In many ways President Ramon Magsaysay's rise in politics resembles Dwight Eisenhower's. A smiling soldier with immense popularity, a simple, homey manner, a record of incorruptibility, and little knowledge of practical politics, he had the presidential nomination thrust upon him in 1953 by the Nacionalista Party in its eagerness to throw out the entrenched Liberals.
He was elected President in a landslide by the biggest number of voters in his nation's history. At first he seemed reluctant to assert the authority that is his. Nationalist right-wingers in the Senate, who had climbed back to power on his coattails, openly and...
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