Taking It to the U.N.

In a slablike, loudspeaker-shaped building in Manhattan this week the 81-nation conclave, which romantics like to call "the parliament of man," addressed itself to a historic task. The problem before the U.N. General Assembly--the persistent, nitroglycerin-like instability of the Middle East--was infinitely complex and the potential consequences of another Mideastern explosion were incalculable. Yet, for all that, the great majority of delegates went to the fifth special session in the 13-year history of the Assembly armed with nothing more than what the Japanese engagingly called "a policy of positive wait-and-see."

Virtually every chancellery in the world --including Soviet Russia's--had been thrown off stride by the vagaries of Nikita Khrushchev. Ever since the Iraqi coup, Khrushchev had rendered the nights hideous with his full-throated cries for a summit conference on the Mideast. In his evident eagerness he had even accepted the U.S. and British proposal for a summit meeting held within the framework of the U.N. Security Council. Then, early last week, in one of the most dizzying of Russia's many dizzying 180DEG turns, Khrushchev abruptly announced that "the Security Council was not in a position to ensure solution of the question of the situation in the Near and Middle East." Reasons: "The Security Council . . . is practically subordinated to U.S. foreign policy" and, besides, it includes "the representative of a political corpse, Chiang Kai-shek." Both of these so-called facts existed when Khrushchev originally accepted a Security Council summit.

In actuality, the composition of the Security Council had little or nothing to do with Khrushchev's climb-down (see below). But to lend a note of conviction to his complaints--and to save what diplomatic face he could--Nikita suggested a substitute for a Security Council summit: an extraordinary session of the General Assembly "to discuss the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Lebanon and British troops from Jordan."

Joint Chuckle. Reaction to Khrushchev's naked renege ranged from sneers to near tears. "On again, off again, Finnigin," shrugged Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. KHRUSHCHEV MAKES FOOL OF HIMSELF, headlined London's tabloid Daily Mirror. "Responsibility for evading [a summit] meeting with the Security Council rests squarely with the Soviet Union," lamented the Times of India.

But inept as Khrushchev's performance had been, the movement toward some kind of international meeting on the Mideast had acquired too much impetus to be halted. Within 48 hours of receiving the newest Russian proposal, both President Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan replied that a General Assembly meeting would be "acceptable." (Neither Western leader passed up the opportunity to point out to Nikita that his rejection of a Security Council meeting attended by heads of governments seemed oddly at variance with his alleged concern over threats to the peace.) When the Security Council met to pass on a U.S. resolution calling for a special General Assembly session, it did so in such an atmosphere of unanimity and of decreased alarm that when U.S. Delegate Henry Cabot Lodge scored a neat debating point against Soviet Delegate Arkady Sobolev, Sobolev joined in the general chuckling.

The 81-Ring Circus. Despite the sounds of cheer and gentle merriment from the Security Council, there were many who remained glumly convinced that the General Assembly meeting would prove nothing but an exercise in comparative propaganda techniques. "What can you accomplish at an 81-ring circus?" demanded one Italian newsman. And in London the Economist, labeling the General Assembly "the monster of Turtle Bay,"* characterized it as a beast "too apt . . . to spout mightily and at length and then submerge again, leaving the confusion if anything deeper."

Pessimism is usually a safe approach in cold-war negotiations, but the worst forebodings were by no means certain to prove justified. Some of the Assembly's time would inevitably be devoted to sterile invective. But it seemed highly unlikely that Russia could muster enough Assembly support to focus the debate indefinitely on U.S. and British "aggression." Instead, there was some prospect that the majority of members would prefer to concentrate their attention on the Middle-Eastern stabilization plan unexpectedly unveiled at a preliminary Assembly meeting last week by U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. As usual, Sweden's international civil servant wrapped his considered proposals in innocuous language. ("You know, you can't really understand Mr. Hammarskjold the first time he speaks," said an Arab diplomat admiringly.) His recommendations:

P: To counter Nasserite indirect aggression, the Arab states should reaffirm the Arab League Covenants in which they pledged themselves to respect each other's sovereignty and to avoid interference in each other's affairs. (Asking the Arabs to "reaffirm" rather than pledge was a characteristic Hammarskjold touch.) He also hinted at establishment of U.N. observation machinery to check on observance of these pledges and U.N. guarantees of present frontiers in the Middle East.

P: To facilitate withdrawal of U.S. and British troops, the U.N. Observation Group in Lebanon and the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization in Jordan should become permanent commissions not necessarily armed, which would "show the U.N. flag" in both countries and report any threats to their independence.

P: To strike at one of the underlying causes of the political upheavals in the Arab world, there should be joint action by the Arab states and the U.N. in a far-ranging economic development program.

The Trip Wire. In drawing up his plan, Dag Hammarskjold had characteristically proceeded from the existing power realities in the Middle East. To begin with, he had to take into account Arab nationalism; he sought to encourage its legitimate development. He sought to create conditions of stability so that Britain and the U.S. might withdraw their troops while retaining their commercial access to the area. He recognized that while the West had no intention of securing its economic interests indefinitely by the overt use of force, neither did it intend to be deprived of those interests by force.

In the long run, the chief hope that the Middle East's welter of conflicting national purposes could peaceably be reconciled lay in the establishment of a set of ground rules that would restrict political change in the Middle East to orderly, nonviolent channels. In essence, what Dag Hammarskjold was proposing was acceptance of such a set of rules and the establishment of a kind of U.N. trip wire to sound the alarm whenever anyone showed a disposition to violate them.

*A long since filled-in cove in the right bank of the East River where the U.N. now stands.

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