"Acts Deserve Acts"

In the U.N.'s eleven years no delegate has been so roundly denounced or so contemptuously pointed at as Imre Horvath, Foreign Minister in Hungary's puppet Kadar government. One morning last week, Imre Horvath rose to complain: "A number of delegations have rudely and disgracefully offended the government of the Hungarian People's Republic. The Hungarian delegation will therefore not participate in the work of the ... General Assembly so long as the discussion of the Hungarian question does not proceed in the spirit of the U.N. Charter." Then, packing up their papers, Horvath and his aides walked out.*"One Soviet agent less," shrugged U.S. Delegate Henry Cabot Lodge.

Horvath's departure did not halt discussion of a resolution condemning Russia for her intervention in Hungary. Even Burma, once a pillar of Asian neutralism, joined in the attack. "There, speaking of Hungary, but for the grace of God go we," said Burmese Delegate U Pe Kin.

The resolution, sponsored by the U.S. and 19 other powers, contained the harshest language the U.N. had ever used toward one of its members. Yet, when the roll was called, not a single nation outside the Iron Curtain joined Russia in opposing it (see box).

Harsh as it was by U.N. standards, the censure resolution failed to dissipate the sense of guilt which many delegates felt toward Hungary's heroic rebels. "We are reproached," said Ireland's Frederick Boland early in the debate, "by the saying of Pericles: 'Acts deserve acts, not words, in their honor.' We do not hope to move the Russians by our appeals and our condemnations; they may be moved, however, by their own increasing isolation."

*Temporarily reducing the General Assembly membership to 77. South Africa, angered by U.N. "interference" in her racial problems, withdrew her permanent delegate three weeks ago.

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