Effect Of President’s Visit On Election

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31206, 2 November 1966, Page 11

Effect Of President’s Visit On Election

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Oct. 31. President Johnson’s visit to Australia and New Zealand has assured the Prime Ministers, Mr Holt and Mr Holyoake, of “more comfortable than ever” victories when their countries go to the polls on November 26, according to a Sydney report to the “Washington Post” today. The report quoted a Canberra observer as saying “Holt will be elected, if for nothing else, because he is the man who brought L.B.J. out here.”

The unparalleled warmth of Australia’s and New Zealand’s welcome for the President “shows how far those Commonwealth countries have moved away from traditional ties of Queen and England towards closer ties with the United States,” it added.

“Australia is well along the road that leads to a solid and inseparable relationship with the United States,” a veteran New Zealand politician said after the visit, “while New Zealand has just put its foot on that road. “The President left behind him an overwhelmingly favourable impression of both himself and the United States —in fact many people here do not distinguish between the two. “Both nations seem certain, and are eager, to play an increasingly important and vital role in Asian and Pacific affairs. .

“And they are rapidly becoming (as Mr Johnson claims Australia is already) the strongest and most reliable friends the United States has in Asia.”