The Times That Try

The U.N. General Assembly last week broke up into eight committees and, theoretically, buckled down to work. Actually, it continued to squabble over its 66-item agenda.

After much controversy, the Political & Security Committee had decided in which order it would proceed with the business in hand: debate i) Greece's complaint against her Communist neighbors, 2) the Italian colonies, 3) Russia's proposal for a Big Five "peace pact," 4) Palestine, 5) Indonesia and 6) the report of the Security Council. The committee had just disposed of item No. i by passing the Greek issue on to a conciliation commission when it had to make room on its agenda for a new problem. The Chinese had placed a formal charge before the Assembly that Moscow had violated the 1945 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, by such acts as robbing Manchuria of most of its industry and giving "moral and material support to the Communist insurrection in China." The Russians, who denounced the Chinese charge as "pitiful babble," wanted to place it last on the agenda: China, backed by the U.S., wanted to put it third, ahead of Russia's phony peace plan. After a bitter, weary three-hour debate, the Chinese motion was finally assigned fifth place, ahead of Indonesia.

The Political Committee then took up the matter of the Italian colonies. The Russians dramatically demanded immediate independence for Libya (now administered by the British). The U.S. and Britain submitted plans asking for independence in three to five years.

As the debates wore on, the most dramatic issue was one not yet on any U.N. agenda: the cold war between Russia and Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav delegation voted with the Russians against the Chinese Nationalists' proposal; in effect this was a vote for China's new Communist rulers, whom the Yugoslavs hail as comrades, hoping that the Chinese might turn to a Titoism of their own. But on most other issues, the Yugoslavs lined up with the West. Last week, the U.S. announced that it would back the Yugoslavs for a seat on the Security Council against Czechoslovakia. The Yugoslavs, declared the Ukraine's Dmitri Manuilsky in a withering speech before the Assembly, were "bankrupt sharks."

It was a less than fruitful week for the U.N. At one point during the Political Committee's debate, as a Byelorussian delegate kept sledgehammering away on a procedural point, Fayez El-Khouri of Syria sighed: "We cannot all withstand the pressure of these meetings. If the representative of Byelorussia has a strong nervous and physical system, I confess that for my part I sometimes need rest, moral and spiritual rest. . ."

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