Meanwhile the World Mission had been moving from country to country, first through Asia, then to East Africa. In Taiwan, Peter Howard upset American officials by speaking on the radio about the wrongs inflicted on China by the West, as well as the wrongs of Peking; in Madras an extremist group tried to stop the American planes from landing as violating India's neutrality, but a stronger body of Indian opinion insisted on welcoming the Mission; in Cairo the orders from Washington withdrawing the planes' further use were awaiting them, and it took Herbert Hoover Jr as well as Byrd to get them rescinded. But in Rangoon one Asian Ambassador stated publicly, 'I have looked down on the West with contempt. I thought the West with the hydrogen bomb was drawing us all to destruction ... When I saw The Vanishing Island and saw ... all the nations on the stage - particularly the Americans - all my prejudices vanished and my bitterness for the West went with them.'6

Russian diplomats on the route were just as disturbed as the Americans. The Russian First Secretary in Cairo felt the second act was an attack on the Soviets, but added, 'The future is either your way or our way. I don't believe you will ever change the motive of a capitalist, but I appreciate how strongly you believe you are doing it.'

What they felt to be a one-sided reporting of the journey in the United States press prompted a group of American business men to buy space in Time magazine and in daily newspapers to supplement and correct their stories. This inaugurated a stream of pages in the next years which appeared, sometimes as the gift of the newspaper, but more often paid for by individuals in different cities, and which were soon copied in other lands. These carried the news at a time when some sections of the press were adopting a boycott. Sir Beverley Baxter, MP, took up this point in his review of The Vanishing Island when it came to London: 'Apparently only two London newspapers saw fit to record this event,' he wrote. 'The long-established boycott continues. In my opinion this was not good journalism. If a musical comedy is presented in London, no matter from what source, the drama critics should have reported on its qualities. If, in the view of Fleet Street, the show was propaganda, it could still be dealt with on its professional merits, which were many. And why should not Dr Buchman use the theatre for propaganda? Bernard Shaw never did it for anything else, and Shakespeare was by no means guiltless of the charge.'7

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