Projection & Accusation

George Marshall's speech before the U.N. delegates of 55 nations carried his nation into a new projection of foreign policy. It was of a piece with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall plan in that it was coldly directed against Russia's power, obstructionism and delay. What Marshall said was simply this: after two years of operation, U.N., because of Russia's paralyzing use of the veto power, is a complete sham. Now the U.S., by an appeal to the world's conscience and to the world's small powers, is going to try to make it work. To lay the groundwork for his main attack, Marshall went rapidly and accusingly over old and persistent Russian provocations.

Hostile Act. The U.S., Marshall said, would now place on the Assembly's agenda "the threat to the integrity of Greece." A Security Council commission and its subsidiary group, "by large majorities," had laid Greece's troubles chiefly to "the illegal assistance and support furnished by Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria to guerrilla forces ... a hostile and aggressive act.

"[But] one permanent member of the Security Council has three times vetoed the efforts of the Council to deal with the situation. This Assembly cannot stand by as a mere spectator while a member of the United Nations is endangered by attacks. "The United States delegation will, therefore, submit to the Assembly a resolution which will contain a finding of responsibility; call upon Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia to cease and desist from rendering further assistance or support to the guerrillas in Greece." The resolution would establish a commission "to make appropriate recommendations to the states concerned."

The Cloud. George Marshall dealt with Korea with the same abruptness. "For about two years the U.S. Government has been trying to reach agreement with the Soviet Government ... in bringing about the independence of Korea. . . . The independence of Korea is no further advanced." He invited the 55 nations of the Assembly to take up that problem, now blocked by a U.S.-Soviet stalemate.

He dealt once again with atomic control. "The preponderant majority of the Atomic Energy Commission" had made far-reaching proposals for effective atomic control. "Two nations [Russia and Poland] have been unwilling to join the majority ... a disturbing and ominous fact. . . . Since the U.S. realizes fully the consequences of failure to attain effective international control, we shall continue our efforts." But the Commission, he said, "may soon be faced with the conclusion that it is unable to complete the task," and he left the implications of that statement floating over the audience like a mushroom-shaped cloud.

Then the U.S. Secretary of State came to the real business at hand. He proposed a "Little Assembly," a standing committee of delegates from each of the 55 United Nations to sit in continuous session, for the next year at least, on the issues that were blocking the road to peace. The Little Assembly would not "impinge upon" the action of the big powers on the Security Council; it might facilitate action. In effect, Marshall had rallied the little powers, which have hitherto paced the corridors as restless exiles from the U.N.'s big-power politics, squarely behind the aim of peace and against Russia's tactics of disruption and delay. Had Russian vetoes kept the Security Council from protecting Greece from Communists to the north? Then, said Marshall, let the Assembly pass its own judgment on the Greek question. The U.S., he left no doubt, would be ready to act on Assembly decisions.

Had the Security Council been paralyzed by Russian "noes"? The U.S. proposed to limit the veto rights of all the Great Powers--by eliminating the veto itself from procedural questions and applications for membership to which it now applied. From Yalta on, the U.S. had based its U.N. hopes on essential big-power agreement in the Security Council. Now, to stave off complete U.N. paralysis, the U.S. was ready to give the 55-nation Assembly a stronger voice in world affairs.

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