The Switch

Every now and then, a modest little gesture becomes an act of history. Thus last week U.S. Delegate Adlai Stevenson made history of sorts in the U.N. with a quiet speech and a raised right hand in a Security Council vote. The occasion was another of the Afro-Asian resolutions condemning colonialism, this one aimed at Portugal and its dictatorial rule in Angola.

The U.S. was faced with a familiar dilemma. The very foundation of U.S. existence had been an anti-colonialism etched in history by the Founding Fathers, confirmed by fiery speaker after fiery speaker in every Congress since 1776.

But since World War II, caught in the intricacies of the cold war, U.S. policies had become entwined with those of its European allies--Britain, France, Belgium. The Netherlands, Portugal--whose economies and emotions were linked to their overseas colonies. Time after time in recent years, the U.S.--sympathetic to colonized peoples everywhere, yet reluctant to vote against a NATO ally--had straddled the issue in the U.N.. abstaining when possible.

Tarbrushed. Weeks ago. Adlai Stevenson concluded it was time for a major policy change. In the State Department and the White House, the U.S's new leaders were thinking along similar lines.

For days. Stevenson and Dean Rusk conferred with President Kennedy as the vote on the Angola resolution approached. To the sponsors of the Angola resolution (Liberia, Ceylon and the U.A.R.). Stevenson insisted that the U.S. would not support a strident, hysterical measure. As a result, the drafters took a sober second look at their own resolution and agreed to tone it down. During the debate, Adlai Stevenson cited the Declaration of Independence and chided NATO Partner Portugal for ignoring the obvious signals that could push Angola into the same hideous chaos Belgium had bestowed upon its Congo colony. When it was time to vote, Stevenson lifted his fateful finger on the Afro-Asian side.

Ugly Side. Neither France nor Britain --embroiled as they are with Algeria, Kenya and Rhodesia--could be entirely happy with the U.S. decision, although Stevenson was quick to reaffirm the U.S.'s traditional friendship with its oldest allies. Portugal, as expected, fired off angry blasts at Washington, and in retaliation ordered seven U.S. Navy weather planes to leave Luanda immediately. The U.S. could only say in answer that in time to come, Portugal and other U.S. allies in Europe might be grateful that they had an ally who had established its good faith with the anticolonialist nations of Africa and Asia.

Hardly had the U.N. debate begun when trouble again broke out in Angola. Gangs of Africans pounced upon Portuguese plantation settlers in northern Angola, killing dozens in a savage blood bath. The story, filed through Portuguese censorship and therefore one-sided, told of white children hacked to pieces in front of their parents. The Portuguese might well ask: Is this the people the U.S. prefers to them? It was not that simple, of course, nor was the U.S. vote any condonation of the savage murders that have a way of exploding uncontrollably in Africa if passions are too long pent up.

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