Traveler's Tale

In Cairo, a transport plane set down Wendell Willkie after the first 11,000-mile lap of his trip to Russia and China* as a dual representative of Franklin Roosevelt and America's loyal opposition. His wardrobe was a tourist's sun helmet and a rumpled, dark blue business suit with a torn pocket. Said the voice from the Midwest to the people of the Mideast: "I've come for a definite purpose. As a member of the party in opposition to the President, I want to say that there is no division in America on the question of both winning the war and establishing a just peace."

Wendell Willkie conferred with Egypt's Premier Mustafa El Nahas Pasha, looked over U.S. troop installations, spoke to U.S. soldiers with amiable profanity: "I just want to say I'm damned glad to see you. God bless you and give 'em hell." He regretted he could not give U.S. correspondents the latest baseball news (see p. 50). When he rebuked the strict Mideast censorship a reporter cried, "Thanks, pal."

His most important call was at the Egyptian Palace: young King Farouk, waiving protocol, received his guest, still wearing the blue business suit, on the Moslem holy day. His message to King Farouk was doubtless like the one he hammered home everywhere: the Mideast must get on the Allied side of the fence and stay there because "the glory days of Nazi regime are ending; their high tide is reached, and shortly we will see it recede." Then Wendell Willkie went to the Egyptian battlefields, watched German bombers overhead, heard the explosion of German bombs, looked at burned-up tanks that told how the British had repulsed Nazi Field Marshal Rommel's latest drive (see p. 34). Then, satisfied, he took off for Turkey and Soviet Russia.

* Riding in a special plane, Willkie's itinerary as now planned does not include a stop in India. The U.S. is sending no emissaries to mix in India's mess. If India wants U.S. intercession she will have to ask for it.

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