Nixon in Ceylon

In 1953, America dispatched Vice-President Richard Nixon to the island nation of Ceylon (still nearly two decades away from being rechristened Sri Lanka). The Eisenhower Administration was mighty worried about reports that Ceylon was shipping strategic materials to newly Communist China, a sign that the former colony might be contemplating an even more dramatic leftward shift. So Nixon alighted in Colombo, intent on letting the Ceylonese know that the United States was the Cold War side to choos