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Against Fulbright's opposition, the committee voted to confirm Gluck, and next day the Senate routinely approved him without debate. Scheduled to take up his post in Colombo in September, Gluck busied himself with State Department briefings on Ceylon, including a lecture on Buddhism.
Then, last week, a custard pie of publicity suddenly smacked into Gluck's face. The Washington Post and Times Herald front-paged excerpts from the Gluck-Fulbright exchange (leaked by none other than William Fulbright, reported Washington Columnist Doris Fleeson). In cold, black print, they made hard reading for Max Gluck and his sponsors.
Exquisitely Blank. Without ever setting foot on the island, Maxwell Gluck suddenly became Ceylon's big news of the week. His admissions of ignorance, snapped an English-language paper, "would have drawn a blush to the cheeks of the average Ceylonese schoolboy." A Colombo columnist sneered at Gluck's "exquisitely blank" mind.
Washington got almost as excited as Colombo. Indignant protests rang out against paying off campaign contributors with Government posts. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee summoned Under Secretary of State Christian A. Herter to Capitol Hill to explain Gluck's appointment. When a newsman brought up the Gluck flap at the presidential press conference, Dwight Eisenhower scowlingly declared that Gluck's campaign contributions had never been "mentioned to me as a consideration, and I don't take it very kindly as suggesting I would be influenced by such things ... Of course we knew he had never been to Ceylon—he wasn't thoroughly familiar with it. But certainly he can learn, if he is the kind of character and kind of man we believe him to be."