"Junior S.O.B."

(See Cover)

In a Manhattan living room one day last week, an eight-year-old boy, his eye on the clock, said: "Mummy, I want to see Howdy Doody." Obediently his mother went to the television set. As the screen flickered to life, the face that appeared was not the familiar, freckled countenance of the famous TV puppet, but the cold, clean-cut face of a man talking Russian. Said the little boy, in a voice foreboding tears: "I want to see Howdy Doody."

"Hush, dear," said his mother. "This is U.N."

"Oh, pooey," said the child.

A great many other Americans felt the same way. For the past fortnight that Russian face on the nation's television screens blocked not only Howdy Doody, but such other favorites as Lucky Pup, and Life with Snarky Parker. But the show that replaced them--a curious mixture of boredom and excitement, alternating long-winded oratory with sharp, electrifying statements of historic rights & wrongs--was definitely worth America's while. To millions of Americans it brought the unique experience of seeing the enemy right in their living room.

The name that went with the face was Jacob Malik. He appeared as a broad-shouldered, blond figure, slimmer on television than he actually is, with a hard-set jaw, impassive and unsmiling. Often he stared balefully at his unseen audience; sometimes he scribbled notes or leaned back to catch the whispers of three Russian aides sitting behind him. Hour after hour, in a dry voice that rarely rose in audible anger, meticulously using the same phrases and arguments, meticulously carrying out his orders, he lied.

To Hamstring & Delay. As the second week of Security Council meetings opened, under Malik's presidency, the first business should have been a discussion of North Korean aggression, with South Korean representatives taking part. But not with Malik presiding. That was why the Kremlin had sent him back to the U.N.--to hamstring, delay, obstruct, make sure that nothing was done.

Instead of taking up the agenda item, he read a "most urgent" telegram from the North Korean authorities, a denunciation, conveniently in Russian, of "American interventionists . . . barbarous attacks . . . cannibalistic cynicism . . ." It was cut from the same cloth of distortion and falsehood that the Russian delegate had unrolled in all his previous harangues (e.g., the real aggressors in Korea were "American imperialists"; only the Soviet Union desired a "peaceful settlement," etc.).

While Malik droned on, the other ten delegates sat patiently around the horseshoe table. From the ceiling, television lights glared down on the high-domed head of Britain's Sir Gladwyn Jebb, the pince-nez of the U.S.'s Warren Austin, the long nose of France's Jean Chauvel, the doodling hand of China's Tingfu F. Tsiang.

When Malik had finished reading, the Council's majority moved hard, for the first time, to trip him up.

Questions & Answers. "Point of order!" called China's scholarly Dr. Tsiang. Malik had ignored the majority will, had refused to ask the South Korean delegate to the Council table (unless the North Koreans were invited, too). He knew that if he ruled against the delegation's admission, the Council majority would vote him down; so Malik simply refused to hand down a ruling. Tsiang burst out: "After a point of order is raised, the president must render a ruling . . ."

Malik, the president of the Security Council, yielded the floor to Malik, the Soviet delegate. Once more he blamed the Korean war on U.S. "aggressors" and their South Korean "vassals." When that speech was over, Tsiang asked, with Confucian irony: "Now that the president of the Security Council has had the benefit of the wisdom of the representative of the Soviet Union, he should be in a position to give that ruling." The chamber echoed with laughter. Malik still stalled.

Then Warren Austin tried his hand. The week before, Austin had been flamboyant in gesture and voice. This time, on the advice of his aides, he held himself to a quieter, lower and more effective pitch (which also came across better on television). The chamber was tense and hushed as Austin spoke. All the faces around the Council table (except those of the Russians and the long, smart-aleck face of Yugoslavia's Ales Bebler) looked pleased; by the end Secretary General Trygve Lie wore a wide grin. Said Austin:

"Whose troops are attacking deep in the country of somebody else? Whose country is being overrun by an invading army? The Republic of Korea.

"Who is assisting the Republic of Korea to defend itself? The United Nations, with the support of 53 out of 59 members.

"Who has the influence and the power to call off the invading Northern Korean army? The Soviet Union.

"Who then is supporting the United Nations Charter and working for peace? The 53 members of the United Nations who are assisting the Republic of Korea.

"Is the Soviet Union one of the 53 ? No.

"What member of this Security Council is assisting the invaders in the Security Council? The Soviet Union . . ."

For a full minute, the audience in the visitors' gallery applauded (although applause is forbidden and almost never heard in U.N.'s sedate halls). Malik vainly pounded his gavel, furiously threatened to expel the public from the chamber.

Way of Hope? At the next session, Warren Austin again leaned forward across the table, to deliver the longest speech of the day--more than an hour with its French interpretation. Said he: "To call [the North Korean aggressors] the representatives of the Korean people must be only a tragic witticism when addressed to those who know how quickly nationalism, patriotism and independence in other countries have been crushed to produce subservient puppet governments--zombie governments that breathe and speak and act, but have no soul.* The United Nations tried to peer through the mists that enshroud this regime. Nothing could be seen. The only voice that was heard was an echo of a greater voice that had come rolling and rumbling across steppe and tundra and mountain from a faraway place . . ."

By the time Britain's Sir Gladwyn Jebb took the floor next day, Malik had shed much of his usual hard-faced, impassive confidence. He was grumpy. The Briton's sharp sallies made him wince and bite his lips.

Jebb jabbed at Soviet propaganda. "So obviously absurd that it is hard to think that it can be swallowed even by the automatons who listen to the Moscow radio." He satirized the Soviet mind--of which Jacob Malik's is a perfect specimen. Most Russian bureaucrats, said Jebb, are "brought up from infancy on a doctrine of state infallibility." Then Jebb eloquently defined what he called the United Nations way--"which discards force except when it is necessary to meet aggression by force."/-

The West's Instrument. Americans who watched the show at Lake Success tended to boo when Malik threw a dirty punch, to cheer when Austin put a hard glove on his opponent. But what was the point of the whole prizefight? U.N., which has been around these five years, is regarded by most people, at worst, as an irritating check on U.S. policy, at best as a windy forum for East and West. Is it worth all the fuss & bother--and the TV time?

U.N. is certainly worth more now than at any time since the first round at San Francisco. Said one experienced reporter last week: "The differences between the U.N. of 1946 and 1950 are striking: then, it had just begun to function; now it has begun to act."

People who sneer that U.N. has acted only because the U.S. has acted miss the point--that the interests of the U.S. and of the free nations in U.N. coincide. The West has made U.N. an instrument of its policy; that is U.N.'s new strength. The instrument is not decisive, but it will contribute to the decision.

Because of its power and place in the world, the U.S. has assumed leadership in U.N. It is leading, not driving, the other free nations through persuasion, give & take adjustments--and some good, sound politicking. At this practical work in the corridors of Lake Success, Austin is ably assisted by his tactful second-in-command, Ambassador Ernest Gross, a State Department career man. The diligence and democracy of Austin and Gross, as they confer with their colleagues, contrast sharply with Malik's manner.

Malik's tactics have won him no friends, have alienated people who might have become friends. Trygve Lie, who for a long time has seemed to be playing a somewhat dubious broker's role between East & West, now appears staunchly on the Western side, although he still wants Red China admitted to U.N. Malik has earned the bitter enmity of the Council's small nations. In one ballot after his return to U.N. last fortnight, Malik managed to get as many as five votes lined up on his side. Now he is alone, though Yugoslavia's Bebler, for reasons best known to himself and Marshal Tito, still abstains.

Even India and Egypt, who wavered at first, now vote more & more often with the U.S. The point was underlined last week when the Council majority prepared to hold an informal meeting. U.S. delegates were uneasy about conferring in a U.S. office. But their colleagues of the majority agreed with the comment of one delegate: "Malik will call us satellites and puppets no matter where we meet. My country is a free country. We are quite willing to meet anywhere at all--including a U.S. office." Ecuador's Dr. Antonio Quevedo last week indignantly denounced Malik for speaking to the Council "whip in hand, as if he were conducting a gang of forced laborers in the Arctic."

Without Umbilical Cord. Jacob Malik grew up in the shadow of the whip. He was eleven when the Red revolution engulfed his native Kharkov. He belonged to that Russian generation "without umbilical cord," which, in Arthur Koestler's words, "had no traditions and no memories to bind it to the old, vanished world ... to the vain conceptions of honor and . . . decency . . . Honor was to serve without vanity, without sparing oneself, and until the last consequence . . ."

The new Soviet state put Malik through Kharkov University, then sent him on to the Institute for Foreign Affairs at Moscow State University. For two years he served as deputy chief of the Foreign Press Service in Moscow. Then he went on to Tokyo (1939-45), rising from counselor to ambassador.

Before the Nazi invasion of Russia, Malik expedited shipments of raw rubber from Southeast Asia and lubricants from Japan via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Germany. Later, he had a hand in keeping Japanese jingoists from getting Japan into war against the U.S.S.R. On Aug. 9, 1945, he presented Russia's declaration of war to the Tokyo government. U.S. power had already beaten Japan; next day Malik received Tokyo's offer of surrender. By the winter of 1946, Malik was Deputy Foreign Minister in Moscow. In 1948 he took over from Gromyko as chief delegate to the Security Council. His informal talks with the U.S.'s Dr. Philip Jessup at Lake Success were the prelude to Russia's lifting of the Berlin blockade (TIME, May 2).

Malik has two sons, Yuzi (18) and Eugene (11), who are now in a Moscow school. His chubby wife and daughter Svetlana (5) are with him in New York (their summer retreat is the Glen Cove, L.I. estate rented by the Soviet Union).

From Bourbon to Soda. In Tokyo and later at Lake Success, Malik was regarded as amiable and even witty--for a Soviet diplomat. Once he cracked that a severe U.S. winter was "undoubtedly due to the cold war." When Vyacheslav Molotov was shifted from the post of Foreign Minister, Malik was asked what it meant. "I don't know," he quipped. "I can't get one of your radio sets to pick up Radio Moscow."

Unlike the bleak-miened Gromyko, Malik could say "No comment" smilingly to the press (he once said it 30 times, each time with a smile, in one brief interview). A more loquacious exchange, with a New York Herald Tribune reporter, ran thus:

Malik: You really should learn Russian.

Reporter: I know two words--da [yes] and nyet [no].

Malik: ... All the newspapers here say we only say nyet.

Reporter: Well, in the U.S. the first word we teach our babies is da. Maybe there's a difference between your country and mine.

Malik (grinning): The first word we teach them is nyet.

These days, there seems not an amiable bone left in Malik's body. (His drinking habits seem symbolic. At U.S. parties, Malik used to be a smooth, sociable guest or host, not averse to a cocktail or Bourbon & water. Recently, in the Security Council delegates' lounge, he has stuck to fruit juice or soda water.) Says Norway's Arne Sunde: "Malik is very rude. And he looks as if he believed in his rudeness."

Malik is probably not capable of believing anything he was not taught to believe. Once a couple of years ago, after an affable dinner and a round of brandy, a Western diplomat asked him point-blank why he acted the way he did. Malik hesitated a moment, then calmly replied: "But I must obey my instructions." There seemed to be no cynicism in the answer.

One seasoned U.S. envoy sums up Malik : "Well, he's one of their junior S.O.B.s."

Ties with the Front. Despite the S.O.B.'s best disruptive efforts, the Korean crisis has brought a new sense of purpose to most of U.N.'s 3,200 staffers-- except the 300 to 400 Communists and fellow travelers who are apt to skulk in corners (Western delegations try to bypass them to get necessary work done).

U.N. senses the bonds which tie Lake Success to the Korean battlefront. The blue and white U.N. flag flies from General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo's Dai Ichi building; it flies also, with Korean and U.S. flags, in embattled South Korea. MacArthur carries on a cordial correspondence with U.N.'s Secretary General Trygve Lie, has periodic talks with Lie's personal representative, Colonel Alfred G. Katzin of South Africa, and on his last flying visit to Korea, called on U.N.'s Korean Commission in Pusan (which maintains telephone contact with Lake Success).

Last week, on the front near Waegwan, the U.N. commission suffered its first casualty. Its alternate member, Colonel Unni Nayar of India, and two British correspondents with him (see PRESS) were killed when the colonel's jeep ran over a land mine.

There was no doubt that Jacob Malik's presence cast an ugly shadow over U.N. --and that behind the shadow lay the substance of Russia's threat of war. Jacob Malik and his bosses can still cause plenty of trouble at U.N. If a Russian satellite launched another aggression tomorrow, Malik could veto any Security Council action. To meet this possibility, the U.S. and other Western powers have planned with Trygve Lie to call an immediate meeting of the General Assembly if the Council is stymied by a Red veto. The Russians can also be relied on to exploit latent disagreements in the Western lineup, e.g., Britain, unlike the U.S., has recognized Red China and is logically committed to support its admission to U.N.

Last week, the U.S. and other Western delegations considered ways & means of hobbling Malik: there are a number of ways under the Charter in which the Russian could be silenced. In the end, the West decided to let Malik talk--and to talk back. The U.S. does not want Russia thrown out of U.N., but believes that the Russians should be kept accountable, through U.N., to world opinion.

Malik's lying propaganda is heard by millions around the world, and splinters of Russia's Big Lie are bound to bury themselves in the brains of the gullible. But nothing that Malik says can equal the impact of what the U.N. and the U.S. are doing in Korea. That action speaks louder than Malik's loudest lies.

The Double Lock. This week began with the majority pressing its counteroffensive. France's Chauvel derided Malik's lies as a case of "pointing to a chair and calling it a table." Then India's Rau made an unexpected move. He suggested that the Council's six small powers form a committee to draft a Korean peace plan; he added that India would stick by her insistence that peace must depend on a withdrawal of the North Koreans to the 38th parallel. Malik, for once, had nothing to say.

At the end of the week's first session, in his usual way, he gathered up his papers, shoved them into a briefcase, locked it and handed it to an aide, who put it into a larger briefcase and locked that too. Then Jacob Malik walked stiffly from the Council chamber.

On U.S. television screens, to the boundless relief of impatient moppets, the daily images of Jacob Malik at U.N. faded in time for Captain Video and his Video Rangers. The captain, as usual, was hip-deep in his fight against a vicious-voiced enemy agent. Captain Video was, occasionally, hard-pressed, but the kids were not fooled. The enemy was bound to lose in the end.

*There is no word for "zombie" in Russian. Quick-witted U.N. interpreters hit on pravitelstvo mertvykh dusk, or dead-souls' government, a phrase inspired by Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls.

/-In his short time in the U.S., Sir Gladwyn has acquired a following of fans. Last week, in a shower of congratulatory telegrams, was one message: "Bravo, bravo. You and your delegation are a credit to civilization. The Gross Family, 824 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn." Said Sir Gladwyn: "I thought it must be Ernie Gross's family [Ambassador Ernest Gross is Warren Austin's second-in-command]. But when I asked him, I found that there are a great many people named Gross in America. Fancy that."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.