Hail to the Jefe

Of all the glittering, imposing or sinister figures who descend on Manhattan when the United Nations General Assembly convenes, the Soviet Union's Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky usually attracts the most attention. But on opening day last week, Vishinsky had to yield the spotlight to a strong-jawed newcomer from the Caribbean: fabulous Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, 61, who since 1930 has run the lush, green little Dominican Republic like a private plantation, piling up wealth by the tens of millions and crushing all opposition with iron ruthlessness. Trujillo had left his brother Hector in charge at home and taken over as his country's chief delegate at the U.N.

An hour before the session began, Trujillo made his entrance, flanked by ten New York City cops, ten U.N. policemen and a seven-man flying squad of his own "aides." Vishinsky arrived later, practically unnoticed, with a mere handful of henchmen. Strictly business, the generalissimo swept into the headquarters building with outriders brushing reporters and newsreel photographers out of his path. Turning into a small lounge, Trujillo shook hands with Maurice Pate, executive director of the U.N. Children's Fund, and Mrs. Oswald Lord, new U.S. delegate to the U.N. In a swift ceremony witnessed mainly by his aides, the generalissimo presented Pate with a $50,000 check, last installment of $250,000 pledged during Mrs. Lord's 1948 good-will visit to the republic on the fund's behalf.

On the sidewalks outside U.N. headquarters, too, Trujillo got the kind of attention usually reserved for Vishinsky. Some 40 glowering pickets, Dominican exiles who have been dogging the dictator's tracks ever since he landed in Washington 12 weeks ago, paraded back & forth with signs denouncing him as an "assassin" and "murderer." They also lugged a big black coffin, which is supposed to symbolize the fate of Trujillo's opponents. The generalissimo, making his departure after the fifteen-minute opening session, probably did not even see the pickets. Twenty cops and bodyguards surrounded him as he climbed into his limousine.

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