State Visit

At Washington's National Airport, the door of the big Constellation swung open and President Carlos Castillo Armas and his pretty, dark-eyed wife plunged into the pleasant confusion with which the U.S. welcomes visiting heads of state. Guns boomed, bands played, troops paraded. Smiling Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat hurried up to greet the Castillo Armases like the friends they have been since the Nixons' Caribbean tour last February. "Again!" shouted the photographers over and over. "It's an old American custom," Nixon explained. "I know," replied Castillo Armas. "They do the same thing in Guatemala."

Along streets lined with a military honor guard, the visitors rode to the President's Guest House, where they were quartered while in Washington. On Constitution Avenue, banners flapped gaily - except for the half-masted flag of South Carolina. Thus did his home state honor the late Jack Peurifoy, pistol-packing U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala who helped negotiate the cease-fire between anti-Communist Revolutionary Castillo Armas and the pro-Red forces he defeated in June 1954.

Gold Service. That night the Nixons, official hosts in the absence of President and Mrs. Eisenhower, gave a state dinner for the Castillo Armases at Anderson House; two nights later, the Guatemalan guests responded with a banquet at the Shoreham Hotel, which got out its famed gold service for the occasion. On Mamie Eisenhower's telegraphed invitation, the Castillo Armases toured the White House--and nearly bumped into a group of touring Russian housing experts.

Then the Guatemalan party flew to Manhattan, where, based at the Waldorf-Astoria, the visiting President attended a special birthday Mass (he turned 41 last week) at St. Patrick's Cathedral, breakfasted with Francis Cardinal Spellman, got showered with ticker tape on lower Broadway, received honorary degrees from Columbia and Fordham, hustled through a round of conferences with such U.S. notables as Ralph Bunche, James A. Farley and United Fruit President Kenneth Redmond. At week's end the visitors were off on a U.S. tour that would include a friendly talk with Ike in Denver and the Vanderbilt-Tulane football game in New Orleans.

Paramount Consideration. In speeches before the Organization of American States in Washington and the U.N. General Assembly in New York, and through all his press conferences, ran the theme that Castillo Armas wanted to leave with the U.S. and the world. Guatemala, he said, was "the first country in history that overthrew a Communist dictatorship." As a result, "nowhere else in the world can the effects of Communism and of democracy on the ordinary person be compared so accurately as in Guatemala."

Earnestly recognizing his own responsibility to make sure that democracy wins the test, Castillo Armas plugged his plans for economic prosperity, the liberal constitution that will go into effect soon after he returns home, and the promise of free elections next year. But the "paramount consideration," he added convincingly, "is respect for the integrity and dignity of the human person."

Except for the social functions required by protocol, Odilia de Castillo Armas, 35, followed a schedule of her own. As Guatemala's First Lady and by custom unofficial head of the country's social services, she dutifully toured an imposing number of U.S. orphanages, hospitals and settlement houses. But her obvious compassion and easy informality turned duty calls into friendly visits. Once she cupped her hand under a little girl's chin and gently told her: "Don't talk and chew gum at the same time." Dona Odilia was also a hit with fashion reporters: her dresses for the visit were mostly cut from the famed Guatemalan cloths woven of wool, cotton and silver thread in Mayan designs by Guatemalan Indians.

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