UNITED NATIONS: Back in Society

“Years of proof must pass by,” said President Franklin Roosevelt in August 1944, “before we can trust Japan and before we can classify her as a member of the society of nations which seeks permanent peace.” Last week, with the sponsorship and all-out backing of U.S. Chief Delegate Henry Cabot Lodge, Japan became the first former Axis nation elected to the U.N. Security Council.

Japan’s election brought a roar of outrage from the U.S.S.R., whose candidate for the post was Czechoslovakia. Fuming that “the United Nations is not a club of like-minded people but an international organization,” Soviet Delegate Vasily Kuznetsov charged that by backing Japan the U.S. had violated a 1945 “gentlemen’s agreement” reserving one of the six nonpermanent seats in the Security Council for an Eastern European nation.

In 1955, when “the Eastern European seat” last fell vacant, the U.S. supported the Philippines against Yugoslavia, arguing that the 1945 gentlemen’s agreement had been intended to last for only two years. As a compromise, it was finally agreed that Yugoslavia and the Philippines should each occupy the disputed seat for half of the normal two-year term. Japan’s election carried U.S. strategy a step further. By backing an Asian nation, the U.S. had weaned part of the Afro-Asian bloc away from the Soviet candidate, seemed well on its way to nullifying the so-called Eastern European seat.