Thorough Mess

"Not since the days of the Suez crisis," wrote Editor Erwin D. Canham of the Christian Science Monitor, "has the Western world been more deeply divided than it is now over the Katanga. The situation is in a thorough mess.'' And not for years have the pundits and editorialists of the U.S. press been so deeply disturbed by a cold war maneuver. Last week, as the mess in the Congo showed no signs of abating (see THE WORLD), the U.S. press found little that made sense in the strange and unsettling collision of international armies half the world away.

U.S. papers and pundits were shocked by the sight of a world peacemaker waging aggressive war. Said the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., News: "To do as the U.N. is doing now in the name of peace is only adding more fuel to the fire which will eventually consume the U.N. and all it is supposed to represent.'' The New York Daily News suggested that the U.S. stop "bankrolling the U.N. Congo campaign" and leave "the Congo chiefs to settle their differences by means of the exhilarating tribal wars so dear to the hearts of most Congolese." The Tampa Tribune found a "monstrous inconsistency'' in the U.N.'s hands-off policy on Hungary and its hands-on policy in Africa.

Ends & Means. From every quarter, the U.N. was accused of hastening its own demise. "Perhaps the most significant, certainly the most tragic story of 1961," suggested the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, "is the fast dwindling influence of the United Nations. Its prestige has been disintegrating with a sickening speed, until now it is but a mocking shell of a great dream--'a world parliament to ensure lasting peace.' '' To the Dallas Times Herald, the U.N. was "looking worse and worse in what at best is a sorry spectacle."

New York Times Columnist Arthur Krock was frankly sympathetic toward Katanga's President Moise Tshombe. "It has not been demonstrated," said Krock, that Tshombe would cont nue to obstruct a Congolese peace "if and when a reasonable and constructive solution is formally and officially proposed by the U.N." Columnist David Lawrence coldly accused the U.N. of hypocrisy in claiming any legal right to enter the Congo. Said the Wall Street Journal: "It is not at all clear that the U.N. has some moral duty to subdue Tshombe by force. Secretary-General Thant is no Abraham Lincoln trying to hold together a great nation." Barron's, a business and financial weekly, stated flatly that "despite Communist dogma, the ends never justify the means. In Katanga both ends and means are wholly unworthy of free men."

Wistful Optimism. Even those who sympathized with the U.N.'s motives, if not its actions, felt a vague unease. The New York Post, a champion of the U.N. since its birth in San Francisco, searched for encouraging words, came up with an editorial noting that some of the current criticism was issuing from the far-right John Birch Society. Post Columnist Max Lerner took the line that since the U.N. had ignited the fire in Katanga, its defenders were stuck: "In this case, there is plenty of room for doubt about the wisdom of the U.N.'s action but no room for hesitancy about backing it."

Columnist Walter Lippmann, along with many others, blamed the Katanga debacle on the major powers, who have quarreled as to the proper Congo course. "If this is the way it is," wrote Lippmann bleakly, "then we shall all of us have to face the problem of how to contrive in the unworkable situation in the Congo something that will work. It is not easy to see what could be, and it is not being made any easier . . . by the grand abstainers in Moscow and in Paris."

Throughout the editorial soul-searching, the New York Times stood almost alone in preserving a wistful optimism. "Despite continued fighting." said the Times, "a promising basis for settlement of the Congo problem is beginning to emerge." That basis, said the Times, was "restoration of law and order, assurance of security for agents of the United Nations and removal of interfering foreign military and political personnel." But since "foreign military and political personnel" --on both sides--had wrought the explosion in the Congo, the Times's recipe for peace sounded vaguely like a dream.

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