Seven Months After

Last week, seven months after they had acted so stirringly against North Korean aggression, the U.N.'s free nations had lost their unity, firmness and clear purpose in the face of the plainer, more dangerous Chinese Communist aggression.

In a broadcast from Peking, Red China's Foreign Minister Chou En-lai spurned the Assembly Cease-Fire Committee's third proposal in four weeks for a truce in Korea. It was a trick, he cried, designed "to give the United States troops a breathing space." He demanded abject U.N. surrender.

Chou's proposition was, in effect, as follows: a truce in Korea must be preceded by agreement to withdraw U.N. forces and turn Korea over to Communist control. In addition, Red China must have the right to take Formosa, plus a voice in other Far Eastern settlements and a seat in the U.N. Such agreement should be negotiated by a seven-power conference, including Russia, Red China, India, Egypt, Britain, France, the U.S., and the conference should be held in China.

For Survival. A few hours after Chou's reply was in hand, Secretary of State Dean Acheson belabored it as "an outright rejection . . . still further evidence of [Red China's] contemptuous disregard of a worldwide demand for peace." Next day at Lake Success, Warren Austin summoned the free nations again to "united resolution" against aggression.

Warned Austin: "We cannot . . . fail at this great crossroads in the existence of the United Nations." The U.S. delegate announced that his Government would ask for a U.N. condemnation of Chinese Communist aggression and a U.N. study of sanctions against it. "We can do no less," said Austin, "if . . . the principle of collective security is to survive."

The ringing summons brought no ringing response. A substantial majority of the smaller nations--the Latin Americans, Greece, Turkey and the Philippines among them--lined up with the U.S. But the big powers of Western Europe, Britain and France, saw no "inescapable duty" as they had last June. Neither did an Arab-Asian bloc led by India.

By Saturday, the U.S. decided it would not wait further for ruminant Britain and France. Last June the West's Big Three had been sponsors together of action against the North Koreans. Now the U.S. would sponsor the right and necessary action alone.

When Warren Austin took his seat in Lake Success' Conference Room 2, he appeared glum, unsmiling, solitary. Noticeably absent was the usual press of colleagues around him. Britain's Sir Gladwyn Jebb, a hero last summer, sat apart stonily and unhappily.

Soon after the session opened, Austin read the U.S. draft resolution: "The General Assembly . . . finds that [Red China] . . . has . . . engaged in aggression . . ." The resolution called for continued U.N. action in Korea, requested the Assembly's

Collective Measures Committee, "as a matter of urgency, to consider additional measures," then left the door ajar for negotiations with Peking by proposing a stand-by committee of three that would handle any bid from the Chinese.

Against Sanctions. Some 40 to 45 U.N. governments were likely to vote for the U.S. resolution. The opposition would come from the Soviet bloc and the Arab-Asian group. Relieved of cosponsoring the U.S. move, Britain, France and other West European countries would probably vote for it, though they seemed likely to object to any program of sanctions.

This week, as debate continued, Ernest Gross, U.S. delegate to U.N., drew a line beyond which the U.S. would not go in any further dickering with the Chinese Communist aggressors. Said Gross, in a statement that might presage a major shift in U.S. policy: the U.S. would not take part in any conference on Formosa at which Nationalist China was not represented; furthermore, the U.S. was still opposed to a U.N. seat for Red China.

Undeterred, the anti-American opposition, led by India's softspoken, white-thatched Sir Benegal Rau, pressed for continued negotiations. Rau announced that he had received a message from Red China's capital, through the Indian Ambassador, that amplified the Communist counterproposal. Though the message did not seem to lessen Peking's demands for a U.N. surrender, Rau asked that the Assembly's Political & Security Committee adjourn for 48 hours while its implications were studied.

Whatever the study decided, India had already decided to stand against the U.S. "To pass a resolution of aggression, even if the charge were fully justified," said Rau last week, "would hardly redound to the prestige of the U.N. unless it was intended to be followed by other steps."

This made sense--so far as it went. But Rau made it clear that India also opposed sanctions or any "other steps" for U.N. collective resistance to Chinese aggression.

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