Battleground

(See Cover)

From high in the dome of the General Assembly Building, bracelets of light beamed down upon the people below. From rows of windowed rooms in the fluted concave walls peered the camera eyes of the world. Against a starkly simple backdrop of the leaf-rimmed United Nations emblem, the Secretary-General of the U.N. and the newly elected Assembly President, Ireland's Frederick H. Boland, sat like somber judges at a high marbled desk, while before them, dwarfed by the cathedral-like immensity of the hall and by their own sense of impending history, the delegations of 96 nations of the planet noiselessly took their seats.

Not the pomp of ancient Rome or the jeweled brilliance of the great courts of France could shadow the moment; the eye of history could scarcely encompass the spectacle of so many potentates, Presidents and dictators. There sat Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, his pink skull fringed with white, his face now frozen as a death mask, now galvanized into full-muscled motion. Behind him, rust-haired Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia posed self-assured and well fed. Scattered across the green-carpeted room, the members of the satellite pack waited with dull docility, their reflexes string-tied to the master puppeteer: Rumania's Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Hungary's Janos Kadar, Byelorussia's Kirill Mazurov, Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov, Albania's Mehmet Shehu, Czechoslovakia's Antonin Novotny. Symbolically, Poland's Wladyslaw Gomulka, his frosty-white hair matted in an undisciplined shag, took his seat in a distant corner, tied to Khrushchev by ideology but less than the others by strings.

One after the other, the representatives of all nations assumed their positions, like figures from a child's geography book. Each was marked by his heritage and by the power of his own historical thrust. Each, by his ideological kinship or by his ostentatious neutralism, had a role to play in the world power struggle.

Something New. Now heard was a new sound, the unmistakable counterpoint of jungle drums: the throb of Africa. It first came through in the pavanlike procession in which the delegations of twelve new African nations* marched across the floor to take their places for the first time, each aware that his own nation, however young, inexperienced, poor or thumbnail-sized, is armed with a vote as meaningful as that of any of the great powers. And while U.N. votes are but feathers in the world balance of power, the world would read them as the visible talismans of cold war gains or losses.

The new members enlarged to 22 the number of African members of the U.N., upsetting all previous power alignments in the Assembly. Africa is something new, something unpredictable. That is why Nikita Khrushchev, with his imperious call to his Communist bloc to join him at the meeting, had journeyed to New York. That is why so many of the world leaders tagged along behind him. And that is why the President of the U.S., in the final four months of his power, put the prestige of his nation and the free world to the test in one of contemporary history's most dramatic confrontations.

On this battleground last week, the U.S. threw the hopes and plans of Khrushchev off balance for the world to see.

Slapped & Hapless. No one, least of all cocky Khrushchev, could probably have foreseen the degree of frustration that lay ahead for him when he set sail for Manhattan aboard Baltika. Even as he and his cronies were on the high seas, the expelled Communist "technicians" and diplomats in the Congo were packing their bags and heading home in defeat in one of the indelible and humiliating scenes of the cold war (TIME, Sept. 26). Even as his contingent arrived on Manhattan Island, the U.N., in one overwhelming 70-0 vote, slapped down the Russian-led attempt to discredit Dag Hammarskjold and the U.N. itself in the Congo (see FOREIGN NEWS).

Khrushchev & Co. landed at a dilapidated East River pier in a soaking downpour at a reception that was equally cheerless.* Apart from a few score welcoming members of Communist legations (who make a claque for the newsreels back home), he found himself surrounded by cordons of city police and special security details, the advance guard of an army of 8,000 men who were deployed through Manhattan on the most elaborate job of protection the U.S. has ever seen.

Most of New York went about its business with only a passing interest in the extra-thick traffic jams, but the fringes were crackling with antagonistic citizens and fanatic European emigres who unfurled their banners and epithets with grim satisfaction whenever they got the chance. To keep these and the other hordes at safe distance, billy-twirling cops patrolled the approaches to the U.N., the streets and buildings where the guests made their headquarters, the avenues they traveled. Busloads of reserve police stationed themselves at strategic points and waited for alarms. Mounted cops assembled to ward off any mob attacks. Scores of plainclothesmen from the Red countries as well as the U.S. stalked in doorways, on rooftops, bridges and overpasses, while fleets of escorting motorcycles and patrol cars shot up and down the streets with sirens wailing.

At the Soviet U.N. mission headquarters itself, 200 New York cops formed a ring around the block, barricaded the corners. In the street, police cars and motor bikes purred; cars loaded with weapons stood by, and the mounted police clip-clopped steadily about, while untold numbers of plainclothesmen mingled in the restive crowds on the perimeter. On Khrushchev's first night in town, knots of Hungarian and Polish refugees gathered with banners that screamed KHRUSHCHEV IS A MURDERER, KHRUSHCHEV, GO HOME, and handed out pamphlets with such arresting titles as Nikita, Scat, You Dirty Aggressor, You Bloodstained Butcher, You Bestial Executioner, Scat. Cries of "Butcher!" and "Murderer!" rattled the accustomed tranquillity of Park Avenue.

Uptown Hug. Predictably, Nikita Khrushchev, for whose protection so many labored, found plenty of opportunity to accuse the U.S. of keeping him in "custody." Nevertheless, he managed to get around. Without forewarning his own security people, he pushed out of the Soviet headquarters on his first morning in town, stepped into his Cadillac and roared off. The consternated cops shoved off with him, and as they rode north, finally discovered that Khrushchev was headed for Harlem and a visit with Fidel Castro (see following story). They hugged each other, shouted incomprehensible greetings, while all the time the police scuffled with the crawling squad of newsmen, photographers and hangers-on. "The visit," said a grinning Khrushchev later, "is deemed respect to a heroic man."

The Red boss got another chance that afternoon as the General Assembly gathered. Waddling across the hall to the Cuban delegation, Khrushchev again embraced the happy Castro, who embraced him right back--creating for a moment a comical tableau in which Khrushchev suddenly seemed to be sporting Castro's flowing beard as a headpiece. Squatting in his seat for the long session of speeches, he donned his earpiece to get the Russian translation of the goings on, mumbled occasionally to his Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, applauded politely at the right time, now and then got up to shake a hand. But his chief aim was to recruit Africans. Ambling through the Delegates' Lounge, he searched out hands to shake in an effort at rebuilding the Communist prestige that had been so roundly shattered in the days before; observers gave him a low score.

Onstage. While his satellite cohorts enclosed themselves in discreet and safe privacy (exception: Bulgaria's Zhivkov went sightseeing), Khrushchev determinedly worked at his best talent: gathering headlines. On the iron-railed little balcony of the Soviet U.N. mission headquarters, 20 ft. above the street, Khrushchev appeared twice on Wednesday to jabber with the swarm of TV men and reporters below. In the "balcony scene," the beefy Russian, dressed in shirtsleeves (with gold cuff links), batted out a torrent of comment that alternated from the breezy to the belligerent.

"This," he complained, with a sardonic reference to the State Department's Manhattan-only travel restriction, "is the only place I can stroll. I am under house arrest, so my desires are restrained. I am not seeing America." The case of the RB-47 pilots,* he said, is being "investigated." Yes, he did plan to visit Cuba and, later, North Korea, where he has a date with Red China's Mao Tse-tung; no, there are no basic ideological differences with China; yes, he supported the Lumumba government. And what about the U.S.'s open-skies proposal? "Fly in your own skies, not in ours."

Tooth for a Tooth. As Khrushchev traded words with the clamoring newsmen, a steady stream of cars passed the headquarters, and drivers filled the air with imprecations. From down the street came the sound of demonstrators as they sang God Bless America. "Let them sing," cried K. "We, also, sing the Internationale, and we sing it well," and with that, he launched into a line or two from the Communist anthem.

"That is America," spat Khrushchev derisively. "The supreme culture! It's shameful! I ask you, have you seen or heard anything like that in our country?" From NBC's onetime Moscow Commentator Joseph Michaels came the reply: "What about the demonstration in front of the American embassy in Moscow a few years back? Here there are only 100 demonstrators. There it was 100,000!" Khrushchev shot back: "Yes, we could have made it 200,000 or a million! That was in reply to the one here! In our country it's a tooth for a tooth!" The demonstrators, he said, are "scum. They are like manure!" From a woman in a passing car came the cry: "Khrushchev--Idiot!"

Play the Theme. As the Khrushchevian bluster and bromide garnered newspaper space, the real climax was approaching. In Washington, President Eisenhower huddled with his State Department advisers and reworked his speech. U.S. diplomats sensed that Russia had made a fundamental error by taking on the U.N. itself. With that as a theme, the U.S. built its position: while the Communists were repudiating the U.N., the U.S. would uphold and strengthen it. This was likely to win support from the new African nations, for whom the only protected road to real independence, and the most important amphitheater for their own thoughts, is the U.N. itself.

But the heavy emphasis on joint U.N. action--the willingness to channel U.S. aid through the U.N., where its contribution would be the biggest but invisible*--was a sharp turn in U.S. policy. Only a year before, U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge was vigorously turned down when he tried to sell the Administration on just such a proposal. But having now decided to go all out for the U.N., Ike rearranged his original plans, announced that he would extend his projected stay in New York so that he could meet personally with African, Latin American leaders and Tito, and after that with the new arrivals, Egypt's Nasser, India's Nehru and Britain's Prime Minister Macmillan.

Cheers & Merriment. As the President arrived at New York's Idlewild Airport and sped into Manhattan in his bubble-topped Lincoln, New Yorkers--125,000 of them--lined the streets to cheer him and to wave placards (WE ARE COUNTING ON YOU, IKE) as if he were a fighter climbing into the ring. Even the customary show of political partisanship was gone; Democratic Mayor Robert Wagner, who had never seen fit to greet the President on past visits, rode into town with Ike.

Preceding Ike to the U.N. headquarters was Nikita Khrushchev himself. He bounced merrily into the lobby of the Assembly building and found Yugoslavia's Tito waiting, as if by prearrangement. There the two old enemies made their first formal greetings since September 1956, but it was obvious that both were ill at ease. "How do you spend your time here?" Tito began tentatively. Answered K.: "I have a little balcony. I go out and walk back and forth and take the air."

Tito: "Do you have a concert?" K.: "Little groups of loudmouths come around the embassy, mostly the same ones, over and over. They pay them wages for doing it. One of our embassy employees went out and mingled with the group. Along came a man and handed him a placard and $8 to hold it. That is moral decline, degeneracy." Tito: "We have the bloodiest of the chetniks to contend with: assassins, people who fought with the Germans against us. They're all here." K.: "All the garbage washed up on these shores, wave upon wave." Then the two marched into the main hall.

Renewed Call. As Ike appeared on the rostrum, all but the Communist-bloc leaders broke into respectful applause. Khrushchev turned on his most impassive face, fiddled with his earpiece, exchanged comments with Gromyko, gazed at his gold-banded watch, drummed his fingers now and then on his desk. Castro leaned for ward intently.

With firmness and force, the President unfolded a state paper that had few precedents in U.N. or U.S. history. He blasted those countries (i.e., the Soviets and satellites) that would undermine the U.N. for their own ends, renewed his call for disarmament talks, detailed an elaborate program to aid Africa, proposed a plan to safeguard outer space against military use, sounded again and again the U.S. support of Hammarskjold and U.N. policies in Africa (see box). When he finished, most delegates again warmly applauded him, while the Communists sat on their hands.

Lunch & Ice. They got off their hands for Marshal Tito, whose rambling speech, carefully trod the narrow Titoist line that espoused support of Khrushchev-style disarmament and policies, while reserving for himself a role of conciliator between East and West.

Later, Tito darted across town to the Waldorf to see Ike, who had just finished lunching with delegates of all Latin American nations (not invited: Cuba, the Dominican Republic). Ike had also had a quick exchange of pleasantries with Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah, Nepal's Premier B. P. Koirala and Lebanon's Premier Saeb Salam. Tito and Ike broke the ice with a discussion of cattle breeding, parted on Ike's invitation to Tito to travel freely in the U.S. during his stay.

Boos at the Plaza. Then everybody got set for Nikita Khrushchev's rebuttal next day. By now it was clear that no mere recital of the oft-told Soviet line would be enough to recapture all the lost ground. Khrushchev's own description of Ike's speech as "conciliatory" suggested that Khrushchev was eager to begin negotiating again. That night, instead of closeting himself with his advisers, Khrushchev resumed his favorite role of informal comic and propagandist. Flanked by his ever-present army of security guards, he rolled up to the staid Plaza Hotel to attend a Togolese reception. As he stepped from his limousine, hundreds of New Yorkers greeted him with the wildest chorus of boos and catcalls that he had got all week. Smiling, he waved at them and darted into the lobby, where again a mob of onlookers, including a heavy sprinkling of resident dowagers, joined in the heckling. At the elevator Khrushchev turned toward the grim-faced elderly ladies, uttered one Milton Berlesque "Boo!" and stepped aboard.

Asked a reporter at the Togolese party: "If an intermediary were to be so bold and take the initiative to ask if you would meet with President Eisenhower, how would you reply?" Replied Khrushchev: "When there'll be boldness or initiative, there'll be a reply." Poking his stubby fingers into the thick palm of his hand to make his point, Khrushchev complained that Ike had carefully omitted any mention of the U-2 incident from his speech. "He's ashamed. I think I'll have to remind him."

Claques & Yokes. Before taking his turn on the rostrum next day, he got some unexpected help from Ghana's nationalist Nkrumah. Clad in the traditional kente of his people, Nkrumah addressed the Assembly with a hard-nosed declaration against colonialism, drew several bursts of applause from the Soviet claque. He called for a commission of African states to implement U.N. aid in Africa, demanded that the U.N. support the Lumumba government in the Congo, asked the admission of Communist China to the U.N., etc. But he had praise for Hammarskjold's handling of "a most difficult task," and pledged fervent fealty to the U.N. concept.

Khrushchev himself marched to the rostrum accompanied by polite applause. Sipping Borzhom (a Russian mineral water, which he plugged with every sip), the Soviet boss proceeded to deliver nearly 2 1/2 hours' worth of speech (v. Ike's 41 minutes). He castigated the U.S. for the U-2 incident, disputed Ike's claim that the RB-47 bomber had been safely within international limits when the Russians brought it down, accused the West of roping Africa to the colonialist yoke--a claim that must have seemed remarkable to the newly admitted African delegates in the hall. He touched lightly on Berlin (but said nothing about deadlines). He called for admission of Red China to the U.N. (but made it sound no more important than his demand for the admission of Outer Mongolia). Reading steadily through his 36-page, single-spaced harangue, Khrushchev sent delegate after delegate scooting for the lounge, even reduced three Soviet observers in the VIP gallery to a merciful sleep.

Burned. The genuine surprise (apart from the interminable length) was that Khrushchev had found no way out of the checkmate position forced upon him by President Eisenhower's all-out support of U.N. policies. Having already been burned in the politically costly attempt to discredit Hammarskjold's Congo program, Khrushchev went on to burn himself again. He launched another lengthy attack on the Secretary-General, offered a proposal to abolish the post in favor of a triumvirate representing Communist, West and neutralist blocs, insisted that the U.S. was no longer a place to house the U.N. (Austria or Switzerland would be better; perhaps, he added modestly, even the U.S.S.R.). His much-heralded new disarmament proposals turned out to be little more than a rehash of his old ones (disarmament first,inspection later). Nineteen thousand words after he had begun, he sat down to Communist-heavy applause.

Whatever the measure of applause, Khrushchev's speech struck Western delegates--and even many Africans--as third-rate propaganda spiced with "absurd" proposals, not the least of which was the suggestion that the emerging African nations, which owed so much to the U.N., should oust Hammarskjold.

Advance Payment. This alone so angered Secretary of State Christian Herter that he made his way to Hammarskjold's office to see whether the rules would permit calling immediately for a vote of confidence in the Secretary-General; he was told that it was impractical. To prove U.S. good intentions, he then handed Hammarskjold a U.S. check for $5,000,000, an advance payment on the U.S. contribution to U.N. costs in the Congo, and assured him that additional funds would be made available. Herter was still steamed up when he answered reporters' questions at a Foreign Press Association meeting. Part of his ire splashed over on Ghana's Nkrumah. Acknowledging that he had not read all of Nkrumah's speech, he undiplomatically lumped him with Khrushchev. "Whether it was prearranged or not, I do not know. But I think he has marked himself as very definitely leaning toward the Soviet bloc." (Replied Nkrumah diplomatically: "Mr. Herter was the last person from whom I would expect such a remark.") Herter went on to blast the Soviet attack on the U.N. as "an all-out attack, a real declaration of war against the structure, personnel and location of the United Nations," and later U.N. Ambassador James Wadsworth took the floor in the Assembly to rebut Khrushchev in the same vein.

Onward. Characteristically, Nikita Khrushchev seemed innocently oblivious to the negative response to his long tirade. A patient man in high-stakes game of international Monopoly, he knew as well as anyone else that he had not lost the cold war but just a battle. But it was a decisive battle. Had he come so far, with so much panoply, with so little to offer? There would be new ploys, new attacks as his satellite echoes got into the act. But he was off to a most unimpressive start.

* Cameroun, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Dahomey, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Malagasy, Niger, Somalia, Togo, Upper Volta. Also admitted to membership was the Congo (Leopoldville), but the delegation was not seated, pending settlement of the dispute over representation.

* The arrival of Khrushchev and Crony Janos Kadar of Hungary coincided with another journey across international borders. Two young Hungarians, escaping to freedom across the Austrian frontier, lost their feet in a land-mine explosion. A third companion, uninjured, helped his comrades to safety.

* Shot down, Khrushchev claims, over Soviet territory last July.

* Ike's proposal that the U.N. spend $100 million on the U.N. Special Fund and the expanded technical assistance program meant that the U.S. would kick in $40 million--a 40% ceiling set by Congress in its annoyance at the failure of other nations to ante up to U.N. funds. Russia, for example, puts up only $2,000,000 (instead of the $13 million it should) and insists that 75% must be spent inside Russia on equipment or in training foreign technicians. Britain gives its full quota. The Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and Canada give more than their quotas. Less generous are France, Italy, Japan, West Germany.

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