Change of Character

As the hordes of U.N. delegates packed to leave for home, hearty holiday farewells at the final cocktail parties replaced the loud bickering of debate. What with the greatest assemblage of world leaders in modern history and the admission of 17 new member nations, the General Assembly's go-day session had been the noisiest and busiest on record. It also marked a change in the character of the U.N. itself.

When the U.N. was founded 15 years ago, 32 of the original 51 members were from Western Europe, North and South America. By 1960, total membership has increased to 99, but only nine of the 48 newcomers came from these Western areas. A majority of today's votes, 54, are in the hands of the mostly neutralist or uncommitted lands of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Hand in Hand. The Soviet Union tried hard to exploit the new balance of power. Although the Afro-Asian group may have deplored Nikita Khrushchev's shoe-banging behavior in the Assembly, many of the new neutralist nations, for reasons of their own, were willing to join in voting against "Western imperialism" on more than one important occasion. Where Russia once voted with only a lonely Communist bloc of nine on many resolutions, 20 and more members now found their voting plans coinciding with the Reds', though few of the new countries were Communist or even sympathetic to Communists as such.

When the U.S. and the West pushed through the resolution once again barring debate on the admission of Red China to the U.N., the Soviets were able to rally 34 in favor of putting it on the agenda. While the U.S., in deference to its NATO allies, uncomfortably abstained on resolutions demanding quick abolition of colonialism and endorsing the Algerian rebels, the Communists happily joined the Afro-Asians, posing as the greatest anti-colonialists ever. Finally, last week, the Soviet delegates watched gleefully as a solid group of Africans joined the Reds in defeating (by one vote) a U.S. effort to promote a round-table conference of Congolese leaders and endorse Dag Hammarskjold's recent efforts to keep order.

Roadblock. But the chief Russian successes were negative. They sometimes found the new bloc as balky--and as divided--as the West did. On several occasions, the Soviets found their more strident proposals blocked by Afro-Asian opposition, and were forced to drop or moderate them.

Their views still shapeless, their loyalties unformed, reluctant to see every issue in terms of the cold war, the new nations reacted mainly to self-interest. Even that self-interest was confused. Early in the session, they had voted unanimously for the U.N.'s intervention in the Congo. By session's end, some did not seem even sure they wanted the U.N. there after all.

Morocco, Guinea and others were criticizing Hammarskjold, and talked of taking their forces out of the U.N. command. Ghana wanted Africans to form an "African command" of their own.

The remaining question is whether the new members, though proud of their U.N. membership, will help to make the U.N. too cumbersome for realistic action. In particular, the British (who since Suez have been less enthusiastic about the U.N.) are convinced that Khrushchev is trying to make the U.N. unworkable, and with the unintentional help of the new Africans and Asians, may succeed. British thinking now leans to a search for a new instrument through which the West's powers could act in concert to protect the interests of the free world and, looking ten and 20 years ahead, foresees the need of a much closer association between Britain, the U.S., France and Germany as a power center.

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