Evening star., 1962-08-19
By HUGH MULLIGAN
AP NeHsfeaturea Writer

AP Newsfeatures Writer
NEW YORK, Aug. 18.-Me
poor old grandmother, ar
irving at Castle Garden with
her wooden steamer trunk
back before the turn of the
century, never got such a re-
ception.
Devil a one there was to
tell her how to get to Pater-
son, N. j.. or anything else
for that matter.
II anyone met her at all
down on the dock, it was a
glib tongued chap trying to
sell shares in the newly
opened Brooklyn Bridge or
maybe a boarding house shill
who specialized in bilking i'm
migrants out of their life
time savings by Turing them
to waterfront dives where
they would be beaten, robbed
and worse.
These entrepreneurs Of the
fast buck and the even faster
fade-away are gone from the
nations portals. OF late their
place at the bottom of the
gangplank (and the portable
airport stairway has been
usurped by a bevy Of pretty
girls. all smiling and neatly
uniformed, who speak a vari-
ETY. Of foreign languages and
whose job it Is to see that
the incoming foreigner and
even the homecoming Ameri-
can is given q warm welcome.
A New Face
Officially, the port recep-
zionist program Of the United.
States Justice Department is
the smiling new face Uncle
Sam now shows to visitors
arriving at our shores.
Unofficially, it's tied in
with State and Commerce
Department campaigns to
lure more tourists to the
United States. Also involved
is the balance of dollar pay
ments, which means if we
don't treat the foreign tourist
right he might not spend as
much as we'd hoped, and if
we don't treat the returning
American right, he might get
into a snit and spend more
than we expected next time
out.
Either way, the polyglot
young ladies in their trim
blue uniforms provide a
charming contrast to the way
we used to treat our visitors.
Now it's no longer considered
good form to look upon all
arrivals from overseas as a
cross between typhoid Mary
and a Balkan spy, with Just
a suspicion of the interna-
tional jewel thief and the
Malta dope peddler thrown
in for local color.
Just the other day recep-
zionist Angela Aiello, who
speaks Spanish, French and
Italian, had to go to some
pains to discourage an elderly
italian gentleman from tax
ing a taxi from Idlewild to
Utica, N. Y, a distance of
about 240 miles. He said he
thought the subway might
be too confining for him.
Receptionist Betty Palmer,
a knockout of a blonde, was
confronted with a well lubri-
Gated Swede who knew only
one sentence in English:
''How do I get to the Pep
permint Lounge?"
On the whole, though. to-
days foreign tourist is a well
dressed, worldly wise, sophis-
ticated traveller who affects
funny hats, bandoliers of
cameras and binoculars, sun
glasses and other gaudy
raiments that once were the
exclusive markings Of the
American tourist.
According to Retta Kirch-
mier, q supervisor Of port
receptionists, the only sure
way to tell the incoming
American from the foreign
tourist is by the number of
packages carried by the male
Of the species, who still ranks
as the worlds number one
beast of burden. Nine times
out of 10, the fellow with
the most cameras is apt to
be a Japanese tourist, while
the fellow with the five suit
cases, the carton of liquor,
the hat boxes, the plastic
bag full of suits and dresses.