Equipoise among the Azaleas

On the tenth floor of Manhattan's Hotel New Weston, the Iranian delegation unpacked its long winter underwear. They were prepared to fight it out on Premier Ahmad Gavam Saltaneh's line if it took all summer--and next winter too. But it might not take that long. Things looked better, though not perfect, as the UNO Security Council convened this week at Hunter College in The Bronx. A woman architect even thought she could improve the arrangement of the azaleas, magnolias and dogwoods stacked against the east wall of the conference chamber. "It looks like a Third Avenue wedding," she cried, and began to shove the pots around.

Gone was the grand manner and blue & gold magnificence of San Francisco and London. The delegates sat round a curved committee table in a light-paneled room that had been a basketball court two weeks before. Before the 51-minute opening session was half over, Andrei Gromyko was reading the paper. He looked up startled when the audience laughed at a high-flown French reference to le President du Bronx.

The new, firm line of the Western powers had cleared the air before the Council met. The prompt U.S. and British refusal to grant the UNO postponement Russia had requested, coming hard on Byrnes's and Churchill's candid speeches, left Moscow in no doubt that the West meant business.

"Deep Respect." To A.P.'s Moscow Correspondent Eddy Gilmore, Stalin promptly wrote that he himself attached "great importance" to UNO. The nations of the world, he added, "desire peace and are endeavoring to secure peace"--though unnamed "political groups" were spreading war propaganda. Then he significantly linked "public opinion and the ruling circles of all States" as the two forces that can win the peace. It was the clearest recognition Stalin had ever given to the power of public opinion. Even Stalin, apparently, agreed with the signers of the Declaration of Independence in the necessity for a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind."

In welcoming UNO to the U.S., Jimmy Byrnes read a warning from Harry Truman: "There can be no home anywhere for the United Nations unless the United Nations remain united." Another American put it more prayerfully; Council attendants were startled to find that someone had already cast a vote in their new steel ballot box. "May God be with every member of the UNO," it said. It was signed by Paul Antonio, the mechanic who made the box.

There were at least a few encouraging signs--such as the Russian promise to move their troops out of Iran--that Paul Antonio's prayer had been heard. As UNO met, international affairs had returned to what wise Viscount Grey of Fallodon, in referring to another Iranian crisis of 40 years ago, had called "an equipoise of bad relations."

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