Some others who took part in the Mission are worth listing, as they indicate the calibre of those Buchman expected to 'remake the world' with him, and many were his personal friends. William Nkomo, the founder and first President of the African National Congress Youth League, went from South Africa; the Tolon Na, then a Member of Parliament, from Ghana; and Basil Okwu, a member of the Eastern Region House of Assembly, from Nigeria. James Haworth and Lady Dollan, recent members of the British Labour Party National Executive, went with a group of senior British servicemen including Air Vice-Marshal T. C. Traill, Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Cochrane, Rear-Admiral 0. W. Phillips and Major-General G. 0. De R. Channer. Ole Bjørn Kraft, Danish Foreign Minister from 1950 to 1953 and Chairman of NATO during his last year of office, Dr Oskar Leimgruber, a recent Chancellor of the Swiss Confederation, and Eugène Claudius-Petit, a member of ten post-war French governments, were among the politicians from the continent of Europe. Major Kahi Harawira represented the Maori people of New Zealand, and Majid Movaghar, a newspaper publisher, represented the Shah of Iran. From Japan came Kanju Kato, the post-war Minister of Labour, with his wife, Shidzue, who was a Senator, both senior members of the Socialist party, and Niro Hoshijima, a Member of the Diet; and from Taiwan, Daniel Lew, technical counsellor to the Chinese UN delegation. Charles Deane, a Congressman from North Carolina, was among the Americans on the Mission.

The World Mission was launched. One important factor, however, was lacking: the transport to carry the Mission round the world. Charter planes were elusive and costly. In the audience in Washington was the chairman of an airline flying charter planes for the United States government, ferrying soldiers from Japan. His planes went empty from the States, and, if official permission were given, would be available. A group of Congressional leaders sought an emergency meeting with the Secretary of the Army, and while the cast were giving one last performance in Los Angeles word was flashed to them that the planes were freed and the whole party could take off on schedule. The chairman of the airline himself settled the bill for the planes as far as Tokyo. Faith - severely tested up to the last moment - was justified.

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Photo: The Tolon Na, President of the Northern Territories Council of Ghana, at Caux.
©Robert J Fleming/MRA Productions