United Nations: The Speeches

U.N. officials began picking up the tag ends of the world’s business where Dag Hammarskjold had left it.

The precarious Congo operation was being run last week by the men who had been Hammarskjold’s chief assistants—the U.S.’s Under Secretaries Andrew Cordier and Ralph Bunche. India’s Under Secretary Chakravarthi Narasimhan—now dubbed the “Congo Club.” By vote of the General Assembly. West Africa’s Sierra Leone (pop. 2,500,000; area 27,940 sq. mi.) became the U.N.’s 100th member, just before the Security Council settled down near by to fight over Russia’s package deal on two other membership applications, those of Mauritania and Outer Mongolia—a knotty problem that might affect the fate of Red China’s bid for admission later.

Meanwhile. Assembly President Mongi Slim bustled about the corridors, dickering, discussing and listening to all sides of the unsettled argument over the succession to Dag Hammarskjold’s vacant post of Secretary-General. The Soviet plan no longer encompassed merely a troika, a three-headed executive. Now Russian Delegate Valerian Zorin was talking about a four-man body—two neutralists (African and Asian), a Communist and a Westerner —each, presumably, with a veto over the others that would render the whole operation useless. Said one U.N. diplomat: “You could call them the four Marxist Brothers.”

While the more or less routine machinery of the U.N. thus somehow kept going, the biggest events of the U.N. week remained the speeches.

Kennedy: Flexibility. John Kennedy was, as even Gromyko acknowledged, “in great form.” His speech was generally well received for its eloquence, earnest warmth and restraint. These good marks were not only a tribute to Kennedy, but also a sign that the U.N. manages to draw considerable eloquence from U.S. Presidents —acting on them somewhat the way a nominating convention affects U.S. Governors. Applause was warm and loud for three of Kennedy’s phrases, which kept echoing through U.N. corridors all week:

> On the Soviet proposal for a split U.N. executive, “Even the three horses of the troika did not have three drivers, all going in different directions; they had only one and so must the U.N.”

> On disarmament, “Mankind must abolish war or war will abolish mankind.”

> On U.S. determination (a replay from his inaugural), “We shall neither flee nor invoke the threat of force. We shall never negotiate out of fear and we shall never fear to negotiate.”

Kennedy’s speech was welcomed even by the usually critical Indians. Wrote the New Delhi Indian Express: “President Kennedy has effectively placed the onus of responsibility for a shooting war on the Soviet Union by displaying courage, vision and flexibility.” But some critics felt that the President had at times overstated his vision. In his eagerness to defend the U.N., he clearly exaggerated when he said that “in the development of this organization rests the only true alternative to war.” Although he ringingly announced U.S. determination to fight for the essentials of its Berlin position, some also felt that Kennedy had gone too far in the direction of flexibility—or just obscurity—when he cryptically referred to an agreement that would recognize “the historic and legitimate interests of others in assuring European security.” Was this an assurance to the Communists that in the settling dust over Central Europe, the frontier problems of little Poland and big Russia would be taken into account?

Westerners hailed as excellent Kennedy’s argument on colonialism—that Soviet Russia today is the big colonial power —but, disappointingly, the Afro-Asians refused to pay much attention to it. The “new” nations consider the fate of Algeria, Angola and South West Africa far more important than Russia’s mastery over Hungary, the other satellites and East Berlin.

Considered in terms of practical results, the Kennedy speech probably had only three: 1) for better or worse, it helped create an atmosphere in which Berlin negotiations were possible; 2) it strengthened sentiment for a single, forceful U.N. executive; 3) by advancing new disarmament proposals (see THE NATION), it scarcely brought disarmament any nearer, but it improved the U.S.’s moral and propaganda position on the subject in the eyes of the world.

Gromyko: Sophistry. Gromyko listened stonily to Kennedy—except for a thin smile at a Kennedy gibe comparing Khrushchev’s wall building in Berlin to the Czar’s orders in Pushkin’s Boris Godunov. Next day, in his reply, Gromyko used a tone that was—by Russian standards—moderate, particularly on Berlin. But there was little in his words be yond a recital of well-known Soviet points: Russia will not accept a treaty to end nuclear tests, said Gromyko, for the whole matter should be tied in with (and, presumably, stalled by) the tangled question of overall disarmament; Red China must be named a member of the U.N. without delay; a veto-bound, multiple executive must replace the post of Secretary-General.

With dazzling Soviet sophistry, Gromyko dismissed talk of a “crisis” in the U.N.:

“Our reply to this is that an organization which found itself in a crucial position when the post of its chief administrative officer fell vacant is utterly worthless.” Then he proceeded to his next point, blithely ignoring the obvious fact that the only reason for the U.N.’s “crucial position” is the wrecking tactics of Russia itself.

Home: Contempt. For sheer, refreshingly cool contempt for Soviet Russia, no one could match Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Lord Home. “Is there a way out of this vicious circle?” he asked the Assembly in an eloquent review of the problems before it. “So far as I can see, there is only one. And that is for the Soviet Union and its friends to abandon their doctrine of exploiting civil strife.”

Self-determination, insisted Britain’s Foreign Secretary, must be the cardinal principle for all the world. It was a point that both the U.S. and Britain felt could be an effective answer to Soviet pretenses of concern for the welfare of the world’s small nations. Berlin and East Germany were as good a measuring rod as any to test Moscow’s real intentions. “Does self-determination not apply in the case of East Germany? Why not? Is there to be one principle for Asia and Africa, and another for Europe? One rule for the British Empire, and another for the Russian empire?”

Lord Home made a sharp thrust against that glib concept of the Russians, peaceful coexistence. “The Soviet Foreign Minister yesterday said we must be content to coexist. I am not. I think the doctrine of coexistence is the most sterile and negative conception of international life in the 20th century.” The trouble is, said Home, that “while one side was negotiating in good faith, the other was practicing deception . . . the world simply cannot survive another example of such double-dealing.”