CONFERENCES: Evil & the Postmaster

As the conference on Danube navigation closed with a Western whimper last week, just about the only thing the U.S. could smile about was a news picture from Belgrade (see cut). It showed Russia’s Andrei Vishinsky in earnest conversation with Yugoslavia’s Ales Bebler. The naked lady who turns away from M. Vishinsky with chaste horror is Truth Warding Off Evil, by the Croat sculptor, Frano Krshinich.

It was all very well for M. Krshihich (an artist and presumably a dreamer) to try to ward off evil by looking the other way; in practice, that method did not work. The U.S. was hopelessly licked in Belgrade because, instead of lighting into evil with fists flying, U.S. Ambassador Cavendish Cannon tended to shrink, like the reticent lady of the statue, from Vishinsky.

Law Is the Instrument. Since the U.S. had no veto power, all Cavendish Cannon could have done (and that might have been plenty) would have been to present the U.S.’s case loudly and firmly. He was not the man for that job.

Cavendish Welles Cannon is one of the State Department’s ablest, most diligent desk diplomats. A U.S. newsman once remarked that Cannon had the worried manner of a village postmaster who had mislaid the day’s mail. Cannon kept insisting, in his almost inaudible voice, that the conference should be conducted on “technical” rather than political lines. The Communist majority rode roughshod over the contention.

Nevertheless, the Communists were highly sensitive to the few thrusts that the British and French delegates (but not Cannon) managed to get in. When the British proposed that the question of free navigation on the Danube for all nations be ruled on by the World Court, Vishinsky said that the Court’s judges were incompetent on the issue because they could not be impartial. “I don’t accept the contention that politics ends where law begins. Law is the instrument of politics.”

Up rose tall young British Delegate Charles Fletcher Cooke. “We believe that regard for justice has eternal value,” he said ringingly, “and that it is possible for man to regard this value at the expense not only of himself but also of his country.”

Vishinsky banged the table. “It isn’t fair!” he blustered. “He must have prepared this statement for just such an opportunity!” As a matter of fact, Cooke had done just that. His speech was one of the rare examples of Western preparation for a propaganda battle.

Rumania’s boss-lady, Comrade Ana Pauker, tangled most bluntly with the West. When Britain’s Sir Charles Peake spoke of the need for reciprocity between nations, she cried: “We know you. We had you around for a long time, and we don’t want you again.”

Stones at the Chairman. On the conference’s last day, Cannon made a statement. Said he: “When we came here, the Danube River was dead to international trade … As we leave here, there will be no change . . .”

Chairman Vishinsky was unmoved. He apologized for his earlier longwindedness, smiled: “I sinned, but who will cast the last stone?” Then he put the treaty to a vote, clause by clause. In 23 minutes, he whipped his boys (and Mme. Pauker) through the required 58 votes. Once, one of his stooges forgot to raise his hand; Vishinsky nudged him: “Hey, pay attention.” Fifty-seven times, as he voted “abstention,” Cannon’s arm shot up like a railroad signal gone wild; the 58th time (when the draft as a whole was put to the vote) he voted “no” but was, from habit, listed as abstaining again. He rose to his last skirmish: “Mr. Chairman, there has been an error . . .” Vishinsky murmured impatiently: “All right, all right.” Cannon sat down again.

A few hours later, the Danube treaty, which gives the Soviet Union control of the Danube as far upstream as Ulm, was signed by the delegates with two Ever-sharp fountain pens. The Western nations refused to sign. Ana Pauker, in high spirits, wore her twelfth new suit in 20 days (smoke-grey with white piping, New Look length). Her immediate plans: “A holiday trip on the Danube—our Danube.”

Mr. Cannon’s final action in Belgrade was to defy the Soviet Union by refusing (along with his British and French colleagues) to attend a cocktail party for the delegates. To the last he was true to the Krshinich method of warding off evil.