Town Meeting of the World

Norman John Oswald Makin had come a long way. Last week the errand boy from Broken Hill, who entered Australian politics at 19, was host at a dinner for his fellow UNO leaders at the swank Savoy in London. Russia's terrifying Vishinsky was gaily talkative on his right, and China's Wellington Koo suavely quiet on his left.

Norman Makin is a teetotaling Methodist lay preacher at home but he gave his guests wine and brandy while drinking orange juice himself. All week Norman Makin, chairman of the Security Council of the United Nations Organization, was a busy, genial host. Even so, he had an uneasy time of it.

There was that letter (addressed fraternally to "Dear N. Makin") from old-time Bolshevik Dmitry Manuilsky, who as chairman of the Ukrainian delegation* ran the Russian show until Vishinsky finally arrived from his lengthy briefing by Stalin and Molotov. The letter asked Makin for a UNO probe of British activities in Indonesia. In the same delivery came a similar note on Greece from Andrei Gromyko, Russian ambassador to the U.S. and Russian member of UNO's Assembly. With Iran's appeal against Russian interference in Azerbaijan already on the Council docket, Makin was suddenly in the center of open disputes openly arrived at.

Earlier in the week Eleanor Roosevelt had pleaded for frankness among the delegates; before the week was out their candor could be cut with a knife. Catastrophe did not result from plain speaking; issues everyone had dreaded were not so dreadful after all. UNO was going noisily but well.

Scrapping. The Security Council meets in Church House just behind Westminster Abbey. There the test came last week when Britain's Ernie Bevin rose ponderously from his se.at near Vishinsky. Bevin, looking straight ahead, said: "I think it would be a great mistake if any country could not have its complaint heard." Everyone in the room snapped to attention. Vishinsky was a picture of pallid, intense concern. Bevin warmed up throatily on Greece (which Russia had brought up to counteract talk about Iran). Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Undersecretary in the Foreign Office, leaned forward and tried in vain to calm him. But Bevin ploughed on: "I am so tired of these charges by the Soviet Government in private assembly that no one will be happier than I to see that they are brought out into the open." As he does when really worked up, Ernie Bevin put his glasses back on and took them off again. "If there is a complaint by the Iranian Government against the Soviet Government, I believe that peace depends on bringing these facts out before the world, whether they are right or whether they are wrong."

Spitting. It was then Vishinsky's turn to get up and talk. Famed as the tigerish prosecutor of the Moscow treason trials (TIME, Aug. 31, 1936), Vishinsky was badly handicapped last week by having to stop every two minutes to be trans lated. His tall young interpreter, Vladimir Postoyev, became more & more agonized trying to translate Vishinsky's Soviet hairsplitting. When the agonized young man finally faltered, Vishinsky half whirled around, spat something at him, grimly watched the luckless linguist jump as though he had been shot.

Despite Vishinsky's efforts, Bevin won and Iran remained on the Council agenda. But London thought Vishinsky might win his case indirectly. The Iranian Majlis (Parliament) had chosen a new Premier, 65-year-old Ahmed Qavam, by a vote of 52-to-51. In spite (or because) of his large holdings in Azerbaijan, Qavam is Iran's most pro-Soviet politician. At any time he might withdraw the Iranian Appeal.

Spatting. While this hot fight was going on in the Security Council, the UNO Assembly had its wrangles too. Old-rose, well-upholstered Paul-Henri Spaak, the Assembly president, relaxed in his old-rose, well-upholstered chair on the blue-&-gold rostrum, sometimes made a note with a gigantic goose quill, quickly handled awkward situations. One spat came after Ambassador Gromyko had urged that the Communist-backed World Federation of Trade Unions (W.F.T.U.) be granted UNO representation. Peppery Premier Peter Fraser of New Zealand spoke up angrily: "Unless we get a resolution with which Mr. Gromyko agrees on every dot and comma, he is not satisfied. I throw that back in his teeth." Said Gromyko: "The method adopted by Mr. Fraser is far from wise. I might equally throw that back at you."

Shelving. The W.F.T.U. issue also gave Texas Senator Tom Connally a chance to pound the table. He cried that if W.F.T.U. were admitted, UNO would have to take in all sorts of special-purpose groups--even of women. Turning to a Syrian delegate nearby, he shouted: "Would you like to have women in here dictating to us what to do?" The Syrian, caught off guard, replied with a startled "No." Flushed with triumph, Connally kept on pounding. Gromyko whispered to his neighbor, "I hope they have reinforced the table." The W.F.T.U. application was shelved.

Staying? In its third week, UNO was already a town meeting of the world. This was largely due to U.S. insistence at San Francisco that the Big Power veto could not shut off discussion. UNO was already the focal point for issues that disturbed the world's peace--despite Russia's blunt insistence fortnight ago that nothing except the Big Three really mattered. Hope rose last week in London that it might grow from a forum to a town meeting in the effective New England sense.

The Russians, who had done most of the post-World War II political grabbing, were taking the worst verbal beating from delegates intent on restraining power politics. The big question in London was: will the Russians take it long enough to get used to it? The Russian methods were still rude and crude, but close observers detected no sign that the Russian delegation would pull out.

*UNO's 51 members all send delegations to the General Assembly; whatever the delegation's size, each nation has only one vote. Each of the eleven nations on the Security Council chooses one member of its UNO delegation to represent it there.

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