(3 of 3)
Chou. Nasser smiled. Chou asked if this was
Nasser's first trip out of Egypt and, told that it was, added: "You
should take advantage of this trip and travel to all the Asian
countries." Nasser smiled again.
In Rangoon, the Premiers sipped iced coconut milk and spent hours
together conferring on matters coming up at Bandung. Chou En-lai was
the first to leave for Bandung, but the last to arrive. Presumably
concerned by what happened to a plane carrying an advance delegation
from Peking (see below), Chou kept his schedule secret. At its stops
his plane was surrounded by troops; it carried ten 45-gallon drums of
fuel from home. When required to take on more gas (Standard-Vacuum) at
Rangoon, the Communists gave the fuel a litmus-paper test. Although
forced down by weather at Singapore, Chou got to Indonesia safely. At
the airport, the Indonesians even went so far as to bar some of their
own officials.
Less melodramatically, Bandung's other featured performers streamed in.
From Manila came ebullient Carlos Romulo, determined to fight off any
effort to turn Bandung into an anti-U.S. or anti-Western propaganda
barrage. Also lined up on the pro-Western side: Pakistan's Mohammed
Ali, Thailand's Oxford-educated Prince Wan Waithayakon, Turkey's Deputy
Prime Minister Fatin Rustu Zorlu (a former NATO delegate), and
Lebanon's stoutly pro-Western Charles Malik. Besides Chou's, there was
only one Communist delegation: North Viet Nam's, led by Foreign
Minister Pham Van Dong.
General Principles. For months the host delegation had been trying to
put together an agenda (some subjects: atomic energy control,
anticolonialism, coexistence, "universal" U.N. membership). Any of
these might be exploited and become explosive. But, insisted Nehru: "A
controversial issue should hardly be discussed at this conference. The
conference should discuss general principles."
They had not gathered, as diplomats often do, to confirm a common
purpose, but to find one. What they were really seeking, said Nehru
candidly (and for the moment ignoring the stepchildren from Africa) was
the "self-justification of Asia."
