Rhetoric & Resolution

None of the Western Powers wanted the debate, and most of the "uncommitted" states made it clear that they hoped it could be avoided. But so great is the mystique of "anticolonialism" that last week the acrimonious argument took place on schedule in the U.N. General Assembly. Up for heated discussion was the Afro-Asian draft resolution proposed by 32 nations calling on France and Tunisia to begin "immediate negotiations" for the "withdrawal of all French armed forces from Tunisian territory."

Tunisia's Mongi Slim took the floor to appeal desperately for U.S. support. But as a friend of both Tunisia and France, the U.S. could not afford to take sides. Instead, Tunisia got the stifling verbal embrace of the Soviet Union. Sounding trumpet calls against "Western imperialism," Russian Delegate Platon Morozov soon left Tunisia and its problems far behind. With a rattling of nuclear rockets, Morozov threatened instant erasure to those countries that continue to permit the establishment of U.S., British and French bases.

Grisly Record. U.S. Delegate Adlai Stevenson responded by reminding the U.N. that Russia's "conquering armies are still in Poland, East Germany, Hungary and other countries--16 years after the last war." He contrasted the Soviet Union's "self-righteous rhetoric" with its grisly record "of cynical repression of freedom and self-determination." Predictably, Cuba's Mario Garcia Inchaustegui vehemently seconded Russia's call for an end of all foreign bases, even those guaranteed by treaty, as is the U.S. base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. Adlai Stevenson rose once more, found the Cuban statement to be "an extraordinary new doctrine of international law, or rather, international lawlessness," and he acidly noted that it was "a normal exercise of sovereignty" for nations to conclude defense agreements.

As the debate veered back and forth between East-West differences and the Franco-Tunisian dispute, the Assembly dwindled to as few as one-third of its 99 members. The delegation from France never appeared at all, since Charles de Gaulle had ordered a U.N. boycott. Presumably to underscore French indifference, word was passed that none of the French delegates even planned to listen to the session on radio. The biggest blow for President Charles de Gaulle came when all eleven African states of the normally pro-French Brazzaville group decided to vote against France.

Glacial Silence. At week's end the General Assembly overwhelmingly passed the resolution 66-0, with 30 nations--including the U.S. and Britain--abstaining. Unresolved, of course, was whether France would pay any more attention to the General Assembly than it had paid to an earlier decision by the U.N. Security Council calling on both France and Tunisia to withdraw to their original positions. Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba, somewhat satisfied with paper victory, sounded a conciliatory note. "The dead of Bizerte must not be an obstacle for the future," he said. "Once our territory is entirely liberated, we will lose all our complexes." But there was no indication from Paris that French troops would soon be evacuated from Tunisia. President Charles de Gaulle, with whom the decision rests, remained last week, as he has for weeks past, wrapped in glacial silence.

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