He seems like a man who is selling a new approach to ideas. He is reserved and modest, but forceful at the same time. But if he were a used-car dealer, I would certainly buy one from him.
—Fiat Chairman Giovanni Agnelli
THAT verdict of Italy's chief automaker, which followed a talk with Richard Nixon, may not have been very diplomatic. Nonetheless, it reflected the general—and generally relieved—impression of political leaders, businessmen and other prominent Europeans who sat down with the U.S. President during his eight-day tour. While Nixon was occasionally greeted by protesting demonstrators, there were many gratifying moments of spontaneity and warmth. Outside Claridge's hotel in London, when Nixon ventured a U.S.-campaign-style foray of handshaking, Mrs. Violet Reeve exclaimed: "Eee! You've got luvverly warm hands!" "That," replied Nixon, "is because I've got a lovely warm car." At a Berlin electrical factory, his audience took up a cry that turned around the "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh!" chant of anti-U.S. students. "Ha, ho, hey!" they called. "Nixon is O.K.!" Nixon loved it, and jumped back onto the podium to reply: "Ha, ho, hey! Berliners are O.K.!"
For the most part, though, the trip—as intended—was low-key and at times downright dull. Just as, it was noted, only a dish of spaghetti excites a Roman, it takes a good deal to turn the attention of other Europeans from their coq au vin, fish and chips or sauerbraten to any display of public fervor. It was therefore predictable that Richard Nixon's earnest pilgrimage stirred less excitement last week than the triumphant passages of his more glamorous predecessors, Eisenhower and Kennedy —or even than the European hegira early last month of Astronaut Frank Borman, fresh from orbiting the moon.
Underwhelmed. If Nixon remained an ill-defined figure to the mass of Europeans, he nonetheless registered impressively with their heads of government. In eight days of confrontations with them, he was assured and well-informed, displaying modesty and a hard intelligence, common sense and a very uncommon determination. There were no grand new visions or invocations of ancient splendor. Nixon's was an understated performance, and it was successful exactly for that reason. He went to listen to Europe's leaders, and there is no more popular conversationalist than a good listener.
"Richard Nixon is underwhelming Europe, and the Europeans seem rather grateful," reported TIME Washington Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey, who accompanied the President on his tour. "In a curious way, his strength was that he was so much himself. He was plainly not quite relaxed in the midst of ceremony, even the modest amount included in this trip. If there was not charm, there was simplicity. If there was not sophistication, there was common sense and decency. He created no jealousies, taxed no one's ingenuity. He was a little clumsy but sincere, a little uncertain but determined. At the end, some uneasiness crept into the atmosphere; with Charles de Gaulle, he seemed not fully confident of himself."