Points East

The Middle East last week seemed just as eager to sell itself to Wendell Willkie as he was to promote the United Nations' cause. As an unimperial envoy, he was received with great enthusiasm everywhere, and he incidentally brought into view many Middle Eastern figures who are now important to the U.S.

Willkie left Cairo in a big, drab-painted B-24 bomber, transferred somewhere in Palestine to a Douglas DC-3, flew on to Ankara. There he talked with Turkey's jovial, troubled Premier Suekrue Saracoglu and cool Foreign Minister Numan Menemencioglu. The visitor left Turkey in full agreement with New York Times Correspondent Ray Brock's cable (approved by the Turkish Foreign Office): "Turkey is firmly anchored alongside the United Nations for the war's duration."

At sunny Beirut on the blue Mediterranean, Willkie was met by Syria's Fighting French Commander General Georges Catroux. As the bearlike, blue-suited guest walked past a plumed guard and into the general's palace, bugles sounded.

Willkie found Syria painfully unsettled. Authority was split uncertainly between French and English local governments. There was the racking prospect of a wheat shortage and starvation caused by vicious hoarding, speculation and profiteering.

At the American Consulate, Willkie conferred with both Lebanese and red-tarbooshed Moslems, made a point of having all remarks translated verbatim into Arabic. He emphasized his favorite saying, "Those who give the most get the most." The Arabs understood Willkie's advice, "Bet on the winning horse which is the United Nations," but were puzzled by his baseball allusion, "If you want to see the United Nations win don't just sit in the bleachers and throw pop bottles."

High point of Willkie's Syrian visit was his conversation at the palace with General Charles de Gaulle. Willkie entered the general's columned personal salon in his same blue business suit. De Gaulle, in white dress uniform with his hair plastered like a schoolboy's, was seated before paintings pf Napoleon as a youth and as Emperor and had a pedestaled bust of Napoleon at his left hand. He expressed his desire for a more important place at the United Nations council table. When Willkie suggested occasional compromises for purpose of unity, De Gaulle stood up, raised his arm dramatically and said; "On matters of moral principle, I, like Jeanne d'Arc, can make no compromise."

In Palestine, Willkie dug hard into the Jewish-Arab problem, wishing to confirm a feeling that the Semitic peoples could live together amicably if left undisturbed. At British High Commissioner Sir Harold MacMichael's big Government House in Jerusalem, he talked long with Henrietta Szold, Zionism's outstanding woman, founder of the Hadassah movement. Quiet, kindly, grey-haired Miss Szold agreed with her visitor. Willkie then alternately interviewed Jewish and Arab leaders. As one would, leave the room by one door, his bitter opponent would be ushered through another. Willkie talked with polished Moshe Shertok, head of the political department of the Jewish Agency, who insisted that two million more Jews were needed in Palestine for the building of a real nation. Mild-mannered Ruhi Abdulhadi, moderate Arab leader, complained about British rule and the influx of U.S. gold ("This is our country"). Heavy-browed Dr. Arieh Altman, radical Zionist revisionist, blamed the world powers for making the Near East a center of world intrigue, wanted ten million Jews in Palestine, claimed he could raise a world army of 300,000 to fight Hitler and protect their own interests in "greater Palestine" after the war. All the leaders agreed on one point: Jewish immigration was the crux of the conflict. The Arabs said that they could live happily with the present half-million Jews.

Willkie flew over Bethlehem and the corner of the Dead Sea where the River Jordan empties in. Ancient monuments and irrigation terracing disappeared as the plane rose through cumulus clouds. But the skies cleared over arid, brown Iraq, the once luxurious land which Genghis Khan's grandson Hulagu returned to desert. In Baghdad Willkie was met by Premier Nuri Pasha Es-Said and high Iraqi and British officials. The Royal Guard of Honor wore white coats with red-striped blue trousers and silver-spiked white helmets. When the Star-Spangled Banner had been played, Willkie at once went to the tomb of King Feisal I to lay a wreath. He and his retinue drove over streets freshly sprinkled for his passing, down Al-Rashid Street where no parking was permitted that day and, also by order, no torn or dirty awnings were shown. Willkie had a long interview with the sober, thin-faced Premier, toured historical spots, cocktailed with the Iraqi elite and the diplomatic crowd in the garden of the American Legation, attended a lavish state dinner given by Regent Emir Abdul Illah. Amid the glistening uniforms, Willkie still wore his blue business suit. Everywhere he went he convinced people that he meant business. He asked straight questions and got some remarkably straight answers.

At week's end Wendell Willkie flew from Teheran to Kuibyshev, saw Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet (see cut p. 25), met and publicly kissed Ballerina Irina Tikhomirova, and gave her a bouquet of autumn flowers. Said the pleased Russians: "Kakoi simpatichny Amerikanets --What a charming American."

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