IT WAS one of those balmy spring days toward the end of April for which Washington is famous. Decked out in its springtime finery of flowering trees and shrubs, the capital preened itself and waited. Now and then an energetic breeze ruffled the dozens of red-white-and-blue and redwhite-and-green flags that hung from every conceivable display point. Washington was ready to receive its most distinguished visitor in many a month-Miguel Alemán, President of Mexico.

The people turned out more than 700,000 strong. Throngs of them lined the parade route from airport to White House to shout vivas of welcome. Thousands of others jammed into Post Square downtown. At four o'clock President Truman's private plane, the Sacred Cow, roared in from the south, bringing the first Mexican President to visit the United States capital while in office.

Squadrons of droning bombers and flashing jet planes roared overhead, while cannon set up at the airport fired a salute of twenty-one guns. President Truman, surrounded by Cabinet members and other high government officials, met the visiting Chief Executive at the ramp of the plane. With him were his fourteenyear-old son Miguelito-who was promptly taken over by District Boy Scouts-and two members of the Mexican Cabinet, Foreign Minister Jaime Torres Bodet and Finance Minister Ramón Beteta, as well as other officials.

The two Presidents greeted each other heartily, obviously glad to renew a personal acquaintance begun during Mr. Truman's visit in Mexico six weeks earlier. At that time, when the President of the United States was being wined and dined by enthusiastic Mexicans, he emphasized that "the Good Neighbor Policy specifi

cally includes the doctrine of non-intervention. . . . What it means is that a strong nation does not have the right to impose its will, by reason of its strength, on a weaker nation. . . It is a binding commitment. . . . My own country will be faithful to the letter and to the spirit of that law." This reiteration of United States policy gained special emphasis from the lips of the President. But it was his unexpected homage to the boy heroes of Chapultepec in the Mexican war with the United States that endeared him to the Mexican people.

Now in Washington before a battery of cameras and microphones, Presidents Truman and Alemán again exchanged official greetings. Mr. Truman pointed out the interest that people in this country took in his visit to Mexico City. "They interpret your many kindnesses to me," he told President Alemán, "not only as an example of the whole-hearted Mexican hospitality that thousands of our visitors

to your country have experienced, but also as a symbol of the relationship between the friendly people of two neighboring countries."

In a forthright reply, President Alemán said in Spanish: "Your country is great not only by reason of its vast resources and the spirit of its people, but because of the overwhelming responsibilities that the moral rule of democracy impresses on all nations that are strong and prosperous. In a world where skepticism and discord still becloud peace, the confidence of all the Americas in the value of democracy is one of the finest legacies that we have inherited in our Hemisphere. . . . I look forward with certainty to the growing affirmation of Mexican-American friendship every year," he continued, "for the good of a world that is impatient for all men to understand, appreciate, and help one another."

This opened a busy program planned for the Mexican President's two-and-a