Under the Eagle's Beak

"A dangerous provocation. An act of perfidy!" cried the Soviet Union's Foreign Minister over and over, and more than one delegate at the big horseshoe table in the blue and gold Security Council chamber began to yawn. Even those disposed to deplore the U-2 overflight only chided mildly.

"We understand the annoyance felt by the Soviet Union," said Ecuador's Dr. Jose Correa.

How could a light, unarmed, single-engined, nonmilitary, one-man plane be aggressive? asked U.S. Delegate Henry Cabot Lodge, blandly.

"These activities are, alas, a current practice," sighed France's Armand Berard to the Council. "What country does not find itself implicated? Is the Soviet Union, which today expresses indignation, beyond reproach on this score?" Spying, he added, might be deplorable, but there was no international law against it. Although defeat clearly lay ahead, deadpan Andrei Gromyko stolidly forced a vote on his resolution to declare the flights a "threat to world peace," and, with only Poland in support of him, the Council voted him down by 7 to 2.

On the Brink. Undaunted, Gromyko lashed out at President Eisenhower's tele vision speech to the nation (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). "A policy of dangerous provocations which indeed places mankind on the brink of war!" Gromyko cried.

The U.S.'s Henry Cabot Lodge was ready with his own rebuttal of the day's harsh words. Reaching down for a case beside his chair, he remarked: "Well, it so happens that I have here today a concrete example of Soviet espionage so that you can see for yourself." Out came a large carved wooden plaque representing the Great Seal of the United States. In 1945 a group of Russians had presented it to the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow. Averell Harriman, who hung it over the desk in his study. Opening it like a book, Lodge disclosed that its hinged insides harbored a tiny metallic cylinder with a slender metallic antenna. Lodge explained that it was a "clandestine listening device" used by the Russians to listen in on ambassadorial conversations.

Whose Play? Gromyko managed a game smile, then recovered to retort: "I should like to ask from what play all this has been taken, and when that play is going to be performed." Replied Lodge: "It is not out of any play ... I produced that to show the thoroughness of Soviet espionage." It was all faintly funny, and Basile Vitsaxis, the Greek delegate to the

U.N., rushed up to whisper into Lodge's ear. "Thanks," he said, "for not mentioning the Trojan horse."

If the question of overflights had come up before the U.N. Security Council in any routine context, probably all eleven members would have voted against them. But when the question was posed of indicting the U.S. alone, the U.S.'s friends rallied around. They were not going to stand for Russia, chief disturber of the world's peace, hypocritically trying to embarrass the U.S. "We blundered and they know it; they think we're clumsy and a bit silly, like a great big hairy-chested fellow with a high voice; but they like us," remarked one member of the U.S. delegation.

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