Soviet Strategy and the UN

...The girl is friendly but cool as they taxi to the theater...

...That was demonstrated beyond all doubt on the last two occasions that the United States brought the matter before the Security Council...

...Indeed, Secretary-General U Thant himself??whose assessment of the situation runs much closer to Hanoi's than to Washington's??has for the moment given up hope that he might privately, as an honest broker, find an opening inaccessible to official probing...

...Moreover, the Soviet Union has recommitted itself politically to the Arab cause...

...The Soviet-Arab formula for the Middle East is: first unconditional Israeli withdrawal to the June 4 line (with Egypt holding the Strait of Tiran), then the possibility of political adjustment...

...The divisions appear too sharply drawn...

...Israel's strong desire to negotiate individually with its Arab neighbors carries little weight in this situation...

...Conjecture runs strongly in this direction rather than toward the achievement of a stable peace, for nothing is less in evidence than an Arab-Israeli agreement on principle...

...And the Arabs need a breathing spell not only to recover from the blows they received but to show the Kremlin what it may realistically reckon with in terms of Arab ideas, solidarity and determination in their common cause...

...The Arab states, stunned and bewildered by the implications of the June war, are in no mood to sit down alone with an Israel still flushed with success...

...This implies a systematic effort to orchestrate protest and propaganda on the world scene, especially at the United Nations...

...Financially, the United Nations remains in serious trouble, largely because the basic problem of its peacekeeping authority has not moved one inch toward solution...

...No rational leadership would invite another such humiliation...

...On the positive side, there is little doubt that Moscow would like the Suez Canal reopened...

...It sounds a good deal like the Soviet formula for Vietnam: first an end to bombing in the North, then the possibility of talks...

...The moral, if you want to call it such, is that patience and good cheer are the best p??aversity??and may even lead to success...

...Disarmament might conceivably be moved along a notch by a measure of Soviet-American agreement on a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but that is not certain...

...The Middle East, by contrast, is very much a part of the UN work load...

...Thus the 22nd Assembly has begun its work with fewer expectations than Arthur Goldberg's young man ??and less prospect of success...

...Ambassador Goldberg did not so much as mention it in his policy statement at the opening of the general debate, and Andrei Gro-myko dealt with it ritualistically in perfunctory fashion...

...South Africa, taking a leaf out of Moscow's book, now also refuses to pay even regular budget assessments for UN activities it considers illegal...

...There his hopes revive slightly...

...and their feeling Soviet methods may offer a shortcut to economic development that has pushed the Arabs into Russia's arms...

...What matters, in considering the chances of UN action toward a solution, is that the two parties' positions appear irreconcilable??and that they are held not only strongly but with overtones of desperation...

...The Soviet Union and France, having promised years ago to make voluntary contributions if the UN abandoned efforts to collect their arrears for peacekeeping expenses, have so far not donated one thin dime...

...Even in the strategic long run, it may be assumed that the Soviet Union will not demand Israel's destruction...

...Diplomats, pondering the pressure for this kind of useless exercise, note that as things stand now, Vietnam might just as effectively be "handed over" to the International Red Cross or the Salvation Army...

...The Arab people, 100 million strong and a key element in an Islamic community that extends from Mauretania on the Atlantic Ocean to Indonesia, must continue to seem eminently worth winning over...

...ORCHESTRATING PROTEST AND PROPAGANDA Soviet Strategy and the UN By Richard C. Hottelet United Nations Ambassador Arthur Goldberg tells the story of a young man who has set his sights on a delectable girl...

...Since the lesson of the June war rules out a renewed frontal assault, the General Assembly now appears to be facing a Soviet effort to lay the groundwork for a different approach to its goal...

...This session is likely to see the usual platonic African resolutions...

...When they lost, the Soviet delegates lobbied furiously and prevented the debate from ever beginning...

...About the only relief in the agenda, like a new girl in an old chorus line, is Malta's proposal for a treaty to reserve the ocean floor and its resources for the use of all mankind...

...All of this, of course, falls far short of conversion to genuine peace...

...Pursuing them all here and matching them with the Arab brief against Israel would mean descending into a bottomless bog of legal detail and emotional history...

...The world picture would have to alter dramatically to permit any constructive UN intervention...

...Even bearing in mind that history is notoriously fickle, however, one can find very little to suggest that the analogy will stick...

...The Arabs, however, rejected the formula and the Soviets have not revived it at the regular Assembly...

...Instead, they are leaving the intiative to the Arab leaders??whose line, laid down at the Khartoum summit meeting in August, is no recognition, no negotiation, no peace with Israel...

...She fails to respond to the cocktails, the dinner, or the wine at Sardi's...

...There is no indication??and Moscow has probably also learned this lesson the hard way over the years??that the Arabs are Soviet satellites...

...The Israelis believe they must succeed, that a lost round would be the last round...

...a flaming sense of injustice at the hands of Israeli intruders which, rightly or wrongly, consumes them...

...The Kremlin's June 5 decision not to intervene cannot have been taken easily??the agony appears to have been reflected in one exchange on the Washington-Moscow hot line that has never been revealed...

...He is almost surprised when she agrees to go back to his place for a drink...

...One can presume that the considerations motivating the Soviet Union ??the first country to recognize the new state of Israel in 1948??to swing to the Arab side in 1955 remain valid...

...Her hands refuse to meet his, even at the encouraging moments in the play...

...Resigned, he pours her a glass and, in a goodold-friends tone of voice, murmurs, "Say when...

...She looks at him calmly, flicks the ash off her cigarette, and replies, "After the next drink...

...It is too valuable as a focal point of Arab passion and a lever for Soviet influence in the Arab world...

...The quest continues for binding treaties to cover space accidents and the rescue and return of astronauts in distress...

...The shipping run from Odessa to Haiphong now takes 36 days instead of 20, which means that nearly twice as much tonnage is required to sustain the main pipeline to North Vietnam...

...No one considers for a moment that Peking will be invited to take the Chinese seat...

...At the time of the Tonkin Gulf incident, Russia's Platon Morozov first moved that North Vietnam be invited to present its side of the dispute...

...Yet nothing goes right...

...Washington and Moscow are far from agreed upon the origins or solutions of the smoldering crisis...

...and to make the full use of the "national liberation struggle...

...Israel can offer many extenuating arguments and has many grievances to press against its Arab neighbors...

...Likewise, the settlement of strategic strong points on the former Jordanian West Bank and on Syrian territory is widely deplored...

...Israel has not simplified its own position by annexing Old Jerusalem, an act unanimously decried by the General Assembly and left unrecognized even by Tel Aviv's friends...

...The Arabs, watching the most efficient society in the developing world, wonder where its dynamism will lead...

...It is astonishing, in the light of these performances, to see American Senators and Congressmen earnestly advocate that the problem of Vietnam be "handed over" to the United Nations, or that the Security Council "rule" on Vietnam...

...If, as a maximum, the Soviets could enlist the dynamism, the resources and territory of the Arab world in their continuing contest with the West they would have made a giant step forward...

...Neither seeks a compromise, and Marshal Tito's unofficial initiative has shriveled away...

...In February 1966, after the United States ended its 37-day bombing pause and came to the Security Council for help in arranging negotiations, the Soviet Union fought savagely against even inscribing the item on the agenda...

...Then, when Hanoi refused to acknowledge any UN jurisdiction, he dropped the matter and the Council never resumed the debate...

...When the Soviet Union summoned the Fifth Emergency Special Session in June, its purpose was to do something, anything, to move the eyes of the world off the dead center of defeat in the Middle East and give the Arabs a chance to come to grips with a new reality...

...Vietnam is not on the 1967 agenda, although the Soviet Union has sponsored an item on the "Need for Accelerating the Definition of Aggression in the Light of the Present International Situation.'' This, very clearly, offers a pretext for a Vietnam debate, and avoids the need for any United Nations decision or action on the problem...

...If, as a minimum, they could deny these assets to their adversaries they would still be far ahead of the game...

...Chinese representation, has fallen flat this fall...

...The young man determines not to give in to bad humor, to act out the evening with platonic good grace...

...Anyone who wishes to apply this to the current General Assembly session, or to the state of the United Nations at this point, is welcome to do so...

...In addition, since the wild pre-June Arab propaganda for the elimination of Israel backfired in every way, Moscow has good reason to counsel restraint in public expression...

...Sabotage showed up in an organized form in September, resembling the pattern that drove the Israelis to ruthless acts of reprisal in fall of 1966, and perhaps could again...

...The atmosphere of anticlimax at the 22nd General Assembly is not confined to the Middle East alone...

...For Moscow, the potential prize must be dazzling: the extension of influence southward, outflanking the southern tier of nato and cento in the direction of the open sea and Africa...

...to exert as much economic pressure on Israel's friends, such as boycott and closure of the Suez Canal, as can be borne without self-destruction...

...The members will be content if the session unfolds without the kind of drama that dominated last spring and summer...

...still, she does not return his warm glance as he lights her cigarette, so he concludes there is simply nothing to be done...

...Richard C. Hottelet reports on United Nations developments for the Columbia Broadcasting System...

...As one eminent British diplomat put it, "You don't kill the fox...

...Paradoxically, each side rationalizes that time is on its side??Israel by virtue of its morale, the Arabs because of their size...

...It stands to reason that Moscow would not again send billions of dollars worth of military hardware to its Arab friends and then egg them on to a second disastrous adventure...

...Its life is complicated as much by overindulgent friends as by relentless critics??not to mention the ever present political hermaphroditic dilemma of whether the UN is an it or a they...

...And the plight of the refugees is a pathetic reminder of the high human cost of geopolitics...

...Nevertheless, the fact that the Middle East is on the General Assembly's agenda, and remains (stretching the letter of the rules) before the Security Council as well, does not remotely imply that the UN is in a position to lay down guidelines for solving the conflict...

...He carefully charts the course of what he hopes will be the decisive evening...

...The contacts in New York between Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko merely tested the thickness of the ice between them on both the Middle East and Vietnam...

...Toward the end of the five-week extravaganza, Moscow was even prepared to pay a price for a resolution demanding the withdrawal of Israeli troops from occupied territory by linking it with the recognition of Israel's right to exist, the renunciation of warlike acts, and the opening of the international waterways...

...It is a gain that friendship with Israel could not possibly bring...

...It is the combination of American bungling in the Mideast in the 1950s...

...It may not be possible to invade Israel with impunity, but constant pressure on its borders would keep it in a permanent state of costly semi-mobilization...

...So for various tactical reasons, if nothing more, Moscow is not steering toward a new Mideast crisis...

...Actually, the truth is that the Soviet Union does not want the UN to deal with Vietnam??officially or unofficially??and will block any effort to engage it...

...Another issue marked with considerable drama in earlier years...

...The 22nd General Assembly meets in a state of shock and frustration this fall, buoyed only by the hope that springs eternal and sustained only by the simple fact that it is still around...

...Soviet prestige??the amalgam of planning, intelligence and power ??was only slightly less battered by the Israeli victory than Arab prestige...

...On the other hand, the Soviet Union has put new energy into its perennial effort to remove the Korean question from the UN and the UN from Korea??possibly a sign of its struggle with China for influence in Pyongyang...

...But they do agree, if for sharply different reasons, that it is properly a subject for UN concern...

...The United States, for its part, seeks to avoid adding a national commitment in that part of the world to the burdens it already bears, and thus warmly sponsors the collective presence and efforts of the United Nations...

...But, while the girl has not been cooperative, she has not been hostile, and she is pretty...

...There has been considerable rumor in the past several weeks that the Soviet Union would prefer to put a damper on the Middle East crisis...

...The million Arabs in Israeli-occupied territory are a potential source of discontent that could flare into serious resistance...

...He is about to write off the evening, and possibly the whole enterprise...