hotel, sharp-eyed Gestapo (secret police) agents pounced upon a suspicious-looking package addressed to Mr. Hoover. They ripped it open, to their surprise found only a picture of the late Tsarina Alexandra of Russia sent by an admiring White Russian.

High point of Mr. Hoover's European conferences was his rather straight-backed, formal, 40-minute talk with Adolf Hitler. U. S. correspondents pumped their Berlin pipe lines dry in an effort to learn what Herr Hitler said to Mr. Hoover but their best unconfirmed information was that the Chancellor had given Listener Hoover a roseate picture of the Nazi regime and Listener Hoover had finally broken in to say testily that, in effect, "Naziism is built on principles of government that it would be wholly impossible for the people of the United States to tolerate in their own country."

Lavish, genial was the luncheon next day in Karin Hall, elaborate hunting lodge of the Reich's Master of the Hunt, Field Marshal Hermann Wilhelm Goering, the No. 2 Nazi. Before leaving Germany for Poland, former President Hoover took what seemed like a long-range dig at President Roosevelt. "Most of the nations I have visited," reported Herbert Hoover, "have done more in public health and housing for the lower-income groups than we have in America."

Stepping nimbly just ahead of trouble for the second time on his European trip, Mr. Hoover three weeks ago chatted amiably with Poland's white-haired President Ignacy Moscicki, Army Dictator Smigly-Rydz and Premier Felician Slawoj Skladkowski. A week after his visit. Hosts Moscicki, Smigly-Rydz and Skladkowski made their little neighbor, Lithuania, knuckle under to their will with an ultimatum (TIME, March 28). By this time Mr. Hoover had journeyed through Finland, Estonia, had missed a luncheon date with Sweden's Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf because fog delayed his Baltic steamer, and popped in on Copenhagen. From there he continued by plane for England to catch the Normandie.

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