The Law's Delay

Side by side in the men's room at Lake Success, Trygve Lie and Lebanon's Charles Malik had a conversation.

Lie: What are you going to say, my friend?

Malik: I've got a couple of ideas. What should I say?

Lie: I don't know. Send some more troops to Korea?

Malik: Why doesn't Norway send about 5.000 troops?

Lie: I'm not a member of the government there any more.

Then the two men returned to Conference Room No. 2. With its huge glass windows, against which television and newsreel cameras pressed their curious eyes, Room 2 looked remarkably like a big aquarium. As Charles Malik started to speak, the other delegates stopped chattering: he is one of U.N.'s most respected delegates. He spoke without prepared text, his big hands cutting the air.

Malik compared two resolutions before the U.N. Assembly's Political Committee. One was the U.S. resolution calling on U.N. to 1) declare Communist China an aggressor, 2) study the possibility of "future collective measures" against Red China, 3) establish a good offices committee that could negotiate with the Chinese Communists when & if they were ready.

The other resolution, jointly sponsored by India and the eleven Asian and Arab nations, was plainly designed to sidetrack the U.S. measure and open the way for admission of Communist China to U.N. It called for an immediate conference with Peking, while the fighting in Korea continued. Purpose: to get "all necessary elucidations and amplifications" of Peking's latest message to the U.N. relayed by India. That message, which Warren Austin had bitingly called "not much more than a postal card," had in effect notified U.N. that Peking would agree to a cease-fire only on its own terms (i.e., withdrawal of U.N. troops, admission of Red China to U.N., handing Formosa to the Reds).

Debate between the supporters of the two rival resolutions had droned on all week. Lebanon's Malik sprang a surprise: he announced that "with good conscience" he would vote for both resolutions. The weight of his speech, however, was on the side of the U.S. resolution. The delegates, he said, could do one of four things:

1) Deny the fact that an act of aggression had been committed;

2) Stay away from the conference room--which was escaping the issue;

3) Abstain from voting, if they felt that action now was premature;

4) Agree that aggression had occurred.

For his part, said Malik, he would only follow Course No. 4. Said he: "The U.S. is indispensable for the system of collective security. Nothing must be done, therefore, to discourage the American people's vigorous interest in leadership in U.N....We do not believe in peace at any cost."

The Valid Truth. A great deal was done--and left undone--last week to discourage and to encourage the American people.

At Lake Success, British Delegate Sir Gladwyn Jebb, who last summer had eloquently championed the West's cause against the Korean Communists, stuck to the cautious line laid down earlier in the week by Prime Minister Attlee (see FOREIGN NEWS). He passed out political bromides right & left: "We must look before we leap, and if we do leap, we must all leap together." He also displayed his native knack for understatement: "One must confess that [the Chinese Communists'] recent acts inspire no feeling of confidence." Jebb tried to tone down the U.S. resolution, especially the part about "future measures." Said he: "May it not be that the punishment may cause wider havoc than the crime--that the cure may be even worse than the disease?"

Next day, Canada's Lester Pearson got into the debate. He blushed as he started to read his 16-page statement with a slight lisp. Pearson announced that Canada would support the U.S. resolution "because it states one valid truth that is self-evident: the armed forces of the People's Republic of China continue their invasion of Korea." In the next breath, he called the U.S. resolution "premature and unwise."

A Virtual Promise. To a large extent, the U.S. had only itself to blame for such vacillation among its friends. Despite strong official language, the U.S. State Department's attitude on Communist China was still unclear. In answer to reporters last week, Assistant Secretary of State John Hickerson declared that U.S. policy on Formosa was still summed up by a resolution which the U.S. submitted to the General Assembly last September (TIME, Oct. 2). That resolution, calling on the Assembly to settle the "Formosa problem," amounted to a virtual promise to the Chinese Communists that they would eventually get the island. Hickerson as well as U.S. Delegate Ernest Gross also declared last week that the U.S. considered the question of China's admission to U.N. a matter of procedure, not substance, and would consequently not use the veto; that was practically giving notice to Britain, India & Co. that, if they really wanted to, they could get Red China into U.N.

While the debate at Lake Success droned on, an American voice tried to clarify and strengthen the U.S. position. It was the voice of the United States Senate.

The Sense of the Senate. The idea first came to Senator John McClellan of Arkansas as he was listening to the Great Debate on U.S. foreign policy in the Senate. One speech, endorsed by 96 Senators, it seemed to him, would carry a lot more weight than 96 separate speeches. He sent out for a clerk from Legislative Counsel and told him he wanted to draft some resolutions. The Senator explained what was on his mind, and the clerk put it into the proper legal language. A few days later, Senator McClellan solemnly asked for a vote on his first resolution, which stated simply "that it is the sense of the Senate that the United Nations should immediately declare Communist China an aggressor in Korea." The resolution was adopted by unanimous consent.

Then the Senate proceeded to McClellan's second resolution--"that it is the sense of the Senate that the Communist Chinese government should not be admitted to membership in the United Nations..." Said McClellan: "The Government of the United States could never look the American people in the face without blushing with shame if it ever tolerated the admission into the United Nations of a Red Communist government that is on the warpath, murdering American soldiers, killing our own sons..."

Said Senator Ernest McFarland, who was presiding: "I think it is time...that we should take some action in an effort to put a little backbone into the members of the United Nations..." He asked for a roll-call vote "in order that all nations may know where we stand upon this question..."

Five Senators were absent. Each of the 91 who were present rose and voted yea.*

A Sad Experience. Some delegates at U.N. declared themselves annoyed by the Senate resolutions, huffed & puffed about "unwarranted pressure." Others were impressed by the Senate resolutions' simplicity and firmness. There was no doubt that the Senate's action had strengthened at least a few spines.

In the delegates' lounge at Lake Success, the vote getters were working harder. Delegates and their assistants nervously circled the bar, collaring other delegates, totting up changes in the probable voting lineup. The U.S. was putting on more heat. The British and Indians, fighting a stubborn delaying action, were giving ground. Both Australia and New Zealand came out for the U.S. resolution.

South Korea's Foreign Minister, Colonel Ben Limb, spoke. Discussion as to whether or not aggression had taken place in Korea, said Limb, seemed to his suffering people "a sickening mockery." If Korea fell, he asked, how long would it be before the Communist tide reached India? But India's Sir Benegal Rau did not hear the question; he spent the whole day in the lobby, surrounded by clusters of delegates, trying to make converts.

Next morning, Poland's Julius Katz-Suchy got the floor, and in his biting, somewhat mangled English he rattled off the old Communist arguments. The charge that Communist China was an aggressor was a "fairy tale." There were only Chinese "volunteers" in Korea. South Africa was next. Its position: firmly with the U.S. Then a man took the floor who should have given the laggards among the delegates some uneasy moments. He was Ato Gachaou Zallaka, a small, neat Ethiopian. In a fast, four-minute speech delivered in French, he simply warned that the "sad experience" of the League of Nations, which permitted his country to be invaded, should not be repeated by U.N.

The Burden of Morality. When it was Warren Austin's turn, he read a few sentences from his typewritten, heavily corrected text, then suddenly looked up and, off the cuff, tore into the "Soviet bloc who cannot open their mouths in this committee without giving vent to hatred of all independent countries." After he calmed down, Austin sharply and simply defined the issue before U.N.

The world is waiting, he said, for the answer to two questions: "1) Is the United Nations capable of pronouncing a moral judgment in accordance with obvious facts? 2) Is the United Nations capable of formulating measures and means for taking collective action based on these facts and this moral judgment?" Then, in order to make the burden of morality a little lighter on the backs of the British and their friends, Austin assured everyone that the U.S. resolution would not actually commit anyone to collective action and promised that if the U.N.'s good offices committee would work out an acceptable ceasefire, consideration of "future measures" would be dropped. Austin also made another concession on a matter that had worried some of the more anxious delegations. The U.S. resolution stated that Communist China had "rejected all'' U.N. cease-fire bids; Austin, acting on a Lebanese suggestion, was willing to change the wording to "not accepted U.N.'s proposals."

Austin pressed for an early vote, but one speaker after another insisted on being heard. France, The Netherlands and Belgium came out strongly for the U.S. measure. Nationalist China's able Dr. T. F. Tsiang made a moving plea for the cause of free China and a free world. The U.N. he said had studied the problem of Communism in China only for a few weeks; but the Chinese people had had to face and fight it for 30 years. His people know that the Communist Chinese slogan, roughly translated, is "Fight and talk, talk and fight." Said Tsiang: "Both 'fight' and 'talk' have the same objectives, destruction of the opposition...'Talk,' by spreading doubt, is often as effective as 'fight.' "

Up until last week, the extracurricular work of the U.S. delegation was mostly sounding out the sentiments of other delegations. Last week, especially after the Senate resolution, the U.S. staff buckled down to persuading other delegates to support the U.S. stand. Result: more strength behind the U.S. than most observers believed possible a fortnight ago.

The captious would argue that even the U.S. resolution was too weak, that a moral judgment against an aggressor meant nothing without sanctions to punish the aggressor. This view is shortsighted. There is still enough moral strength in the anti-Communist world to make a U.N. condemnation a serious matter, from which sanctions would logically follow if Chinese aggression continued.

* The A.F.L. last week called for economic sanctions against Communist China, for support of the "rising democratic resistance movement" on the Chinese mainland, and for assistance to the Nationalists on Formosa.

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