Pussywillowing

Roly-poly Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff used Geneva for years as a soap box from which, with Jewish wit, he mocked the Great Powers for the hypocrisy of their peace diplomacy, noted that League of Nations proceedings often resemble fencing in the dark with pussywillows.

Today alphabetical rotation has made brilliant, moon-faced Comrade Litvinoff the League Council's President. Last week he and Benito Mussolini fenced with pussywillows.

The Dictator, normally harsh, direct and plain, deliberately engaged with President Litvinoff in an exchange of views on the Ethiopian issue so vague, involved and fuzzy that Geneva minions could not figure out whether Il Duce meant that Italians would appear in the Council this week or not.

Meanwhile Ethiopia's wily Emperor was similarly stalling. By maneuvers so involved that outside the diplomatic arena they would be highly ridiculous, Italy and Ethiopia were fencing to force the League Council to take up the case from a juridical angle most favorable to each. Geneva wiseacres predicted that the Council will deliver its usual masterstroke, namely postpone everything to the next League session of the Assembly in September.

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