The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT The Changing UN Assembly By William E. Bohn I always get a thrill out of the meetings of the UN General Assembly. Sitting under that wide golden dome and looking down on the...
...Joseph Luns, who was subbing for President Van Kleffens, explained this hopefulness...
...The first meeting of this year's Assembly took place September 20...
...It is now more united than it has ever been...
...Yesterday, I sat only a little way off when Molotov, Dulles and Britain's Anthony Nutting enjoyed a pleasant chat...
...Yeh because the latter represented nobody...
...But now he has grown gray and has taken on an aspect of benevolence...
...The first man to be recognized was Molotov...
...But he believed that a battle on this subject just now would do more harm than good...
...We have conquered the sound barrier," he said...
...Ambassador Lodge spoke for the United States, but without answering the substance of the Russian argument...
...Molotov's support came from the satellites and from the Eastern and Near Eastern countries...
...Now we should conquer the barrier of fear and distrust...
...The British delegate and some of the men from South America seemed more than a little uncomfortable...
...It seemed to me that they looked down rather scornfully on the dull male attire of the West...
...Yeh, who represented Nationalist China, spoke bitterly: The Peking crowd have murdered 20 million...
...He merely introduced a resolution against acting on this matter during the current year...
...One remark which I made last year I can repeat with emphasis...
...They have played false in Indo-China...
...The problem, he said, is to restore the rights of the Chinese people...
...To keep it out of the UN is to violate the Charter and international law...
...He has always looked rather smooth and round and soft and bourgeois...
...In his opening address, Dr...
...But I have a feeling that it is not as good as it looks...
...Krishna Menon, speaking for India, suggested that keeping Communist China out would be flying in the face of the new spirit in international relations...
...Vishinsky took the platform...
...The Geneva Conference, the disarmament meetings, the atomic-power discussions all give a solid basis for hope...
...This gathering is gaining in uniformity and losing in color and charm...
...It would, on the whole, be best just to postpone consideration of the topic...
...I thought I detected in the statements of some of our friends a certain reluctance, a degree of unhappiness...
...At Bandung, it entered into discussion with 28 other peoples and found a common language with them...
...Superficially, this looks like a great victory for the United States...
...I recall how the spit used to fly when Mr...
...Anthony Nutting, speaking for Britain, supported the American position, but without entering deeply into the problem...
...In the not too distant future, we shall have to find a way of changing or readjusting to the situation...
...The vote was 42 for the American position and 12 for the Russian--with 6 abstentions...
...But, under these circumstances, it is more logical to throw the Russians out than to let these Chinese in...
...In the early days, the men from the East appeared proudly in flowing robes...
...No United States Senator ever looked more sweet and gentle than he did yesterday when he made his argument in favor of admitting Communist China to the UN...
...He acknowledged that his country has recognized Peking and said that this problem of admitting it to the UN would have to be solved some day...
...Both in the realm of economic welfare and in that of human rights, he thought the time had come for practical and radical change, for "a bold flight of the imagination...
...There was not a turban in the place...
...The speakers who followed him, however, gave the subject a quite adequate airing...
...There was a general feeling that things would go better than in the past...
...Now, I must report, the Orient has surrendered, at least sartorially, to the unpicturesque Occident...
...It was, he said, illogical to admit them as members after that...
...In that whole great assembly yesterday, I saw but a single woman clad in the liquid flowing silks of India...
...He mentioned the Geneva meeting and the lessening tensions...
...They still have soldiers in Korea...
...A man from Colombia raised a point about the resolution condemning the Chinese Communists for aggression which was passed some years ago...
...When Jose Maza of Chile took over the gavel as the new President, he sounded again the note of optimism...
...It is true that they have been no worse than the Russians...
...This is the largest Asiatic power...
...When the Soviet Foreign Minister returned to the platform at the end of the debate, he remarked drily that he did not feel obliged to answer Dr...
...Sitting under that wide golden dome and looking down on the delegations of 60 nations, even though I know that this is far from being a parliament of man, makes me feel that we are at least building up to the stage where that sort of parliament will be possible...
...There were, this year, no threatening dangers...
...It has begun a great period of development and improvement...
...I can report, however, that in manners and atmosphere there has been improvement...
Vol. 38 • October 1955 • No. 39
