The Facts of Life

Hidden in a shadowy corner of the Luxembourg Gardens--where children, lovers and park bench sages still hold pre-eminence over visiting statesmen--stands a large, Government-owned bee colony. Its keeper, a white-bearded octogenarian named Ernest Baudu, lectures any stray stroller who will listen on the facts of life, both apiarian and human. "Within each hive all bees are devoted to each other. But when a tired bee drops into a foreign hive," he sighs, "he is immediately asked for his passport. Often, in times of scarcity, a group of bees swoops on a richer hive. War ensues. Always it is the law of numbers, of strength, that determines the issue."

Within the grey walls of the Palace, where men tried to make peace in times of desperate scarcity, the warlike laws of strength and numbers were in command.

Fiction of Equality. The Big Four foreign ministers had recommended to the Conference that it adopt rules of procedure requiring a two-thirds' majority for any action. The small nations opened the meeting with protests that such a rule would reduce to absurdity the already limited powers of the conference. Australia's stocky, hard-hitting Foreign Minister Herbert Vere Evatt (rhymes with rev it) was spokesman for the small nations as he had been at San Francisco; he went to bat for a simple majority rather than a two-thirds' majority rule. He was bitterly seconded by Belgium's Paul Henri Spaak, chairman of the Rules Committee: "The great powers. . .attempt to impose upon us rules of voting which in practice prevent us from securing acceptance for our points of view. . . . Finally . . . they ask us to make them a few recommendations."

Actually, this assessment of Big Four intentions was too harsh. The Foreign Ministers had not served up a ready-made peace, but a set of treaty sketches with 26 questions still left wide open, including many major issues such as internationalization of the Danube. When Jimmy Byrnes snapped: "Those who fought the war should make the peace," he merely summed up the self-evident half-truth that not all nations are created equal and that a peace based on the fiction of equality would not work.

Revolt of the Meek. On the surface the Big Four presented the extraordinary spectacle of unity in the face of the small powers' rebellion. Actually, the cleavage between Russia and the West was as deep as ever. Evatt was not only fighting for the little nations but also against Russia. The Soviets did make two important concessions: 1) the press will have access to all Conference meetings; 2) the agenda will be open to any additional points connected with the peace treaties. In turn, Jimmy Byrnes supported Russia's demand for a rotating Big Four chairmanship (said Byrnes: "My friend Mr. Molotov feels strongly about this. . . . I want to go along . . .").

Lack of Ambiance. The conference's first week was hopeful but unexciting. Under the bored and stony stares of Charlemagne and Saint Louis in the Luxembourg Palace, orators and translators droned on verbosely, while temporary chairman Georges Bidault listened politely from the sun flooded rostrum. Prime Minister Attlee did crossword puzzles. Molotov suffered in silence, his hands folded in his lap. Some delegates slept. Even the Gobelin-hung bar was quiet. Americans favored champagne; in the absence of vodka, the Russians went in for cognac. But, sighed the bartender: "Il n'y a pas d'ambiance--the atmosphere is blah. They drink hardly anything at all."

In his remote corner of the palace gardens, near the children's marionette theater, the old beekeeper continued his lectures on the terrors of strife among bees in times of scarcity. But the old man found hope--for the bees. "Do not be distressed. Monsieur," he said, smilingly waving his hands toward the buzzing hives behind their curtain of midsummer blooms. "It is a time of plenty in the garden and we now have peace."

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