Bernadotte's Eulogy

In Paris, the nations listened to the earnest, urgent words of Count Folke Bernadotte. The U.N. General-Assembly considered his proposals for a Palestine settlement which he had completed just before his death. Both George Marshall and Ernie Bevin backed the plan; it seemed certain that the Assembly would adopt it. Both Jews and Arabs objected, but they sounded more moderate than usual.

One cold and windy evening last week, while the men in Paris still considered the Count's plan, a white plane with United Nations markings landed at Stockholm airport. It bore the coffin of Folke Bernadotte. In a hangar filled with dahlias and carnations, in the presence of the Count's 88-year-old father Prince Oscar (brother of Sweden's King Gustaf), a short ceremony took place. Said the old man to the men who had brought his son's body home: "Thank you for what you have done."

This week the Count was buried in the Bernadotte family plot. On Bernadotte's coffin rested the Count's Red Cross cap, his Boy Scout stick, and a single white carnation. A Y.M.C.A. choir sang Bernadotte's favorite spirituals, Deep River and Steal Away to Jesus. The Lutheran pastor who delivered the funeral oration took for his text Isaiah 6: 8: "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me."

All over the world, people paid tribute to the dead man. Some of the eulogists found it easier to bury the meaning of Bernadotte's murder than to praise him.

Henry Wallace, for instance, declared that the murder was due to "British and American imperialism." Manhattan's Communist Daily Worker suggested that the crime had been committed by British agents provocateurs who had infiltrated the Stern gang and whose task was "plotting assassinations."

Bartley Crum, publisher of the New York Star, produced an even more striking theory: he seemed to be saying that Bernadotte himself was an agent provocateur and had deliberately exposed himself to assassination. Crum declared that when Bernadotte set out on the inspection tour during which he was shot, he "had taken a devious, roundabout route which led him, for no reason whatever, directly through the Stern gang stronghold." (Actually, the Sternists did not control any one part of Jerusalem; their known headquarters were nowhere along Bernadotte's route.)

Ben Hecht, who from a safe distance has long and loudly egged on Jewish terrorists, also made a statement. Said he: "[Bernadotte] was an ass not worthy of so fine a death."

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