Meanwhile, in Washington, a counter-attack developed. At the first performance, a 'government investigator', armed with a tape recorder, had made recordings of certain sections of the musical, from which isolated quotations were distributed to various Members of Congress. Taken out of context these seemed to show that the play was a damaging attack upon 'American democracy' and had 'pro-Communist' leanings. A portrayal of a visit from a dictator to the free world was considered preposterous (this was before Krushchev, with his shoe-banging tactics, visited the United States). A reference to stuffing ballot-boxes, and a presentation of business men 'busy with their business' in a society cheerfully unaware of its own irrelevance, were taken to be an exclusive attack upon America - though other countries later visited equally thought they were being depicted. A chorus of journalists, for whom everything negative was 'news' and everything positive 'propaganda', was resented by some of the press. The chief offence of the play was that it was, as events proved, only too prophetic. But the rumour that it was 'pro-Communist' spread among highly placed members of the Eisenhower administration who had not themselves seen it.

When the World Mission arrived a few days later in Japan there was a coolness in Americans' reception of the play which contrasted with the enthusiasm of local audiences. A chance conversation revealed that a telegram from the State Department had been sent to all Embassies on the route of the Mission stating that the play 'ridiculed Western democracy, emphasized neutralism and represented an overall gain for the Soviet concept'.

Enquiries showed that the telegram had been signed with Secretary of State Dulles's initials, as were many other communications from his office which he had not personally seen. But before the people actually responsible for the drafting and sending of the directive were identified, a further major storm blew up in Washington. Other Senators and Congressmen, convinced of the value of the World Mission, requested the use of three American Military Air Transport Service planes to carry the group from Manila to Geneva - a two-month journey carefully planned, paid for by Moral Re-Armament at the approved charter rate. The planes were made available, but Time magazine attacked this move, and some Washington newspapers gave public utterance to the private gossip that The Vanishing Island was 'pro-Communist'.4

When an attempt was made from the same quarters in Washington to prevent the Cairo-Nairobi leg of the journey, Admiral Byrd intervened to have the extension approved. Later, on the return of the Mission, he went over the sequence of events. Kenaston Twitchell wrote Buchman, who had been directing the Washington battle from the West Coast, that 'Byrd checked up on information about the cable and intimated that it had been sent by the State Department forty-eight hours after the force left. He was deeply disturbed by the fact that the only opposition, in addition to that from the Communists, was from American Consulates and Embassies.5 Byrd also confirmed that the 'government' investigator at the Washington performance was operating unofficially and not under his own name;* and that the man who had drafted the State Department message had given false information about Moral Re-Armament to a leading Congressman.

(* Several years later the investigator wrote a letter of apology to Peter Howard saying that he had been 'sold a bill of goods' about Moral Re-Armament and regretted very much having misrepresented it. (Martin M.SS.)

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