Surveying the Unhappy World

The 23rd annual General Assembly of the United Nations convened last week, and the first glasses clinked to inaugurate the world's most arduous social season. During a three-month session, each of the 125 delegations-feels obliged to throw a diplomatic party, if not several lunches and dinners as well. The permutations and combinations of invitations quickly become staggering. Britain's Lord Caradon in one 84-day session squeezed in 96 cocktail parties and 105 dinners. Given that amount of overtime, it is perhaps merciful that the 2,000-odd diplomats assembled in the U.N. do not have much real work to do.

If the essentials of U.N. diplomacy remain, as Adlai Stevenson once defined them, "protocol, alcohol and Geritol," the 23rd session will likely provide more than usual amounts of vitriol. Czechoslovakia and Viet Nam offer abundant fuel for debate, even though both are absent from the 99-item agenda. But they are effectively out of the U.N.'s scope. Czechoslovakia's new representative, Zdenek Cernik, spread the word that an Assembly debate would be most unhelpful to Prague, and the Russians, who doubtless dictated Cernik's position, vociferously agreed.

Regional Preserve. On the Viet Nam issue, Secretary General U Thant last week only underscored the U.N.'s impotence when he mused at a press conference what might happen if a resolution was presented calling for a halt to U.S. bombing in North Viet Nam. Thant made no mention of a reciprocal move and conceded in advance that such a resolution was "not a very practical proposition." U.S. Representative George Ball concurred. In what turned out to be one of his last state ments before resigning (see THE NATION), Ball judged the Secretary General's comments "in no way helpful in furthering the serious and sensitive negotiations now in progress."

The U.N. is even powerless to intervene in Biafra, since the Organization of African Unity has declared Nigeria's war to be a regional preserve. That leaves only one trouble spot--the Middle East--where U.N. intervention is possible, if unpromising. After ten months of mediation by Special Representative Gunnar Jarring, another arms buildup threatens the area. In fact, the Russians have signed an agreement with Cairo providing for massive new military aid beyond replacement of Arab losses during last year's Six-Day War. Shipments are now leaving Russia carrying the first installments of a promised 500 tanks, 200 MIG-21 and MIG-23 jets, and several hundred self-propelled artillery pieces. Meantime, Russian peace proposals, such as the one made public last week, reiterated Arab demands for prior return of their occupied lands, while the Israelis insist on discussing only a package settlement.

Once in 100 Years. On one matter, the delegates were able to show commendable unity: the election of Guatemala's Foreign Minister, Emilio Arenales, as president, an honor he prized highly, since "Guatemala can expect to preside only about once in 100 years." But the beginning of this century's term was hardly encouraging. In the Secretary General's annual report, U Thant surveyed the unhappy world and, conceding the U.N.'s ineffectiveness, could only suggest an old-fashioned summit meeting of the U.S., Russia, Britain and France. That suggestion is not likely to be taken seriously either.

* Newly independent Swaziland was admitted as the 125th member last week.

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