The Importance of Importance

The Importance of Importance In confident tone John Foster Dulles said last week that the proposal for the U.S. to quit the United Nations if Red China becomes a member "strikes a note of defeatism which I think is entirely unjustified." Dulles' firm view: Red China will not be admitted; therefore, there is no need for the U.S. to commit itself, even contingently, to a policy of withdrawal.

Attempts That Failed. In various U.N. agencies and committees more than 150 attempts have been made (23 of them since the Eisenhower Administration took office) to seat a Chinese Communist delegate. All have failed. Only last week India tried to oust the Nationalist Chinese delegate on the Trusteeship Council. The move was voted down 9 to 2 (India and Russia), with Britain abstaining.

In any fight to seat Red China in the Security Council, said Dulles, the U.S. has an effective weapon: the veto. However, the argument may be made that the question of who sits in China's Security Council seat is a procedural one, unlike the "substantive" issue of admitting a new country, and therefore not subject to the veto. Dulles anticipated this reasoning by saying that the U.N.'s tests of eligibility are directed to the performance of governments. Therefore, the admission of new governments is just as substantive as the admission of new countries. The U.S. can veto the admission of Red China just as Russia has vetoed the admission of Italy and Japan. Even without the veto, the U.S. position might win the support of a majority of the 11 Security Council members.

In the veto-less General Assembly, the situation is more complex. The U.N. Charter requires a two-thirds vote for passage of "important questions." Said Dulles: "Anybody that does not think this is an important matter is exercising a curious judgment."

"We'll Win." If the Communists choose to try to get the Peking Reds into the U.N. on the premise that it is not an important matter, then they would need only a simple majority of 31 votes to establish the unimportance of the issue, the same number to put the deal over. Outside the Western Hemisphere the anti-Red China bloc could count on the votes of a hard core that includes Turkey, Greece, Thailand and Liberia, plus the votes, or abstentions, of whatever countries refuse to consider the issue "unimportant." A maneuver that would probably gather even more votes would be a procedural resolution, like one adopted last year, to postpone a head-on vote. Some countries which profess, out of fear, to favor Red China's admission could be expected to vote for such a resolution on the pretext that it is a "question of timing."

At U.N. headquarters last week, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Henry Cabot Lodge reflected Dulles' confidence. "We'll win because we have the arguments," said he, meaning that he thinks he can line up enough votes.

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