Men Who Came to Dinner

President Elpidio Quirino was hopping mad last week. He accused the U.S. embassy in Manila of "siding" with the opposition Nacionalistas against his governing Liberal Party.

What provoked his outburst was a private dinner party given by U.S. Ambassador Raymond A. Spruance in honor of a visiting fireman: Democrat Adlai Stevenson, who is touring the Far East. Of the ten Filipino guests, only one was a Liberal; the rest, Quirino charged, were Nacionalistas, among them Ramon Magsaysay, the Huk-killing Defense Secretary who resigned last month to run against Quirino in next fall's presidential election campaign (TIME, March 9). The President did not mention that two other staunch Liberals, one of them his acting Defense Secretary, Oscar Castelo, were invited to the party but failed to show up. He accused Ambassador Spruance of plotting to sell Stevenson on Nacionalista policies by seating him in such a fashion that Nacionalistas could whisper in both his ears.

The Nacionalistas, as might have been expected, hotly denied the charges as "brazen" and "a canard."

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