Bend or Break?

The veto in the U.N. Security Council was not exclusively a Russian invention. The U.S. Senate itself would not have ratified the U.N. Charter in 1945 if the veto had been omitted. Last week the U.S. and six other nations (Canada, France, Philippines, Turkey, United Kingdom, Uruguay) submitted to the U.N. General Assembly a plan to bypass the sacred veto. No event in U.N.'s history--not even the decision to defend Korea--had more significance. The new proposal, well received by most of the delegations, meant that even the great powers (Russia excepted) were now willing to submit to the will of the majority on the vital questions of war & peace.

The change in U.S. attitude had been produced mainly by Russian abuse of the veto. On 46 occasions the U.S.S.R. had demonstrated that the Security Council was helpless. The Korean decision itself was made possible by a fluke; the Russians who had taken a walk probably would never again repeat their blunder of boycotting the Council.

The Korean decision showed what U.N. could do if freed from the veto. That lesson mobilized support for the new bypassing proposals. These include:

1) If a veto prevented the Security Council from acting against aggression, the General Assembly could be called into special session on 24 hours' notice.

2) The Assembly would set up a Peace Observation Commission to report on danger of aggression. The Commission would need the consent of the threatened nation before sending in its representatives.

3) Member nations would be asked to train part of their armed forces so that they could be fitted into a U.N. police force, acting under either the Council or the Assembly.

If a crisis like the Korean invasion arose next week, Russia would undoubtedly veto Council action. Under the present rules, U.N. would thereafter be unable to do anything except talk. Under the proposed rules, the Assembly would go into session, hear from its Commission and call up the nations to fight the aggressor with those units of their armed forces that had been specially trained for U.N. work.

Russia's Andrei Vishinsky, taking a deceptively soft line, said that he favored "some" of the proposals. His speeches soon showed that he was against essential changes. He argued that the present Charter nowhere gives the Assembly the right to control U.N. police forces. He insisted that U.N. could deal with breaches of the peace only if the great powers were in agreement.

Vishinsky was on fairly solid ground when he said that the proposals violated the letter and spirit of the Charter drawn at San Francisco. But the Charter could not be amended unless the Russians agreed. The non-Communist nations faced the choice between evading the Charter's veto provisions or junking U.N. as a peacekeeping instrument.

The U.N. Charter would either bend in the direction of its new proposals--or break.

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