Hallucinations

Sitting behind a Connecticut lunch-wagon counter and listening to the world's news, Stephen J. Supina decided that what the United Nations needed was a nudge. Supina, who had been a turret gunner in the war, did not write a letter to the papers. Last week he hired a tiny red and yellow Aeronca plane, drew a circle around Lake Success on his map, wrapped 150 feet of wire around his middle and took off.

As he approached the target he let down a powder charge on the wire, and touched it off with a spark from two flashlight batteries. The resulting bang was heard for half a mile around. U.N. was not visibly affected, except that a guard, who disliked loud noises, complained of a stomachache and was sent home.

Supina landed at La Guardia Field, stepped out and waited to be arrested. When nobody showed up to seize him, Supina was somewhat embarrassed because he had no bus fare. He borrowed some cash, made his way to Connecticut and waited patiently while what the press described as a "manhunt" went on. The next day he walked disgustedly into a newspaper office and gave himself up.

One policeman pronounced a diagnosis that told at least as much about the postwar world as it did about the turret gunner. "Supina," said the cop, "is suffering from hallucinations of world peace."

"Shoot to Sink." No such hallucinations afflicted the principals in a near naval battle off Staten Island last week. The Russian ship Pobeda came into New York harbor with 37 employees for Russia's U.N. delegation. A U.S. health service officer came aboard for routine rat inspection. The Pobeda's captain took umbrage at what he considered an affront to national honor when the inspector claimed to have found evidence of rats. He refused to have his ship fumigated, insisting that his was a clean ship, with no rats. The health men showed him rat footprints on greasy ladders. No use. They showed him tail prints in the ventilators. No use. When the Pobeda threatened to sail on, the health inspector yelled to a Coast Guard cutter: "Shoot to sink if she moves fore or aft."

It took four Soviet officials, hastily summoned from Manhattan, to convince the captain that the health men meant no insult. Grudgingly he allowed the Pobeda to be fumigated.

In the same week Joseph Stance, health inspector of Glen Cove, L.I., was sure that what he smelled was no hallucination. More like an overworked cesspool, thought Stanco. He followed his nose to the old Maxwell estate at Glen Cove, now leased as a weekend recreation spot for Russian U.N. staffers. Stanco said that he could see a pump working on the cesspool but he could not pursue his investigation further because the Russians would not let him inside the house. "You have your laws," said a courteous comrade, "and we have ours. Your American laws do not concern us. We do not need you here. You look after your people and we will look after ours." Sanitary facilities, he added, were "adequate."

And how about fire hazards, wondered the frustrated inspector? Did the Russians know that fire laws prohibited occupancy of a frame house by more than 15 people? "Our people," said the comrade, as faces peered from virtually every window of the huge, three-story mansion, "do not smoke in bed. We will have no fires."

The Russians said that they would have let Stanco in, but he insisted on bringing a horde of reporters and photographers with him. Said Stanco: "I like the press."

No Names Please. "We'll find out what's there or I'll know the reason why," stormed Glen Cove's mayor when Stanco made his report. "We'll take it up with the United Nations direct." Glen Cove's people said nothing. "They come," a candy-store proprietor told a reporter of his Russian customers, "they buy, and they go. But don't use my name or my address. With the world situation the way it is, you never can tell."

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