Six Crises (36 page)

As we moved out of range, I turned to Sherwood and said, “OK, now we're going to Catholic University.” When he answered I could see why he had put his hand to his mouth; a rock had broken off one of his front teeth.

As we started to pick up speed, Tad Szulc, Latin American correspondent for the New York
Times,
ran alongside the car saying, “Good going, Mr. Vice President, good going.” This, I learned later, was the
verdict of virtually all the forty to fifty men in the press corps who were with me that day.

On the other hand, I was not sure who had won. I had hoped that I would be able to get through the mob so that I could keep my commitment to speak on the University campus. In this I had failed.

On the other hand, no one had been seriously injured and I was hopeful that people all over Latin America would see the lesson of what had happened—the Communists had had to stoop to violence to prevent a free discussion of ideas.

•  •  •

The Rector of Catholic University had kept his promise to say nothing about the possibility of our visit. Our arrival was a complete surprise. The Communist apparatus, which had only a few representatives in this institution, was taken unaware. By coincidence we walked into the administration building at the time the students were electing officers for the Student Council. When I entered the auditorium, bedlam broke loose. The students wanted me to speak immediately. But I said, “Nothing must interfere with a free election,” and sat on the stage with the student officers for about five minutes while they completed the counting of the ballots.

Then I spoke for a few minutes and answered questions. I got off to a particularly good start when I compared the attitude of the students at Catholic University, who practiced as well as preached freedom of expression, with those of San Marcos, who had just denied it. I responded to questions for almost thirty minutes before some Communist hecklers tried to regain the initiative. They cut their own loudspeaker into the public address system and tried to drown me out. But the students were so overwhelmingly on my side that they tore out the wires of the loudspeaker, threw the hecklers out of the building, and asked me to continue.

A short time later, however, Sherwood walked up to the rostrum and whispered, “We'd better cut this off and get out of here; the gang from San Marcos is on its way.” I quickly concluded my remarks and left the Assembly Hall with the students shouting “
Viva Nixon
” and slapping me on the back and shaking hands. We moved just in time. As our motorcade pulled away, we saw a hundred or so shouting, arm-waving men running down the street from San Marcos, but they were too late to intercept us.

Most of the mob, however, had moved on to San Martín Square in front of my hotel. At the square they had whipped up a frenzied reception for me. They had torn to shreds the floral wreath that I
had placed at the monument to San Martín, the national hero of Peru. They had broken windows, torn down government welcome signs, and were leading the crowds like cheerleaders in stock slogans, “Yankee Warmonger,” “Nixon, go home.”

Again, as at San Marcos, I heard the crowd before I saw it. A block away from the hotel, I could see thousands of people milling around in the square in front of the hotel entrance and I ordered the motorcade to stop. I realized that if we drove up to the hotel, as they expected, the mob would have us trapped inside the car. Sherwood, Walters, Hughes, and I got out of the car and walked the block to the hotel entrance. Again, we caught the Communist leaders by surprise. They learned we were there only when others in the crowd began shouting “
Viva America,” “Viva Nixon.”
While the mob from San Marcos, swollen by the street bullies who had been in the square all night, made up a majority of the crowd, there were others who were spectators caught in the melee by their desire to see what would happen.

We were only about fifty feet away from the hotel entrance when the agitators first became aware of my presence. Then they began to push toward us from the fringes of the crowd. The whole mob began to sway. I was squeezed between Sherwood, Walters, and Hughes in a sort of three-layer club sandwich. The only sensation I can recall like it was when Pat and I were caught in the crush of the crowd celebrating V-E Day in Times Square in 1945. The hotel door was only a few steps away, but it took us several minutes to reach it. We succeeded only because Sherwood and Hughes had now become experts at using their elbows and knees to clear a path.

Just as I reached the hotel door I came face to face with a man I later learned was one of the most notorious Communist agitators in Lima. I saw before me a weird-looking character whose bulging eyes seemed to merge with his mouth and nose in one distorted blob. He let fly a wad of spit which caught me full in the face. I went through in that instant a terrible test of temper control. One must experience the sensation to realize why spitting in a person's face is the most infuriating insult ever conceived by man. I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to tear the face in front of me to pieces. Sherwood deserves the credit for keeping me from handling the man personally. He grabbed him by the arm and whirled him out of my path, but as I saw his legs go by, I at least had the satisfaction of planting a healthy kick on his shins. Nothing I did all day made me feel better.

Back in my hotel room, I peeled off my rumpled clothes, took a
hot shower, and sank down into a comfortable arm chair for a few moments' rest. It was noon. I had been away only two hours, but I was completely worn out. I longed to relax, but I snapped myself out of that mood. My schedule for the day had hardly begun. Ahead was a twelve-hour agenda. I knew that if what had happened this morning were to have any meaning, it would depend on what I did and said during the balance of the day. While I was thinking of how I could present the incident in its proper context, Don Hughes came into the room. I looked up and saw that he was standing at attention in front of me. This seemed rather strange for there had never been such formalities between myself and my staff.

“Sir, could I say something personal?” he asked.

“Sure, go ahead,” I said, still mystified.

“Sir,” he said, “I have never been so proud to be an American as I was today. I am honored to be serving under you.”

I couldn't think of anything to say in reply. I just nodded my head and smiled in appreciation and he turned and left the room. In my fourteen years of public life I had never been so moved as by this remark, coming as it did from a Purple Heart jet fighter pilot of the Korean War.

•  •  •

Everywhere I went that afternoon, I was hailed as a hero in Peru. Crowds lined our motorcade routes and shouted down the few hecklers who dared to show up. At a luncheon attended by Peru's leading businessmen, bankers, and industrialists I was able to speak with added force of the responsibilities of modern capitalism. I emphasized that it was the duty of a nation's business leaders to work positively to close the great gap between the very wealthy and the very poor in Peru and other South American countries. I told them it was not only wrong but dangerous to repeat today the mistakes some of the practitioners of free enterprise had been guilty of fifty years ago. Offering nothing more to the people than a defense of the status quo opens the way for Communist propaganda and infiltration. The business and political leaders of Latin America must demonstrate not only that they are against Communism because it denies freedom but also that they are for freedom because it provides a surer and better way to economic progress than Communism. In private conferences with government leaders, I was able to point out the fallacy of trying to appease Communists and of thinking of them as harmless radicals.

Later in the afternoon, I had the biggest press conference of my South American tour up to that time. I tried to spell out the true
nature of the Communist conspiracy and the danger that even a few Communist agitators present to a free institution. My most telling point was that at San Marcos University probably no more than 200 trained agitators had led a demonstration of 2,000 students which had brought disgrace upon the whole of Peru. “I do not leave Peru with the idea that these demonstrators represent anything but a very small, though vocal, minority opinion,” I said.

“The Communists who manipulated this outrage are not true Peruvians because like all who owe loyalty to that international conspiracy, they can never be loyal to this or any country. They proved this when they tore up the Peruvian as well as the American flag on the floral wreath I placed at the monument to San Martín.

“Their actions were not directed against me personally,” I said. “When one of them spit in my face, he was spitting on the good name of Peru, he was spitting on the reputation of San Marcos, one of Latin America's greatest universities, and he was spitting on the memory of San Martín and all the men who through the ages have fought and died for freedom of expression.” When the press conference ended, the Peruvian reporters stood and applauded.

The tide had so turned on the Communists that a scheduled anti-American demonstration against my appearance in the port area was canceled two hours before I spoke there. A large crowd of stevedores and other working men applauded and cheered as I emphasized again that the mob violence at San Marcos had unmasked the ugly face of Communism as it really was.

It was very late in the afternoon before I returned to my hotel room. By this time the emotional, physical, and mental stress under which I had been working during the day had really taken its toll. I was exhausted. I didn't think I had enough energy left to change clothes and get cleaned up for the formal dinner I was to attend that evening.

The major crisis of the day was over. But I was to learn again a lesson I should have borne in mind from my previous experience-not before or during but after the battle comes the period of greatest danger for an individual in a crisis situation. In battle an individual is able to mobilize emotional, mental, and physical resources far beyond his expectations. He does not feel tired no matter how great the stress. The layman's way of putting it is probably pretty close to the mark even from a scientific standpoint—“a man at such a time runs on his nerve.” But once the battle is ended, a price is paid in emotional, mental, and physical fatigue.

I was feeling this kind of fatigue when I asked Bob Cushman to give me a rundown on the reaction to the San Marcos incident. He replied that all reports were favorable, except that Rubottom and Bernbaum had expressed concern that the episode had embarrassed the Peruvian Government and had compromised the good-will effect of the entire tour.

I blew my stack. I told Cushman to have Rubottom and Bernbaum come to my room immediately. He reported back that they were dressing for the state dinner that evening and would come when finished. I told him to have them come at once as they were. A few minutes later the two men appeared before me, half dressed. I ripped into them. I told them it was their right and obligation before a decision was made to advise me against the San Marcos visit. But once I had made my decision in a matter of this importance, it was incumbent upon them, as key members of my staff, to put aside their objections and to support me. I reminded them that I always expressed my viewpoints in Cabinet and National Security Council meetings, but if President Eisenhower's decision differed from my advice, as sometimes it did, I supported his decision fully. No loyal staff member could do otherwise.

This, in itself, might not have been too bad, but then I proceeded to deliver a tough lecture on some of my attitudes toward foreign service people in general: too many foreign service men, according to my experience, prefer to compromise, to avoid conflict, to play it safe. This may seem the safe way out when the Communists threaten, bully, or bluff, but this kind of conduct will, in the end, only lead to inevitable defeat for the forces of freedom. The Communists are out to win the world. They are probing at any weak spot they detect in the non-Communist world. They are willing to take chances to gain their objectives. It is essential, therefore, that those who represent the United States recognize that we will be doomed to defeat in the world struggle unless we are willing to risk as much to defend freedom as the Communists are willing to risk to destroy it.

“I am not suggesting that our representatives should be rash,” I told them, “that they should go looking for trouble, that they should not exhaust every possible avenue for honorable compromise of differences. But I do know that we are up against opponents who are out to beat us, not just hold their own. We, too, must play to win. Too often what we try to do is to play not to lose. What we must do is to act like Americans and not put our tails between our legs and run every time some Communist bully tries to bluff us.”

What I said in the heat of anger, I still believe to be basically true. But it was unfair for me to say it to either Rubottom or Bernbaum. Both were as dedicated to the national interest as I was. If we had conflicting views on any matters, I respected them for their honesty and integrity in presenting their differences of opinion. To their credit, neither man ever evidenced any resentment over my outburst of temper. They worked as hard during the remainder of our grueling trip and after it as they had before.

•  •  •

Our visits to Ecuador and Colombia during the next four days were a pleasant and welcome interlude after two action-packed days in Peru. It was evident in both countries that the Communist leaders had been knocked off balance by what had happened in Peru. They didn't know exactly how to handle my visit and now they were regrouping their forces looking for a good chance to counterattack. Everywhere I went large crowds of well-wishers shouted down the few hecklers who appeared.

In Quito, Galo Plaza, the former President of Ecuador, told me that I had made the right decision in going to the University not only in Peru but in other countries I had visited. “One of the great troubles with Americans who are stationed abroad,” he said, “is that they talk only to themselves and to the few business and government leaders of the countries in which they are stationed. The great majority of them live in ‘American ghettos.' I can understand their reluctance to move in circles which are different and foreign to their background. But American government officials, in particular, when in foreign countries should spend more time on a social as well as a formal basis with students, teachers, labor leaders and opinion makers who may not be members of the elite but who are the future leaders of the hemisphere.”