This Day in Diplomatic History (Nixon’s Disastrous Latin American “Goodwill” Tour)

May 8, 1958—Sent by President Dwight Eisenhower on a seven-nation “goodwill” tour of Latin America, Richard Nixon encountered his first real sense that all would not be well in Lima, Peru. Five days later, things would become so bad for the Vice-President that he would later include the incident in his memoir Six Crises.

Nixon would have preferred to stay home, where he could talk the administration into cutting taxes—then, as now, an electoral vote-getter, and something particularly important for the Vice-President as he looked to succeed Eisenhower as President by winning the GOP nomination and subsequent election in 1960. But Eisenhower had picked up on Franklin Roosevelt’s use of his second VP, Henry Wallace, in sending his subordinates abroad. Nixon had already journeyed to Argentina, Africa, and, in 1953, a 38,000-mile trip through Asia. The swing through Latin America was expected to be similarly uneventful.

Nobody at home expected the wave of anti-American protests that began when Nixon, on a platform at San Marcos University in Lima, was pelted by rocks and eggs and shouts of “Go Home, Nixon!” Calling the protestors “cowards,” he cut short his address, moving on to Catholic University, where the atmosphere was not much warmer but he at least didn’t have to contend with farm produce and projectiles.

Five days later, in Caracas, Venezuela, the tour turned positively violent. A hostile mob surrounded his car, pelting it with rocks and shouting “Death to Nixon!” Later, he and wife Pat would be spit upon by the crowds.

A worried Eisenhower dispatched a naval squadron in case his VP needed to be taken out of Venezuela for his own safety, but Nixon managed to leave quietly. The rest of the tour was ended.

Whatever its impact in Latin America, the demonstrations against Nixon only produced a wave of sympathy for him in the U.S.—something not easy to do, given the numerous enemies he had already created in this country. (Adlai Stevenson, for instance, referred to the red-baiting VP as “McCarthy with a white collar.”) Viewed as a representative of his country, the Vice-President was hailed for his courage. He came out of the encounter with his political prestige enhanced.