While Thousands Cheered

Summoned into emergency session three weeks ago amidst Russian cries of threatening war, the U.N. General Assembly met in Manhattan to defuse the international time bombs threatening the peace of the Middle East. Last week, after eight days of palaver, the Assembly brought forth its own novel method of bomb disposal. The technique: wrap the infernal device in verbal cotton wool--this deadens that unpleasant ticking sound--and tiptoe quickly away.

This inconclusive conclusion to the Assembly's deliberations, which many cheered, was largely the doing of the great powers. In their anxiety to avoid even implicit U.N. condemnation as "aggressors," the U.S. and Britain had thrown their weight behind an innocuous Norwegian resolution to turn the problem of Lebanon and Jordan over to U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold. And Russia's Andrei Gromyko, though full of snarling references to Western "armed intervention" in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern nations, met privately with U.S. Secretary of State Dulles in a small office in the U.N., and agreed that "a quieting down" was in order.

At this unexpected turn of events, an idea came to suave, balding Mahmoud Fawzi, Foreign Minister of the United Arab Republic and the only Farouk-era holdover to retain a senior post in Nasser's revolution. Fawzi, a topflight international lawyer, skillfully pounced on a fact which almost everyone else had overlooked: if the great powers were prepared to accept a compromise settlement, they could scarcely reject a compromise proposed by a united front of Arab states. And there was every reason why all Arab powers, including the violently anti-Nasser governments of Lebanon and Jordan, might join in sponsoring such a resolution. By so doing, they would win position with their own people for having demonstrated the solidarity of the Arabs and their determination to run their own affairs. Yet, in the process, neither Nasser nor his opponents would be committed to anything not already implicit in the Norwegian resolution.

The Smell of Roast Camel. Little more than 24 hours after the Gromyko-Dulles conversation, Fawzi outlined his scheme to his fellow Arabs in the Hotel Pierre suite of Abdel Khalek Hassouna, Secretary-General of the Arab League, a moribund outfit invented in 1945 by the British and captured by the Egyptians. Fawzi's audience--the representatives of the eight Arab League nations* plus Tunisia and Morocco--personified all the quarrels which have rent the Arab world for 40 years. And some of the quarrels persisted at the meeting. But before long the beauty of Fawzi's plan had turned the meeting into an old-fashioned Arab love feast. ("You could practically smell the camel roasting," cracked one U.S. newshen.) At the end of the session, Lebanese Foreign Minister Charles Malik, who only a week ago was vigorously denouncing the U.A.R. for indirect aggression, impetuously enfolded Fawzi in a bearlike embrace. And two days later, when it came time for formal presentation of the Arab resolution to the Assembly, the job was done by the Sudan's Foreign Minister, Mohammed Mahgoub, whose country has spent most of its brief independent life fighting off annexation by Egypt.

The Arab resolution--described by Mahgoub as a step toward "human perfection, peace and security"--was a shrewd blend of the earlier Norwegian resolution and of the plan for a Middle East settlement outlined by Dag Hammarskjold at the opening meeting of the emergency session (TIME, Aug. 18). It proclaimed that the Assembly:

"Welcomes the renewed assurances given by the Arab States to observe the provisions of Article 8 of the Pact of the League of Arab States that 'each member state shall respect the system of government established in other member states' . . . and that 'each shall pledge to abstain from any action calculated to change established systems of government.'

"Requests the Secretary-General to make forthwith, in consultation with the governments concerned . . . such practical arrangements as would adequately help in upholding the purposes and principles of the [U.N.] Charter in relation to Lebanon and Jordan in the present circumstances and thereby facilitate the early withdrawal of the foreign troops from the two countries . . ."

Crook Into Cop. Inside this velvet-lined grab bag there was something for almost everyone. For the neutralist powers of Asia, there was the firm reference to "early withdrawal of foreign troops"--a phrase which, to their distress, was missing from the Norwegian resolution. In the renewal of the Arab League pledges of noninterference in one another's affairs, there was a sop to U.S. and British concern over indirect aggression.

There were a few demurrers. Russia's Gromyko, complaining that the resolution did not call for "immediate withdrawal" of U.S. and British troops, threatened to reopen the debate at the next regular Assembly session (Sept. 16). From the Israelis came the bitter complaint that "This makes the Middle East's prime troublemakers--Nasser and the Arab League --into its policemen." But in the last analysis, nobody wanted to go on record as opposing an Arab solution to Arab problems, and when it came to a vote the resolution passed 80-0.*

Dreams & Delusions. In Washington and London this turn of events evoked cries of enthusiasm. After all, only a month before, both nations had been worried about standing in the dock for dispatching troops to the Middle East. The British had further cause for jubilation. If Dag Hammarskjold--who promptly announced that he would leave for the Middle East this week--could carry out his intention of persuading Jordan's King Hussein to accept "anything, from one individual to a substantial U.N. group," the way would be paved for a withdrawal of the British paratroopers hemmed in on Amman airfield. Confident young King Hussein was increasingly sure that his own troops could keep the peace, now that things seemed to be quieting down.

Everyone, it seemed, found something to welcome in the pause. Lebanese on all sides, rebel, progovernment, or in between, hailed the unanimous Assembly action. Why anyone should put faith in Egypt's reaffirmation of pledges it had systematically broken was not clear. Anyway, Jordan shut off its radio war against Egypt and hoped Cairo would reciprocate. Hussein, who only a year ago had accepted Egyptian command of his army after driving out the British, said he hoped to resume diplomatic relations with the nation that called him traitor. Some diplomats thought that Nasser would think twice about inheriting the creaky state of Jordan if he felt that Israel would fight to keep Jordan out of his hands. Nasser's economic and political difficulties in absorbing Syria (TIME, June 30) may also have persuaded him that out-and-out annexation of other Arab countries is a poor idea. Provided that he can bring the rest of the Arab world under his sway--as he has already done in Iraq and Saudi Arabia--the Egyptian dictator might be content with a loose federation of Arab states rather than one imperial Egyptianrun nation. These were the reassuring possibilities.

But the fact was that the West had decided that if it could not in conscience join in Arab nationalism, it would no longer fight it, and would even put up money to help "legitimate" Arab nationalism. The trouble is that the controlling interest in Arab nationalism is now owned by Nasser. In winning a breathing spell in the Middle East, the U.S. and Britain had all but conceded hegemony of the Arab world--at least during reasonably good behavior--to a man and a nation steeped in hostility to the West. The Egyptians were among those most jubilant at the 80-to-0 General Assembly vote. Headlined one Cairo newspaper: THE IMPERIALIST PLOTTERS HAVE BEEN FOILED.

* Lebanon, Jordan, the U.A.R., Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Libya.

* Only nation not voting: the Dominican Republic. Since Playboy "Ramfis" Trujillo, the dictator's son, was refused a diploma from the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, the Dominican Republic has had the sulks over everything American (presumably including the U.N. because it is in New York).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.