Chapter 20 Rectification setback -1
In 1958, Mike Todd's "Around the World in Eighty Days" ran for three consecutive years and became the biggest hit at the movie theaters since the advent of television.Part of what made it such a hit: In the late 1950s, transportation became big news, just as it had been in the early 1770s, when Jules Verne was all the rage.The earth is visibly shrinking, and not only because of artificial satellites. On October 4, 1958, BOAC began using jetliners on its transatlantic routes.Two months later, on Dec. 10, American jetliners also began flying on Nationwide's New York-to-Miami route.The inland deepwater channel of the St. Lawrence River was opened to navigation on April 25, 1959.After Mamie Eisenhower christened the first atomic-powered merchant ship, the USS Savannah, the US Navy's last battleship, the USS Wisconsin, was mothballed.The nuclear submarine completely surpassed Verne's wildest fantasy of diving 20,000 nautical miles. It can circle the earth underwater and cross the Arctic region under the ice of the Arctic Ocean. In June 1959, the USS George Washington, the world's largest submarine worth 110 million yuan, quietly sailed backwards into the Thames River in Groton, Connecticut. The boat was equipped with 16 solid-fuel Polaris missiles, which Russia could not Guarantee that all nuclear bases in the United States will be destroyed in one fell swoop by an intercontinental ballistic missile attack.
AT&T has used 100 million telephones, accounting for half of the world's total. Long-distance direct dialing equipment (Long Direct Dial), which began operating in Englewood, New Jersey on November 10, 1951, has gradually been used for overseas calls.Undersea telephones, cordless telephones, and transhorizon radios, followed by communications satellites (the Bell System's first experimental communications satellite), linked the United States to all 190 countries and territories overseas.The global nature of modern American business can be seen in the Mark Cross crocodile handbag manufacturer's announcement of a financial aid to Zululand to breed crocodiles.At the same time, the shortening of trade routes exposed American automakers to new competition from abroad.In the US market, foreign car sales account for 10%.The foreign cars with large sales volume include German Volkswagen (102,035 sold in 1958), French Renault (47,567 sold), Italian Fiat (23,000 sold) and British Hillman Motors (18663 sold).In addition, small cars from Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands are also expected to squeeze into the US market.Detroit is getting real and finally ready to make America's own small car.In order to be different from foreign-made cars, this kind of car is named "light car".
When Americans were asked what they might find there if they landed on the moon, Edward Teller grimly replied, "The Russians." In early January 1959, the Soviets launched Lunasat 1, a 3245-pound The remarkable satellite of the United States reached space only 5,000 miles from the Moon.They were already ahead in space exploration, and now they are even further ahead, even as the United States has begun to take steps to catch up.Crews at Cape Canaveral finally launched a tiny U.S. satellite into orbit on an Army Cupid-C rocket. The National Defense Education Act of 1958 required federal grants to improve the teaching of science, mathematics, and foreign languages. Congress also created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958.In order to test the endurance of the human body in space, Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger completed the highest skydive from the ground in history. He jumped out of the cabin from a height of 76,400 feet and fell freely for 12 miles. The umbrella opened and finally landed safely in the New Mexico desert. On April 10, 1959, newspapers introduced the nation on their front pages to a new breed of celebrity—the astronauts of Project Mercury.These people are experienced test pilots, aged between 32 and 37 years old.They were Alan Shepard, Walter Sheila, Virgil Grissom, John Glenn Jr., Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper and Donald Slaton.They were all white, all had children, all were born in small American cities, and all were Protestants.Six of the seven had crew cuts.
The oceans on both sides of the United States, which in the 1930s provided isolationists with peace of mind, now seem to have become creeks to wade through. In August 1958, scientists debating the dangers of fallout agreed that no matter where in the world a nuclear explosion took place, all Americans would suffer some degree of bone damage. Remote Indochina immediately became less distant on July 10, 1959, with two American military advisers killed and one wounded at Bien Hoa, 20 miles north of Saigon.The three officers were in a dining room watching Jeanne Crane's "Ragged Clothes" on a home projector when terrorists surrounded the house and opened fire when a sergeant turned on a light to change the film .
Now that the first Eisenhower administration is a thing of the past, some prominent figures have disappeared with them.John McCarthy died on May 2, 1957 from excessive drinking. (George Sokolski wrote: "He was deflated and felt betrayed. He especially felt betrayed by Vice President Nixon, whom he had always trusted.") His widow, Jean Kerr McCarthy still lived in Washington, and four years later she married a member of the Civil Aeronautics Board.Frank Lloyd Wright lived to be 89 years old and died leaving behind a time bomb that was sure to spark debate in his last major design, the $3 million Solomon Gugan in New York City Helm Museum.Among the entertainers who died were Errol Flynn, Mario Lanza, Maxwell Anderson and Lou Costello.John Lewis resigns as president of the Union of Miners.Dave Baker of the Truck Drivers union went to jail, leaving his successor, James Hoffa, to fight an inextricable battle with Senate investigative committee member John Kennedy and the committee's chief counsel, Robert Kennedy. Maria Calles, 35, has ditched Italian millionaire Giovanni Menegini to marry ship magnate Aristotle Socrates Onassis.Good people think that Onassis, who is 53 years old, is too old for Carles.
Some people are increasingly fond of comparing the 1920s with the current decade. The 50s were absurd, but until 1958 we didn't see anything comparable to the ukulele or climbing to the top of a flagpole and staying stuck, and this inadequacy was replaced by California Two young toymakers in San Gabriel, Canton, made up for it brilliantly.Richard Nell and Arthur Melling, co-owners of a company called Whimm-O Manufacturing, started making slingshots with less than a thousand dollars after World War II.The first time they made big money was making Frisbee in 1957.A Frisbee is a lightweight plastic dish that floats slowly through the air when thrown from one person to another. In March 1958, at a Toy Fair in New York, an acquaintance told them that there was a large wooden circle that was quickly popular all over Australia, and children played with it on their buttocks.Back at the company, Nell and Merlin started making wooden rings.But after doing about twenty, I stopped.They don't like wood and want to try plastic.By May, they had made something that met their requirements. They used colorful polyethylene pipes to make three-foot circles, and sold them for nine cents and three cents each, with a gross profit of 16%.The new toy from Whim-Au is called the Hula Hoop.
It is impossible to obtain a patent right for this toy. By Labor Day, more than a dozen companies have imitated the toy and sold it under a separate trademark.Even so, Huim-Ao Company still sold two million hula hoops by the beginning of September, earning a net profit of more than 300,000 U.S. dollars.Then, adults also began to exercise with hula hoops.Production numbers surged, and Whimm-Au's accountants had their hands full.Workers began to work in three shifts.This autumn, if all imitations at home and abroad are included, the total sales volume of hula hoops is estimated to be tens of millions.There are so many people who use it that European medical publications have issued warnings to beware of damage to the body due to excessive intensity.Examples of actual injuries abound.In Leiden, the Netherlands, a Dutch woman was sent to surgery to have her appendix removed, only to be examined by doctors and found that her ailment was actually an injury to her abdominal muscles, all due to excessive spinning while wearing a hula hoop caused.In the UK, the sales of hula hoops reached 250,000, and the British Medical Association issued a warning: "Anyone who has been found to have heart disease should not play hula hoops, and anyone who lacks training should not play too much at the beginning." Huge.” In Japan, hospital emergency rooms are filled with patients who have prolapsed discs and misaligned spines caused by hula-hooping.Once, a child was run over to death by a car while chasing a running hula hoop on the streets of Tokyo. Since then, playing hula hoops on the street has been strictly prohibited.Despite this, sales of Tokyo hula hoops exceeded three million units.And there are many Japanese waiting in long queues to buy hula hoops, and the queues are as long as several blocks in the Ginza area.Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke received a hula hoop on his 62nd birthday.
When the Queen Mother Zainah of Jordan returned from her trip to Europe, she also had a hula hoop in her luggage, which is supposed to be enough to prove that the hula hoop is not an illegal thing.Some toymakers, however, are still nervous.Adults are willing to watch other people hula hoop because some people's buttocks are very seductive.Whenever there was a football game that fall, one of the unanticipated pleasures was to watch a charming bandleader twist her waist wildly to the cheers of thousands of spectators.In France, a hula-hoop manufacturer named Jacques de Saint-Pharre feared attracting the attention and disapproval of the Church.He didn't want to lose his good name, having made a living making plastic tubes for hospitals and laboratories before hula hoops existed.Now, in self-defense, he has managed to get French celebrities to wear hula hoops for photos.In Finland, the solution to this problem is to hold hula-hoop endurance competitions on stage, in which participants rotate three hula hoops around the neck, hips and knees simultaneously for a long time.
No matter what nasty thoughts the viewer might have, this new American thing was all the rage in other countries.In Germany, it was the professional boxer Max Schmeling and his wife Anne Ondra who promoted the hula hoop.Germans without children have a hard time buying toys. In order to avoid being seen, they ask the store to pack the goods and deliver them to their homes at night.When a Belgian expedition set out to the South Pole, they also had 20 hula hoops in their luggage, and the money was spent as entertainment expenses.In some countries, the supply of hula hoops is very high.In Johannesburg, a hula hoop sold for sixty-five cents, and reporters reported that only white customers could afford it; local natives were so envious that charities had to supply it for free.Amsterdam's "Free People" pointed out that other industries in the Netherlands that require plastic pipes have come to a standstill; and in Warsaw, a weekly newspaper for youth has said: "If the Ministry of Light Industry and the Bureau of Handicrafts do not start producing hula hoops Our progress in this area, especially on an international scale, will be far behind.” The two sectors continued to lag, and hula hoops were smuggled in through East Germany.
Hula hoop fever comes and goes quickly.By the summer of 1959, dumps in many cities were filled with discarded hula hoops.But in any case, from this kind of fanaticism, it can be seen that even an insignificant incident in the cultural life of the American masses has a huge impact on the rest of the world.
In Europe, the Foreign Offices of Britain and France blamed Dulles for the Suez disaster; in Washington, some in the Eisenhower administration also shared this view.However, facing the situation in the Middle East after the Suez incident, there is no disagreement on what Washington should do next.According to the tenets of the Cold War, every piece of the world worth fighting for must belong to either communism or the free world.Sherman Adams wrote in 1961:
The failure of Britain and France to resolve the dispute over the Suez Canal by force is a temporary setback to their prestige and political power in the Middle East...unless, according to the President, the United States decides to fill the vacuum and declares its intention clearly to the world , otherwise the Soviets would have to step into the Middle East and put us in an unbearable situation.
"I don't believe at all that we can leave the Middle East in a vacuum," the president told congressional leaders. He asked a joint session of Congress to authorize the use of U.S. troops there "to secure and preserve the defense of international communist control." Territorial integrity, political integrity and political independence of a country that demands such assistance ... against open armed aggression by any country." This is the Eisenhower Doctrine.Like Roosevelt's undeclared war from 1940 to 1941, President Truman's decision to send troops to North Korea without the consent of Congress, and the Taiwan resolution in 1955, this doctrine is aimed at authorizing the president to fight anywhere Another big step has been taken on the road to using the US military.
Adams pointed out a flaw in the Eisenhower Doctrine.He wrote: "Any attempt by the United States to check the spread of communism abroad will encounter a difficulty in trying to prove that internal unrest in the form of nationalist struggles is indeed directed by Moscow." Pro-Eisenhower Doctrine The resolution passed the House of Representatives, but ran into trouble in the Senate.As in the debate over the Taiwan resolution, dissenting senators are deeply divided.Some believed that the White House was asking Congress to share responsibility for decisions that should have been made by the executive branch; others believed that Eisenhower wanted to gain the power to wage war.Georgia State's Richard Russell and Arkansas' Fulbright are particularly concerned.Russell said to Dulles: "This is to want us to buy pigs for no reason and to take responsibility regardless of the consequences." Dulles replied that this is a question of loyalty.He also told Russell: "If we get too stuck on everything, if Congress doesn't want to trust the president ... we can't win this battle."
But where is this battle being fought? Britain and France have laid down their arms, and the only danger in the Middle East is the dispute between the Arabs and Israel over the Gaza Strip and the Gulf of Aqaba.After two months of debate, the Senate passed that resolution by a vote of 72 to 19.Adams later wrote: "The next year, in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, there was a series of explosive events, all directly or indirectly concerned with the application of the Eisenhower doctrine." In fact, the doctrine was not applicable to any of these events.The incident in Jordan is typical of the Middle East: anti-Israel Arabs rioted in Amman, forcing the prime minister of the young King Hussein to resign.Hussein then turned to Eisenhower, claiming that the crisis was "responsible for international communism and its followers."Dulles agreed with this statement, and the president sent the Sixth Fleet to fire a demonstration in the Eastern Mediterranean.Hussein, under the aegis of cannon, elected a government loyal to him.The troublemakers dispersed, and the new prime minister did not fall.No one can see how the result would have been different without the demonstration warship.
Then came the events in Syria, which smacked of burlesque.Dulles was eager to show his strength in Damascus, but the Syrians would not take that at all.The Syrian government leans towards the Soviet Union, and the members of the opposition are some anti-US military officers, and they all want to stay out of each other's way.King Al Saud of Saudi Arabia made it clear to Eisenhower that the long-term discord here had nothing to do with ideology, and that no real Arab would become a Communist.The President replied that he had heard this said before, when Charles de Gaulle said that "no real Frenchman would become a Communist". "Clearly, the riots were instigated by the Communist Party," Adams wrote, "but unlike in Jordan, the Syrian government was not interested in any assistance from the West, so Eisenhower could not do much here. This is the Eisenhower Doctrine An example of weakness."
On the morning of July 14, 1958, Washington awoke to learn that the periodic cramp in the Middle East had returned.During the first night, Iraqi Arab nationalists close to Nasser seized the Baghdad radio station, post office, telegraph office and bridges over the Tigris River.They broke into the palace and killed the king and the crown prince.Prime Minister Nuri Saeed disguised himself as a woman and fled secretly, but was also caught and killed.Thus, Dulles's Baghdad Treaty was signed only half a year before its central pillar collapsed. Dulles, citing the Eisenhower Doctrine, had assured the treaty members that the United States would protect them with a "massive mobile force" protected from subversion.After the Baghdad coup, the alliance lost one Iraq, and formed the Central Treaty Organization, headquartered in Ankara, Turkey. — translator.This situation also alarmed Lebanese President Camille Chamoun.Not long ago, Chamoun had accused Arab communists of infiltrating his government heavily.UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld personally led an observation team to conduct an investigation. The team found no evidence to prove Chamoun's suspicions.Now, convinced that he is the second target that Nasser wants to get rid of, he formally asked the United States to send troops to Beirut.Eisenhower agreed.
This is the big downside of isolationism in the 1930s, going to the extreme of interventionism.No matter how fanciful it is, it cannot be said that the security of the United States has been threatened.Under the cover of 70 warships and 420 fighter jets of the Sixth Fleet, 9,000 U.S. Marines landed in Lebanon, the largest build-up of U.S. armed forces in peacetime.The President then issued a statement explaining that "The mission of these troops is to protect the lives of Americans, since there are about 2,500 Americans in Lebanon." However, there is no actual indication that the Americans (not even the Lebanese) ) is at risk.Moreover, in raising the issue in this way, the President is effectively acknowledging that this is irrelevant to the Eisenhower Doctrine.Dulles tried to convince congressional leaders that it had something to do with the Eisenhower Doctrine.The secretary of state warned that if the U.S. did not act on Chamon’s plea, “our prestige will be lost, and no one will believe us anymore—never. Communist interference is only possible if we get there first.” Avoid.” He added that if no action was taken, the free world would lose not only the Middle East and nearly three-quarters of its oil resources there, but also Africa and non-communist Asia, a passage that was later read as It has been cited repeatedly by Cold War pundits to justify the use of force in any international crisis, including Vietnam.Eisenhower resisted it in 1954.This time, it was congressional leaders who resisted.They have made it clear that they do not want to share any responsibility for their actions in Lebanon.
The Eisenhower Doctrine is effectively dead at this point.Four months later, Chamoun was replaced by a centrist president and prime minister, at whose request the Marines were withdrawn.This incident, Adams concluded, "was disheartening and unpleasant to Eisenhower." The profound significance of this incident was not clear at the time.The president has warned both houses of Congress that he could risk war in the Middle East without first discussing it in Congress.He said: "In that case, if there must be a public debate on the course of action, then taking such an action would lose its meaning"-this is a precedent for further approval of the expansion of the president's power to go to war.
Gunboat diplomacy on the other side of the globe is new to the United States.It is reminiscent of a reemergence of empire, which is exactly what Europeans like Rainer Hellmann, author of "America in the European Market," and Selvan Schreiber, author of "The American Challenge," People are confident that they have seen what is slowly emerging on the horizon to their west.Before the war, in the minds of Europeans, America was a rich, boastful country where every American looked like Jarley Cooper and Ginger Rogers, and their children looked like Mickey Rooney and Ann Rutherford were famous American film stars at the time. — translator.That America is idealistic, innocent and pure, and it is a place that the whole world longs for and people envy.Except for the fact that Americans always appear as great benefactors in times of natural disaster, they play little role in world affairs.
Today, Americans are spread all over the world.Personnel from Point Four, the Economic Commission for Africa and various technical assistance programs have spread throughout Asia and Africa.Congress has approved development loan funds for underdeveloped countries, the Fulbright Scholarship Program, and the Smith-Mont Program, which exchanges students with 42 countries that are not part of the Fulbright program.The number of Americans who travel abroad has increased by 12% every year; in the late 1950s, more than 2 million Americans traveled to distant lands, and they spent more than 2 billion dollars a year.
It’s not all money spent wisely or beautifully.If there was one European who said with Churchill, "I like these Americans, they are so generous," there is more than one European who said with Jean-Paul Sartre's contempt: "Those Americans I never knew what existentialism was." Defenders of the older cultures of continental Europe and Asia felt threatened by the spread of Americanization.They are alarmed by the seduction that American teenage culture, especially music, has on youth around the world.Jazz music can be heard almost everywhere in the world.The young king of Thailand was writing the lyrics for a Broadway play, La Gambas; the king of Cambodia was teaching himself to play the fiery saxophone.And then there are non-alcoholic beverages in the US.In Bangkok, the prime minister of Thailand is a distributor of Coca-Cola and the chief of police is a distributor of Pepsi; Adlai Stevenson calls their rivalry a "cold cold war".Whether in Thailand or other countries, Coca-Cola is always in the leading position.Wherever it goes, the sun never sets.Abroad, Coca-Cola consumes 50 billion bottles a day, enough to float a light cruiser.
Selvan Schreiber writes: "What we now face is not old-style imperialism driven by a desire to conquer, but a surplus of surplus power due to uneven 'pressure' between the United States and the rest of the world Power.” The investment of American industry in overseas factories has reached 57.5 billion yuan, with an annual output value of about 100 billion yuan.Selvan Schreiber cautions: "One by one, American companies are setting up headquarters in order to coordinate their activities across Western Europe."
As American corporations grow stronger, people in Europe, Asia, and Africa are becoming more curious about the realities of life in the United States.Not everything they heard was perfectly accurate and reliable.Admirers of the Soviet Union and New China blamed racial discrimination in the United States, calling the bus boycott in Montgomery and the incident in Little Rock a race riot.Much of the reporting on American society emphasizes the high standard of living in the United States, but this has become a source of resentment.The gap between the standard of living in the United States and that of the rest of the world, especially in emerging countries, is widening. In 1950, when Pakistani Prime Minister Liakot Ali Khan visited the United States, he said: "As soon as I think about this situation, I suddenly feel that the United States of America is an isolated island—an island of unimaginable prosperity. And in this isolated island All around me, I see a terrible sea of misery, poverty, and squalor, where billions struggle to save themselves from ruin. Thinking of this, I fear as for an old friend. Worrying about this great country."
US embassies, USIS libraries and cultural centers have all been targeted in 40 major riots around the world.Spontaneous attacks on the American flag have become commonplace, in most cases simply because of the last burst of anti-American sentiment long pent up in the demonstrators for one reason or another.In Indonesia alone, there have been five such disturbances.This is by no means limited to countries whose leaders are unhappy with the United States.There have also been demonstrations in neutral capitals such as Algiers, Cairo, and Khartoum, and even in the capitals of certain U.S. allies such as Rio de Janeiro, Athens, Saigon, Taipei, and Panama City.
Americans are mystified.They think they are generous with their foreign aid programs, but they don't know, as Leon Kesselring puts it, what percentage of U.S. gross national product the U.S. actually spends on international economic cooperation and aid It is "so small that people blush when they mention it".Ordinary Americans believed that the rioting crowd must have been deceived by the demagogues.He figured that if these people understood the benefits of free enterprise, they too would want to establish it.In his naive mind, he never thought that there are many other reasons why the United States can become a prosperous and powerful country today, including abundant resources and a mild climate.He thought that if people from other countries knew how rich America was, they would cheer on the Stars and Stripes instead of trampling on it.Little did he imagine that touting America's prosperity would be seen as outrageous ostentation.
This point, the leaders of the United States also did not expect.As Vice President Nixon prepared to go abroad, he frantically memorized charts and figures to illustrate how the lives of Americans were far better than those of many less fortunate peoples.On one occasion, returning from a visit, he eloquently described how, during discussions with some in his host country, he had waited eagerly for an opportunity to speak, and then forcefully illustrated his argument:
My figures show that 44 million households in the United States own 56 million cars, 50 million televisions, 143 million radios, and 31 million of them own their own homes.Next, I touch on a point that many people ignore.These statistics actually show very vividly that from the point of view of wealth distribution, the United States, the largest capitalist country in the world, comes closest to the ideal of a classless society where everyone is prosperous.
By the middle of the second Eisenhower administration, many people overseas had heard such arguments.Because President Eisenhower likes to send Nixon and his wife to visit abroad very much.In order to maintain friendly international relations, the Vice President suffered from diarrhea in Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia, was surrounded in Burma, insulted in Casablanca, and sweated for an hour in a malfunctioning elevator in Mexico City.
After all this, there was an arduous 18-day visit to South America in the spring of 1958, with stops in Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.The trip was meant to be a good-neighbourly gesture, and Nixon thought it must be dull.He wrote afterwards: "Of the many visits I have made abroad as vice president, the trip to South America in 1958 was the last one I wanted to go, not because I felt that the task was difficult, but because I was at the same time. It was unimportant and uninteresting compared to the work in Washington." The CIA assured him that the trip would be uneventful.Some reporters even hesitated whether to go out with him for an interview, and Nixon also told them that if they didn't go, they probably wouldn't miss anything great.
At the beginning of the visit, nothing major happened.Some of South America's ruling class figures who hosted the Nixons in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Asunción, and La Paz became accustomed to being dismissed by North American policymakers.Under the leadership of Assistant Secretary of State Henry Holland, who specially helped Dulles pay attention to Latin American trends, the State Department has spared no effort to provide various loans to the countries there. The reason is that if the liberals take power, They may want to impose regulations on business, thus breaking the spirit of business.The leading figures in Nixon's first countries were fully aware of the situation and took it seriously enough to have no intention of disturbing the current situation.
On the streets, emotional young people can be seen holding placards from time to time, calling the US Vice President a "racist", "imperialist", and "a dog."One placard exhorted Nixon: "Go back to your America where you torture blacks and kill Indians for fun."Nixon showed himself to be a straight-forward statesman, pausing whenever he could to explain to people that he was not racist or imperialist or a dog, did not approve of lynching or massacres, and, in fact, Never been involved in such action.However, there were not many such incidents. In the first few places where he stayed, there were very few demonstrators, and he didn't even notice it at all.Because wherever there are hostile slogans, there is always a Latin abrazo, that is, a big bear hug, to express his welcome.He heard some college students singing "Fuera Nixon," which the interpreter told him meant "Go back to Nixon."Nixon said with a smile that he didn't want to go back yet, because the people here are more friendly to him.
Later, no one can remember when and where, that shout became "Muera Nixon" (kill Nixon).He was booed in Buenos Aires on the fifth day of the trip and booed in Asunción on the sixth.On the whole, however, the crowd is relatively friendly.The Bolivians threw confetti at him, and he saw no sign of danger here.But actually, he was lucky.In a nearby mining area, many protesting crowds armed with dynamite sticks had assembled, and Nixon was spared an attack only by blowing up the railway and cutting off traffic in the area.Elsewhere, planned violence was dispersed as police remained vigilant.However, the Nixons could not have been so lucky all the way, and they did. On Wednesday, May 7, 11 days after their departure, in Lima, Peru, they felt for the first time that they might be in big trouble.
The welcoming ceremony at Lima Airport was polite and thoughtful, but when the caravan drove into the city, Nixon saw that there were not many pedestrians on the street, and most of them "did not seem to know" who he was.The Peruvian official on the same vehicle explained that the route the convoy traveled was not announced in advance in order to avoid "trouble".Nixon later recalled, "It was somewhat unsettling, because it never occurred to me that there would be trouble in friendly Peru."
Who the leaders of the mobs Nixon encountered in Peru and later in Venezuela was never quite clear.The faces were blurred, all the more so by Nixon's subsequent insistence that any trouble he encountered must be linked to a unified Communist conspiracy.Arriving at the magnificent Hotel Bolivar in Lima, he wrote afterward, he had a rough idea of the scale of the conspiracy: It didn't work out, so I decided to go all in and try to embarrass myself and the United States at San Marcos University, because this university is famous all over Latin America, and whatever happens there will make headlines elsewhere. He looked at the demonstrators and thought to himself: "How can they incite people to this extent? Then, facing everything in front of me, I began to understand that what I saw here was the enemy at any time. The brutality and determination and madness that are being unleashed on us. That's what I see in the faces of the mob. That's the essence of real communism." He added, seeing the young people in the crowd, " My immediate reaction is nothing but great hatred for those vicious communist agitators who have driven children to such an irrational state."
These words of Nixon were basically guesswork.在秘鲁和委内瑞拉反对他的人群当中，无疑杂有共产党人；共产党的《人民论坛》周刊在头版刊登的一幅经过修描的口露獠牙、神态疯狂的尼克松照片，也显然在一般人心中起过煽动作用。可是，由此得出结论，认为拉丁美洲所有反对他的访问的示威者一概都是受共产党情报局特务的操纵和指挥，这说得客气点儿，也未免太可笑了。在那些年头，中央情报局的确还远未做到无所不知——伊拉克政变就是叫中央情报局冷不及防——可是它对这样重大的事情竟然会一无所知，这是叫人难以相信的。一个比较合理的解释是，那些穷苦人认为自己遭到不公平待遇，一旦看到有机会发泄自己对富人的仇恨，于是——这是不难理解的——就抓住了这个机会。共产党人和其他派别的极端分子不过是趁机火上浇油，使自发的反美怒火烧得更旺些罢了。
利马暴徒固然很凶，不过紧接着副总统一行还算得到了几天的喘息时间。在厄瓜多尔和哥伦比亚停留的四天中，他们得以恢复元气，准备应付最后的也是最危险的一个停留地点——加拉加斯。委内瑞拉的局势令人难以捉摸，街头情绪颇为不祥，上台还不到四个月的军人政府对捣乱分子没有采取有力的镇压措施。这个新政府不愿意承认自己无能，对美国使馆不时提出的询问，一再肯定地答复说，它不相信副总统会遇到什么严重麻烦，如果万一发生什么事，它也已做好了充分的准备。
只有在加拉加斯，也许可以说共产党阴谋确实是反尼克松事件所以发生的一个因素。南美共产党人一向对自己的组织能力颇为自负，等待尼克松到达的委内瑞拉暴民也确是准备得很好的。5月13日(星期二)早晨，当副总统的座机在迈克蒂亚机场上空开始向下滑行时，下面分成五批的人群便已经分别占据了各个战略要地。有一批人集中在机场大楼。三批人分散在由机场到加拉加斯市中心的英雄公墓广场之间的12英里公路上，等候汽车队的到来；因为按事先的安排，尼克松要到广场上西蒙·博利瓦尔的墓前去献花圈。第五批，也是最大的一批人则全部集中在这个广场上，身上还都带着燃烧瓶。他们的头目们估计总有一个地方要把尼克松炸成粉碎，烧成灰烬。这种死法在委内瑞拉被看做是最可耻的下场。当年1月，有些出来保卫即将垮台的旧政府的警察就是这样给结果性命的，幸存的警官们对此记忆犹新，无疑这是他们不愿意挺身而出去保卫尼克松的原因。
官方的不负责任还不止于此，这里面有些问题至今叫人迷惑不解。跟随尼克松采访的美国记者先一步着陆，他们发现大约有五百个反尼克松的青少年乘公共汽车到达机场，在机场大楼观测台上摆开了阵式。这些人到那里去显然是有意要肇事的。尼克松的飞机还未降落，他们就都朝着它挥动拳头，大声叫骂。可是当美国特工人员要求委内瑞拉治安方面的负责人让那些人离开的时候，竟遭到了拒绝，对方还说：“他们不会闹事，他们有权示威。”然后，这位负责人又命令汽车队不像通常那样停在机场内固定的地点，而是到机场大楼外边的街头去列队。这样一来，尼克松夫妇就必需穿过示威人群，多走一百多码的距离。那个负责人后来说什么长列的漂亮的轿车会使仪仗队失去光彩，这个解释实在是荒诞至极。
那天，机场上的军乐队队长也是可疑人物之一，因为他知道，只要他一演奏美国国歌或委内瑞拉国歌，副总统就不得不立正站住。另外，负责沿途保卫车队安全的当局也值得怀疑。后者是最玩忽职守的。他们告诉副总统的美方警卫人员说，在尼克松到达前一小时，街上的交通便已经断绝。这纯属瞎说，因为许多车辆一直往来不停。此外，三个埋伏地点已经集中了大量伏击的人员和物资，任何人一眼就能看见。要说委内瑞拉的军人政府也参与了这一阴谋，那是不可思议的，不过，它希望出现一种轰动性的事件倒是很可能的。拉丁美洲的报刊编辑早已注意到，黎巴嫩和其他一些地方的骚乱，已经把美国的注意力和对外援助吸引了过去。如果现在使尼克松震动一下，从而使美国在对自己南方邻国的关系上不再采取那种满不在乎的态度，这在他们看来不一定是什么坏事。尼克松后来发现这样来解释那次糟糕的保卫工作倒是可信的。他以值得称许的克制态度指出，那些负责人对暴民的情况不可能知道得很清楚。
尼克松在从飞机的舷梯上走下来时，仍像往常一样端详着四周的人群，看看自己可能受到怎样的接待。如他后来所说，只需对那些尖声怪叫的年轻人看上一眼，他便明白：“在这个地方，我们将遇上和我所访问过的任何国家都全然不同的一种局面。”译员告诉他：“他们不友好，副总统先生。”尼克松不懂西班牙语也能明白这一点。震耳欲聋的叫闹声使他连奏国歌和鸣放19响礼炮的声音都听不清了。105发炮弹还没有发完，他已决定免去机场的其他仪式，特别是互致欢迎词和答词。他对译员说：“喂，我们不到麦克风前去讲话了。”又转身对委内瑞拉外长奥斯卡·加西亚·卢廷说：“我们免了例行的讲话，直接上车去吧。在这伙暴民的吵闹声中谁也不可能听见我们的讲话。”
这时他才发现四周并没有汽车，他朝着应是停车的地方望去，只见到一溜红色地毯，一直铺到机场大楼，还穿过大楼，铺到大楼那一边去。他远远看到汽车在那里闪闪发亮。可是中间夹着愤怒的青少年正在组织队伍，手里挥舞着腐烂的水果和其他一些乱七八糟的脏东西。仪仗队的刺刀本来还可以起点作用，但指挥官不知跑到哪里去了。
情况正在迅速恶化时，这一行美国人出乎意料地发现了一批盟友：机场上的30名机械工人，在别的人都对尼克松起哄的时候，他们却向他欢呼，这种情况很突出，弄得在场的人群一时间全愣住了。美国人趁此机会溜进了机场大楼。穿过大楼出来，尼克松和他夫人刚走到观测台下面，乐队队长这时竟重奏起了委内瑞拉国歌。尼克松夫妇只得呆呆地站住。这位副总统后来回忆说，他当时只“觉得是天下起雨来了”，后来才知道实际上全是唾沫。上面的人群一齐朝下面吐唾沫，有些人嘴里还嚼着烟草，因此尼克松夫人专为这次旅行置办的红色新装上都给染上了好些棕色污点。有一个橡皮吹笛直打在尼克松脸上。国歌演奏完毕。尼克松挽着帕特的手臂，紧跟在由特工人员和美国大使馆的人员匆匆组成的一个楔形队伍的后面，从人群中挤过，走向汽车。这支楔形队伍猛地向前一冲，把尼克松拥上第一辆汽车，让帕特进了第二辆。特工人员和译员跟着都上了车。他们赶紧把窗子摇上，擦掉自己脸上和衣服上的唾沫。这时，男主人和女主人也分别赶上车来。卢廷外长和尼克松同车，卢廷夫人和尼克松夫人同车。外长夫妇都感到很难堪。加西亚·卢廷为人和善，态度温和，他想帮着把副总统衣服上最恶心的唾沫擦掉，尼克松不客气地说：“请不必费心，我一脱下这些衣服就要马上把它烧掉的。”外长接着试图进行解释，他说：“委内瑞拉人民由于过去长期得不到自由，所以他们现在的一些激烈表现不免容易超出常规。在我们新政府内，我们不愿意做出任何事情，让人觉得我们是在压制自由。”尼克松回答说：“如果你们的新政府没有勇气而且也不想去制止像刚才机场上的那种暴民，那不要多久，委内瑞拉的任何人都不会有什么自由可言了。”
驶往加拉加斯一路上的情景真是令人毛骨悚然。以一队护卫警察和一辆记者卡车为前导，车队以每小时40英里的速度在现代化的双线公路上飞驰，可是骑着摩托车和小型摩托车的示威者却仍在车队当中往来穿行，朝着第一辆轿车大嚷大叫，吐唾沫，扔烂水果。车窗不得不一直关着。车里的空气因为没有空调，简直令人窒息。进入市区时，尼克松注意到人行道上空无一人，商店全都上了锁，还安上了窗板。他正想说这可不是好兆头，便突然听到砰的一声响。他当时以为是司机把车开过了一个坑洼的地方。但跟着他又听到第二声，接着又是第三声；这是飞来的大石块打中了汽车。就在这时，司机猛地扳动刹车，把车停住。他们已经到了市区，遇到了第一次伏击。一大帮老老少少，各种各样的衣衫褴褛的人从近处一条肮脏的小巷里一窝蜂地拥上大街来，乱扔大石块。这里的路障还没有完全搞起来，司机马上从旁边绕过去，但几分钟后，他又刹住车。这里是一个斜坡，公路由此拐进市区中心，往上直接连着苏克雷大街；这大街是一条中间有中央分车带隔开分成六行车道的大马路，它穿过加拉加斯最穷苦的一个居民区。第二个埋伏点也就在这里。有一辆大型翻斗车、几辆公共汽车和小汽车停在街心，司机都不见了。这时，另一群衣服破烂的人拿着标语牌和棍棒跑出来，向着被拦住的车队大嚷大叫。这里也有人扔石头，有几个杀气腾腾的示威者直向尼克松的汽车扑过来。
这里也发现一条可以绕行的路，于是车队又沿着那条路紧张无声地全速行进。在进入市中心区，即将到达目的地时，车队又被布置得更为严密的路障拦截住。公共汽车、卡车和小汽车在路中心横排成三行，正好挡住去路。尼克松的汽车司机不可能跨过中央岛去，因为那边是和车队反方向的单行道，而且路上的车辆已很拥挤。一时没有发生什么事情。寂静得叫人不寒而栗。忽然间，特工人员杰克·舍伍德低声说了：“瞧，他们来了!”
后来估计，这群暴民大约有二百到五百人。他们飞快跑过来，吐着唾沫，挥舞着斧头、棍子和铁管。《纽约先驱论坛报》的厄尔·梅佐站在车队前面的记者卡车上看到那情景，马上想到这真“像法国大革命时的一个场面”。这是一伙少有的狂乱的暴徒，简直要行凶杀人了。汽车挡风玻璃上唾沫直流，司机不得不开动刮水器。骑在别人肩膀上的头目高声发布命令，带领众人呼喊：“杀死尼克松!杀死尼克松!”他们的目的显然是要设法打开汽车门，如果不行，则砸碎车窗玻璃，把尼克松拖出车来。一块大石头击中一扇窗子，嵌在那特制的玻璃上，玻璃碎片飞到加西亚·卢廷的脸上，他不禁大叫：“飞进了我的眼睛!我的眼睛!”一根铁管击中靠译员那边的一扇窗子，玻璃没有全破，可是碎渣直溅到译员的嘴上。舍伍德受伤流了血。碎玻璃也打在尼克松的脸上。同时，另一根铁管从窗子破口捅进来，朝着尼克松不停地摇晃。