"Friendliness in the World"

For American diplomacy and for Dwight Eisenhower, the conference at Geneva was a triumph. Throughout the week the President dominated the scene in every move he made--from his shrewd attention to his old friend Georgy Zhukov to his electrifying offer to trade military blueprints with the Soviets (see FOREIGN NEWS).

At home in Washington, the conference was watched with an intensity and a hopefulness that matched Europe's. At the White House, Vice President Nixon, presiding at a Cabinet meeting, asked Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson to open the meeting with an invocation.

Mormon Elder Benson prayed aloud for the health of the President and Secretary Dulles, and for the accomplishment of their mission. Then Acting Secretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr. briefed the Cabinet on developments at Geneva and passed around an "eyes only," top-secret dispatch from the President, outlining his mutual arms-inspection plan. Each member read the message silently, then passed it on.

On Capitol Hill, the dramatic Eisenhower proposal was received with mixed feelings. A few hours before the President advanced the plan in Geneva, Assistant Secretary of State Thruston B. Morton trotted up to the Capitol with the President's precis of the proposal to brief the Senate's leaders. At the end of his message, the President asked for support in the form of "comment." At first, Republican leaders were silent. Then 19 G.O.P.

Senators, led by New Jersey's Clifford Case (but not including Minority Leader William Knowland), issued a joint statement applauding the plan. From his Bethesda hospital bed Senate Democratic Leader Lyndon Johnson was quick to send a ringing endorsement. "The President's proposal," he said, "is the daring, imaginative stroke for which a war-weary world has been waiting. It will test the good faith of the Communists and separate the warmongers from the peacemakers. The American people yearn for peace--peace that will maintain their traditional freedoms . . . This proposal is our pledge of sincerity and good faith." This week, when the President flew in to Washington, he was greeted by a throng that included Vice President and Mrs. Nixon, Senator Knowland, other members of Congress and the diplomatic corps. As he stepped out of the Columbine III, the band struck up the Star-Spangled Banner, and the President stood motionless, his hat over his heart, as the rain of a summer shower spattered down on him.* Then, before a rosette of microphones, the President ignored the raindrops streaming down his face and soaking his summer suit. "After the hard week I have been through," he said, "it is very heart warming to have such a reception . . . It's really great to be home." Of the conference at the summit, he said: "Just what will be the result ... no one knows. But the coming months will tell much . . . We do know that new contacts have been established, and there is evidence of a new friendliness in the world."

*Vice President Richard Nixon banned umbrellas, because he felt that they would have recalled the pre-World War II appeasement policies of Great Britain's umbrella-carrying Prime Minister Sir Neville Chamberlain.

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