Vice President Abroad

Across the Pacific to Manila and Saigon and Taipei last week went the Vice President of the U.S. on a two-point assignment. Face to face with Asian leaders, Richard Nixon elucidated the U.S. position that collective security is wiser than neutralism. To anxious allies, he conveyed high-level assurance that the Geneva discussions between the U.S. and Red China portend no basic change in this country's attitude toward Asia.

In Manila for the shared Independence Day of the U.S. and the Philippine Republic, Nixon pooled the anniversaries--the 180th for the U.S. and the tenth for the Philippines--and referred to "190 years of independence." With President Ramon Magsaysay, he announced a new U.S. policy giving the Philippines title to U.S. military bases in that country, thereby settling an old point of tension between friends (see FOREIGN NEWS).

"The Word Among the People." From the moment Nixon and his wife emerged from a MATS Constellation at Manila's airport, the Vice President generated friendship. He shook hands held out from the cordoned crowd, relied with effect on his California Spanish, three times halted his white Cadillac on the drive to Magsaysay's residence to shake hands. Secret Service men blanched, but Filipinos loved it. Said one in ultimate tribute: "The word among the people is that Nixon is like Magsaysay."

Half a million people crammed Manila's spacious bayside park, the Luneta, to hear Nixon and Magsaysay deliver Fourth of July addresses. In a speech carefully tooled to make clear U.S. policy on neutralism, Nixon said that the U.S., which went through an era of isolationism, can understand the feelings of some nations that want to avoid international alliances. But free nations, he said, can find far greater security by banding together. Then he laid down a clear line: "There is [a] brand of neutralism that makes no moral distinction between the Communist world and the free world. With this viewpoint we have no sympathy."

Citing U.S.-Philippine friendship, Nixon hoped "other nations will study this example carefully and realize what it means to walk side by side with the United States of America. Let them contrast your strength and security with the fate of small nations who were not united with us in mutual alliances. You are independent. But are Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania independent? Is there any freedom in East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and Albania?

"How much liberty is there in North Korea or North Viet Nam? What has happened to ancient Tibet? We must all frankly face this question: Where there is a threat of Communist colonial imperialism is a nation really safe in striking out alone?"

Another Country Heard From. Flying on to Saigon, the Vice President, again to general public delight, reached for the hands of plain people, moved to the background while South Viet Nam marked the second anniversary of Ngo Dinh Diem's government. "You may be sure that you will have the warm support and admiration of the American people," Nixon said. "Although your country is divided, the militant march of Communism has been halted."

On Formosa Nixon assured Chiang Kai-shek that the U.S. in its Geneva discussions is mapping no end-around play on Far East allies whose anti-Communist front has been molded at U.S. insistence. From there he flew on for stops in Pakistan and Turkey.

As the Vice President moved around the world, Moscow took note of his effective salesmanship, and denounced it as "propaganda." What Moscow did not say was that the Kremlin has been eager to have Nixon visit Russia, has already sounded out the possibilities. The probable answer: no.

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