BURMA: Acceptable Aid

Burma’s Premier U Nu is a devout Buddhist, a Socialist and a sufficiently alert observer of the current scene to recognize Red China privately as the beast next door. U Nu is also an impeccable outward neutralist, a sponsor for Red China at international conferences, reluctant to accept arms from the West against Burma’s own Communist rebellion. Last week however, U Nu found a canny way out of his difficulties: in exchange for some of Burma’s piled-up rice surplus, he would collect enough military hardware to equip a brigade—not from the suspect West, but from his acceptably socialist visitor, Marshal Tito. Left unsaid was the fact that Tito would have guns to spare only because he himself is being handsomely armed by Britain and the U.S.