On Second Thought

One seat stood vacant when President Eisenhower, in the U.N. General Assembly, presented his program for Middle East peace; it stayed empty all through the debate, was still unfilled when the Arabs' own solution for their problems was approved (TIME, Sept. 1 et ante). The seat was the Dominican Republic's, and a Dominican diplomat explained that the absence was a deliberate snub. Reason: Rafael ("Ramfis") Trujillo Jr. did not get a graduation diploma from the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, and his father, the Dominican dictator, was getting even.

Last week the silliness of it all must have penetrated, because Trujillo Sr. tried desperately to withdraw the insult. The whole thing was a frightful mixup, crooned a Dominican foreign ministry official. The regular U.N. delegate was attending the inauguration of Paraguay's President Alfredo Stroessner; his alternate was in Rio for a legal committee meeting, and the only one left in the office was Minerva Bernardino--and she was visiting a sick sister in the hospital. To make it more convincing, Miss Bernardino was recalled home to give a fuller explanation.

The excuse was as silly as the insult. Trujillo's price for attending the General Assembly sessions was well known at the time. He wanted a hat-in-hand visit from U.S. Ambassador Joseph Farland to beg the Dominicans to show up. The U.S. might have needed the vote, if there had been one on the U.S. plan, but was not about to plead for it.

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