At 72, Louisiana's Democratic Senator Allen Ellender is as juicy and peppery as the shrimp jambalaya that he cooks up for friends. An oldtime Huey Long lieutenant and a longtime (25 years) member of the Senate, Ellender enjoys nothing more than whisking around the world to reaffirm his conviction that the U.S. is misspending its money on foreign aid. Since 1946, he has made six globe-girdling tours, two side trips to Latin America, three to Europe, and four to the Near Middle and Far East and the Balkan countries. In his travels, Ellender shoots 16-mm. movies, shows them to his colleagues in Washington. He keeps little black notebooks in which he scribbles gossipy comments about everything he sees. These are published at Government expense, in books running as long as 1,000 pages, and shipped out to anybody who wants to know about Ellender's adventures.
Whenever they hear that he is heading their way, U.S. diplomats overseas blanch with dismay. For Ellender has a habit of saying what he thinks—and what he says does not often contribute to international amity. While visiting Korea in 1956, for example, Ellender announced that the South Koreans, then considered good U.S. allies, were nothing better than "bloodsuckers." He found the public market in Mogadishu, Somalia "untidy," but nothing as compared with the "filth" of those in Addis Ababa. He noted that in Nepal "the streets were filled with people. Apparently the citizens do not work very much."
Press Stopper. This fall Ellender was at it again. It had long been his ambition to visit every country in the world (he keeps track of his record on a wall map in his office). He had just about satisfied that yearning when lo and behold, Africa began sprouting a whole bunch of brand-new nations. So off he went to Africa. In Morocco he paused to express a variety of opinions. "Egypt," said the segregationist Senator, "hasn't achieved anything great since the Pharaohs began practicing desegregation with their slaves . . . Ethiopia would have nothing if it weren't for the Italians. Africans will probably get somewhere some day, but it'll take time . . . The only black man I know of with the stuff it takes to be a United States Senator was Booker T. Washington, but he had a white mother and is dead now." Then last week Ellender moved on to Southern Rhodesia, where he held a rambling news conference and stopped the press with the comment: "The average African is incapable of leadership except through the assistance of Europeans."
Uganda declared Ellender a prohibited immigrant. So did Tanganyika and Ethiopia (Ellender hadn't planned to go to Ethiopia this trip anyhow). Kenya's government protested to President Kennedy.
Look, No Horns. As for Ellender, he complained that he had been misquoted —but a transcript of his remarks snowed that he had sure enough said all those unkind things. His denial made some Africans even madder. In Southern Rhodesia the Bulawayo Chronicle, which first defended Ellender's right of free speech, now called him a "polecat" who lacks the "courage of his convictions."