ASHEVILLE, N.C.—We got into Asheville, N.C., with a snow flurry Tuesday morning, but we arrived on time and found our schedule much the same as in Durham, although there are no universities in Asheville.

Our day there began at 11 a.m. with a press conference. At noon General and Mrs. Robert Eichelberger came to lunch with us. He and Clark Eichelberger are distant cousins.

I was particularly glad to see the general again, because I will never forget his kindness to me in Australia during the war and his hospitality at his headquarters at Rockhampton, where some of our troops were stationed. He has retired now and lives in Asheville with his wife.

When I asked his old aide, Dan Edwards, in Durham what the general was doing, he said, "Oh, he writes things now and then and makes speeches and plays a good deal of golf." Which, I think, sounds like a very pleasant existence, particularly in a place like Asheville, a really charming place in which to live.

It is cold in Asheville in winter, however, and I found it not very accessible by air.

I was told a delightful story about the Mayor of Durham, who was flying to a meeting of municipal officials in Asheville. The airstrip there is short, is approached over a mountain, and frequently the approach is not safe.

On this particular trip, the Mayor found that instead of being deposited in Asheville, he was going on to Tennessee. Then, to get back he went to Atlanta, Ga., and finally had traveled 1,200 miles, instead of 240, when he was deposited by bus in Asheville almost 24 hours after his departure from Durham.

We stayed in a very pleasant hotel called The Manor, which claims to be an English inn in the United States. It was very comfortable and an open fire in my sitting room made it look hospitable for the newspaper people who came in.

From 2 to 4 p.m. Mr. Eichelberger and I held a forum for all organizations and interested people who wanted a discussion about the United Nations and the American Association for the United Nations program.

The evening meeting was at 7:30 o'clock at the YWCA, and at 9:15 p.m. we started the 70-mile drive to Spartanburg, S.C., where we took a train to Washington, D.C., and then caught a plane to New York.

It was important for me to get in as early in the morning as possible, for I had the pleasure of having the Danny Kayes for lunch with Douglas Fairbanks and my son, James, and his wife, who had been guests in my little apartment since Tuesday morning when they arrived from Paris after their short week there and in London.

The Asheville Citizen, that city's morning paper, reported on Tuesday that in spite of Soviet objections, the Secretary General of the United Nations has been authorized to draw on the capital fund of the U.N. to pay for the initial cost of the police force in Egypt.

A number of the nations, including the Soviet Union, insist they will not pay for this force, nor for the clearing of the canal, for they consider the whole expense rightfully should be born by Great Britain, France and Israel.

It seems to me that if this is the case, Egypt should bear its fair share, since Egyptian attitudes and actions brought on the invasion by Israel, France and Great Britain. Threats cannot be bandied about with impunity and President Gamal Abdel Nasser had been using threats against these nations, as well as instigating certain actions which did not seem to augur peaceful relations.