International: Close Decision

“Baseball is over,” said a Reuters teletypist to a U.N. staff member in a washroom at Flushing Meadows. “We are all making bets on who wins in the election, and on what ballot. Want to come into the pool?”

The typist was talking about Yugoslavia’s candidacy for a seat on the Security Council, which came up for a vote before U.N.’s General Assembly last week. The U.S. backed Yugoslavia. Russia, dead set against the Titoist rebels, backed Czechoslovakia. The issue that bitterly divided the Eastern bloc also split the Western camp: Britain had chosen to back the Russian candidate.

In a press conference, Vishinsky explained why he considered Yugoslavia’s candidacy part of a “sinister underhand design.” Article 23 of the U.N. Charter, he pointed out, required that nonpermanent Security Council members be elected “with due regard” to “geographical distribution.” According to a U.N. “gentlemen’s agreement,”claimed Vishinsky, this article in practice bound the Assembly to accept the nominees chosen by each regional group; i.e., a caucus of Latin American countries could pick the member from Latin America, etc. To Vishinsky this meant that Russia, and Russia alone, could pick the member for Eastern Europe.† Since Russia backed the Czechs for the vacant seat and disapproved of Yugoslavia, it was both “illegal and improper” that her candidacy even came up before the Assembly.

In tense silence the voting began. On the first ballot Yugoslavia got 37 votes, only two less than the necessary two-thirds majority. Yugoslavia’s Foreign Minister Edward Kardelj and his colleagues, who sat pale and worried right behind the Russian delegation, began to relax a little. On the second ballot Yugoslavia was elected, with 39 votes. Czechoslovakia got 19 votes, with one abstention.

Delegates were tight-lipped on how they had cast their ballots, but best guesses were that all the Dominions except Canada had joined Britain in voting for the Czechs, alongside Norway, Denmark, Argentina and at least three other Latin American countries.

Vishinsky had threatened “unpleasant consequences” if Yugoslavia were elected. But this week Pravda grudgingly wrote that Russia would nevertheless “continue without change in the direction of

strengthening the U.N. . . .”

-Vishinsky’s phrase was gentlmenskoe soglashenie; the Russian language has borrowed the word “gentleman” from English. † This procedure has not always been followed; two years ago, when Russia backed the Ukraine for a Security Council seat, the U.S. and Britain backed India. The Ukraine was elected.