Of Good Faith

Across the green table of the U.N. Security Council two lawyers faced each other last week. One was Russia's Andrei Vishinsky. The other was the U.S.'s Philip Jessup. They embodied their respective natons' views of the law, and therefore of man.

The Sleeping Syrian. Vishinsky started off by denying that the Security Council was competent to deal with the Berlin issue. For the third time in two days, he repeated the same sledgehammer argument. "There is no blockade of Berlin . . . There is no threat to the peace . . . This fact is ineluctable, indubitable and inescapable . . . Only the Allied Control Council and the Foreign Ministers Council may correctly deal with the problem of Germany . . . If this question is not in relation to Germany, what is it? In the stratosphere? In the clouds? In an ivory tower? . . ."

Suddenly Vishinsky noticed that Syria's white-thatched Paris el Khouri had fallen asleep. Said Vishinsky with heavy sarcasm: "I wish the distinguished Syrian delegate the best of health. I beg his pardon for disturbing him. I want him to hear me. I hope he does hear me. I do not know what measures will have to be taken in order to make sure that he will hear me . . ." El Khouri finally woke up. What Vishinsky had wanted him to hear was hardly worth it.

Rather than order Vishinsky to walk out of the Council altogether (as Gromyko had been ordered to do over the Iran issue), Russia had decided that he was simply not to take part in the debate on Berlin. Next day, U.N. saw an incredible spectacle: a silent Vishinsky.

As the Berlin debate started, Vishinsky took copious notes. Then he threw down his earphones and started to read a French Socialist paper. Then he started listening again. What he heard made him plainly uncomfortable.

The Unstable Grasshopper. Philip Jessup, a sharp-nosed, curly-haired American, spoke quietly and earnestly, giving the Council the most logical, balanced and damning indictment yet made of Russia's actions in Berlin. Said he: "The acts of the Soviet Government . . . create a threat to the peace. All the world knows that this is true. The Soviet Union may pretend it cannot understand . . . That an effort should be made to deprive two and one-half million men, women & children of medicines and food and fuel and clothing . . . may seem to some a small matter. But . . . we cannot be callous to the suffering of millions . . . We are well aware of course that . . . the Soviet authorities made an offer to feed all of Berlin ... nearly a month after the blockade had been imposed . . . The German population recognized [the offer] for the political bribery it was . . ."

While Jessup spoke, his tall, handsome wife sat in the visitors' section, knitting calmly.

Jessup continued: "The Soviet Government has revealed the weakness of its position by adopting what I may refer to as grasshopper tactics . . . Each leap ends on a blade of grass which turns out to be a flimsy pretext requiring a jump to a new but equally unstable position . . . The long process of proposal and counterproposal, of promises made and withdrawn, made it plain that good faith--that prerequisite to settlement--was absent from the Soviet mind."

When Jessup finished, there was a moment of silence in the packed hall. An aide whispered to Vishinsky; he did not move. In his self-imposed silence, he gave a striking impression of being a culprit at the bar. Then he strode out. To reporters who tried to speak to him, he snarled: "None of you newspapermen is of good faith."

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