(5 of 5)
A way down the road I enter the busy port of Pusan. Over its outskirts two helicopters are flying. Most of the Koreans on the highway look briefly up, then down again, as the helicopters hover and pass. But one, a boy of perhaps seven or eight, stares upward at the monstrous things with a gaze of fixed and bright fascination. His eyes shine, his lips are parted, and I think of an American boy gazing at his first bicycle on a Christmas morning.
The mine detector, the helicopters, the boy on the roadside—here, after a fashion, was communication between the American West and the people of South Korea. And, so thinking, I reflected as the jeep bumped into Pusan that the machine age and the machine man of the West can be pretty wonderful. But machines still can't talk to people, not as we must learn—and learn very soon—to talk to the people of Asia.
*A reporter for Britain's Manchester Guardian tells the story of an overcoat which was stolen from a U.S. vice consul in Pusan and which the local authorities were anxious to recover. A few days after the theft, Pusan's chief of police personally reported to the coat's owner. "All is well," said the chief, "as I am currently torturing two suspects."