United Nations: Until Hell Freezes Over

In an incongruous interlude, U.N. delegates gathered in their auditorium last week to celebrate the 17th United Nations Day. The program: Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, played by the touring Leningrad Philharmonic. Before the concert, a grim joke made the rounds, to the effect that the Leningrad orchestra had canceled and President Kennedy had sent in the U.S. Marine Band from Guantanamo. In the corridors, there was much self-conscious gallows humor. A diplomat would say, “See you tomorrow — if there is a tomorrow.” Or “Uganda will be admitted to the U.N. Thursday—if there is a Thursday.”

There was both a tomorrow and a Thursday as, all week long, the nations angrily debated Cuba. The Security Council’s first meeting developed into a sparring match in which Russia’s vulpine Valerian Zorin and Cuba’s bouncy Mario Garcia-Inchaustegui tried, with ridicule and invective, to outscore U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson. That night, 45 Afro-Asian neutralists huddled in a conference room below the Assembly Hall to come up with a resolution that might avert a showdown between the two nuclear giants. Someone forgot to turn off a public-address system, and their secret deliberations blared throughout the U.N. One gloomy listener said the neutrals sounded in private exactly as they do in public—breathless and inchoate. The conference did result in a plea to Acting Secretary-General U Thant, who thereupon started to work out a kind of truce. Then, two days later, came Stevenson’s best performance since he took his job at the U.N.

Yes or No. Every word crackled as Stevenson sailed into Zorin for crying falsehood at the U.S. charge of a missile buildup in Cuba. “Let me say something to you, Mr. Ambassador.” he told Zorin. “we do have the evidence!” He hammered at Soviet evasiveness and demanded an answer: “Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium-and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no—don’t wait for the translation—yes or no?” The audience, transfixed by Stevenson’s untypical aggressiveness and wrath, buzzed excitedly. There was some nervous laughter. Zorin, genuinely startled, smiled too. Then he replied lamely: “I am not in an American courtroom, and therefore I do not wish to answer. In due course, sir, you will have your reply.”

Stevenson: “You are in the courtroom of world opinion right now, and you can answer yes or no.”

Zorin: “You will have your answer in due course.”

Stevenson: “I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over.”

No Score. Next, Stevenson displayed the photographic evidence of the Cuban bases. As big blowups of the aerial photos were spread on easels, he explained the technical details, adding that this evidence, and more besides, was available for closer inspection by anyone interested. Most of the time, the Russians stared stonily before them, ignoring the pictures. Zorin made one more try by citing some questionable photographs Stevenson had shown the Council just before the Bay of Pigs invasion. Cried Zorin: “One who has lied once will not be believed a second time. Accordingly, Mr. Stevenson, we shall not look at your photographs.”

Again Stevenson had the last word. The authenticity of the pictures could be established, he said, if “the Soviet Union would ask their Cuban colleagues to permit a U.N. team to go to these sites. If so, Mr. Zorin. I can assure you that we can direct them to the proper places very quickly. We know the facts. Mr. Zorin, and so do you, and we are ready to talk about them. Our job here is not to score debating points: our job, Mr. Zorin, is to save the peace. If you are ready to try, we are.”