Les Onusiens

The Palais de Chaillot was rebuilt in 1937, for the Paris world's fair of that year, and has since been used mainly as a museum. To the Palais de Chaillot this week came delegates to the third general session of the U.N. General Assembly. (Parisians called them "Les Onusiens" from Organisation des Nations Unies.)* Noticing a musee ferme sign on a glass door of the Palais, a Frenchman in overalls snarled: "What do they mean, 'museum closed?' What do they think is going on in there now?"

Nevertheless, the U.N. was not yet a museum piece. In the midst of crisis, the shrillest pitch of crisis in its history, the U.N. focused the world's attention. The measure of its weakness was that U.N. could not even protect its own mediator, Count Bernadotte, from terrorist murder. The measure of its strength was that every nation, including Russia, took U.N. seriously enough to maneuver vigorously to win its approval or, at least, to evade its disapproval.

The U.N. had certainly not established the rule of law among the nations. Yet it had greatly strengthened a growing public morality between the nations. As Warren Austin, permanent U.S. delegate, pointed out before sailing: "The free nations of the world enter this year's meeting of the General Assembly stronger and more firmly united than at any time since the end of the war." True, the unity and purpose of the free (as opposed to the slave) nations had the extra-legal aspect of a vigilance committee; but there had been other times when public morality expressed through vigilantes had been the necessary forerunner of the rule of formal law.

Atomic Crusaders. The Assembly's formal agenda was loaded with 69 items, ranging from genocide and atomic control to the question of a U.N. postal service and the status of Russian wives of Chilean diplomats.

A major U.S. propaganda opportunity lay in the field of atomic control--and the U.S. delegation intended to take full advantage of it. In the past two years the U.S. and a majority of the nations on the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission have held that international control of the atom is both necessary and feasible. When Russian opposition made it plain that agreement was not possible, the A.E.G. reported that fact and voted to suspend its own activities (TIME, May 17).

Now the U.S. wants a majority of the 58 United Nations to record themselves in favor of the U.S. plan. Departing for Paris with the high fervor of Crusaders, the State Department atomic team did not expect Russia, to abate its intransigence by one jot or tittle, simply counted on the moral value of a majority vote against Russia in the Assembly.

Mutton Stew. On their side, the Russians had an excellent propaganda opportunity in the issue of the Italian colonies in Africa--Libya, Eritrea, Somaliland. The 1947 peace treaty with Italy provided that unless the Big Four reached agreement by Sept. 15, 1948, the matter would be turned over to the U.N. Assembly. Some weeks ago Moscow startled the Western powers with a proposal to have one last fling at the colonies before the deadline. U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall agreed to negotiate but refused to attend in person. So last week in Paris the Big Four held a three-day conference on the Italian colonies. Moscow did not send Molotov, it sent the Foreign Office's No. 2 man, mercurial Andrei Vishinsky.

Vishinsky at once attacked the conference's authority to deal with the problem at hand. "In order to make mutton stew," he stormed, "you must have mutton. In order to have a Foreign Ministers' conference, you must have Foreign Ministers." To this France's Robert Schuman, the only actual Foreign Minister in attendance, sharply retorted: "If you don't have powers to negotiate, why did you come here at all?"

For three days the conference went through the motions, disagreed and turned the problem over to the U.N. Assembly. Russia is willing to turn the colonies over to Italian trusteeship with or without U.N. supervision. So is the U.S., but it is hamstrung by a British promise to the Senusi tribes who inhabit part of Libya. In return for Senusi help during the war in the desert the British pledged that the Senusi would never again have to live under Italian rule. The U.S., undecided on whether to please the Italians or the British and Arabs, hopes the Assembly will decide to postpone the issue for a year.

Other major preoccupations of this Assembly:

The Balkans. UNSCOB (United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans) is ready to submit a report giving solid evidence that Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia had aided the Markos guerrillas against the Athens government. It may throw some interesting light on whether aid from Yugoslavia has dwindled or stopped since Tito's country got kicked out of the Cominform.

Little Assembly. The Interim Committee ("Little Assembly"), which functions while the Assembly proper is not in session, has recommended that its life and work be continued "for a further period to be determined by the Assembly." Russia has boycotted the Little Assembly, will doubtless fight the proposal.

Veto. Last July, the Little Assembly adopted an Argentine resolution calling for a world conference on Charter revision (purpose: to change voting procedure in the Security Council). The U.S., France and Britain voted against this recommendation which will be considered at the Paris meeting.

Premature. The French handled for the U.N. one problem which literally camped on its doorstep--Garry Davis, idealistic son of U.S. Bandleader Meyer Davis, who renounced his U.S. citizenship in order to become a "citizen of the world" (TIME, Sept. 20). Young Davis pitched a pup tent across from the Palais de Chaillot. Gendarmes escorted him, somewhat forcibly, off the grounds.

Davis succeeded in underscoring the fact that the U.N. not only has no permanent home and no police, but no citizens and no passports. A reporter asked Russia's Arkady Sobolev, one of the U.N.'s assistant secretaries general, what he thought of Davis' status as a "world citizen." Said Sobolev: "Premature."

*In 1946 the U.N. Department of Public Information asked that the O be dropped from UNO. U.S. newspapers complied. But the French press, and much of the British, did not.

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