Guest Column
BEICHMAN, ARNOLD
GUEST COLUMN By Arnold Beichman Representative Of Hungary' Since the free world so often seems to prefer silence on issues relating to its own survival, one hesitates to bring up an unpleasant...
...He wished the American delegate would find another forum for his cold-war propaganda...
...The UN Special Committee's report on Hungary, overwhelmingly adopted by the General Assembly, lies on the delegates' desks while "the representative of Hungary" makes speeches about cultural exchange, women's rights and the suffering of little children...
...Meanwhile, Prince Wan of Thailand, designated by a special Assembly session to visit Budapest and Moscow to save the Hungarian people from extinction, waits for permission from the Kremlin which never comes...
...But the case of "the representative of Hungary" has a significance that goes beyond the shame it has brought to the entire United Nations...
...Should not the UN, which moved so bravely to save the Suez Canal, now save its own soul by announcing that there will be no "representative" until there are free elections in Hungary...
...After he concluded, he was denounced in typical Muscovite fashion by a buxom lady who sits for the USSR...
...The whole thing became almost too tasteless recently following a speech by AFL-CIO President George Meany, currently a U.S...
...Thus far, nobody seems to have asked what "the representative of Hungary" is doing at the UN when the body is still warm...
...Perhaps next time, it was said, we would be in a better position to act effectively...
...Presumably, a credentials committee is studying the matter...
...It is a desecration that, a year after the Hungarian Revolution, the UN's 82 member nations— or, rather, the 72 which are free— permit this Soviet agent to discourse on the state of the world amid the pleasant surroundings of the East River peace palace...
...Actually, the word "unpleasant" is too modest...
...He complained, as everyone listened gravely with earphones clamped to ears, that Meany was destroying the friendly atmosphere of Arnold Beichman, labor publicist, is the ICFTU's press representative...
...Perhaps the nations of the West have grown old and dulled and their "conscience with injustice is corrupted.' Is there, then, no statesman from the lands newly liberated from colonialism—Tunisia, Ghana...
...To be sure, expelling Kadar's envoy from the United Nations would not be doing very much and would hardly alter the course of history...
...But now our behavior at the UN General Assembly has made it unmistakably clear that another Budapest or Poznan or East Berlin will again catch us "unawares" and those who die in the struggle will again have nothing but our tears and our prayers...
...He must be invited to receptions and permitted to sit in the delegates' lounge...
...He is equal in status to any other delegate...
...delegate to the UN...
...Yet, we of the West cannot even do something about "the representative of Hungary," here at 42nd Street and the East River, in the free world...
...While Prince Wan is barred from Hungary, while the AVH is filling the jails with men who will not compromise, and while Soviet tanks and bayonets alone are preserving Communist rule, should not someone in the UN stand up and cry that there is no "representative of Hungary...
...Malaya—who is willing to speak words which cry for a voice...
...GUEST COLUMN By Arnold Beichman Representative Of Hungary' Since the free world so often seems to prefer silence on issues relating to its own survival, one hesitates to bring up an unpleasant matter like this one...
...He must be treated with courtesy and addressed as "Mister" just as if nothing ever happened...
...the meeting with his irrelevant speeches...
...In the past decade, the Soviet Union has had no difficulty in supplying arms to its friends in North Korea, Greece, Indo-China and now Syria...
...Meany had spoken against a resolution on cultural exchanges introduced by the Czech representative...
...But there are times when morality demands that one take a stand without weighing its practical expediency...
...The next voice you heard was that of the man whom the Chairman introduced as "the representative of Hungary...
...We cannot take the tremendous step of turning our backs on this man who speaks in the name of a regime that is now murdering Hungary's finest spirits...
...Burma, Morocco...
...Last winter, the official Washington explanation of our failure to aid free Hungary was that to do so might have meant World War III...
...The fact remains, however, that since September 17, when the 12th session of the United Nations General Assembly opened, a man who calls himself "the representative of Hungary" has been sitting in the Assembly hall and enjoying all the privileges of a fully accredited delegate...
...All this, it might be added, was taking place in what is known as the Committee on Social, Cultural and Humanitarian Affairs...
...The UN celebrated its 12th anniversary on October 24, but it was hard to feel elated when one thought of "the representative of Hungary" walking the corridors wrapped in his cloak of legitimacy...
Vol. 40 • November 1957 • No. 46
