Change U.N,?

With growing vexation, the U.S. people had watched the United Nations, like a kind of 58-legged race, try to walk. It didn't seem to be able to; in fact, it seemed to have reached the point where it was lingering betwixt a balk and a breakdown. Last week, under pressure from thousands of their constituents, six Congressmen trooped before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to plead that the U.S. do something--anything--to strengthen U.N.

The obvious villain was the veto. Among dozens of resolutions submitted, the one most strongly backed was a plan which had been devised by World Planner (and onetime Bridge Expert) Ely Culbertson. It was endorsed by 16 Senators and 14 Congressmen. It would eliminate the veto in matters of aggression. If the Russians refused to agree, the other nations of the world would set up a revised U.N. without them. Fired with enthusiasm, the Foreign Affairs Committee was all set to stamp it with approval.

Then Secretary of State George Marshall pointed out the hard facts. Such a revision, he declared, could only mean the disintegration of U.N. The Soviet bloc, the Arab states, perhaps the Far Eastern bloc would walk out, leaving the world divided into three or four armed camps. Many friendly nations, with whom the U.S. has a strong working alliance in the U.N., would jump for a neutral corner. Said U.N. Delegate Warren Austin: "The only possible bridge between the East & West would collapse; and yet, the problem of bridging the gap between the East & West is precisely the crucial problem of our time."

That problem, Marshall declared, was one not of form but of substance. The veto was merely the expression of a larger obstacle to world peace--Russian intransigence. If the veto were banished from U.N., it would still exist in the world--as Russian armed force.

Russian obduracy was based on the hope that democracy needed just one more shove before it collapsed. The U.S. intended to prove that it would not collapse. If the Russians were forced to realize that Communism had to live in the world with democracy, George Marshall thought, they would cooperate. Until they did, forcing changes in the forms of international cooperation was not only wasted but also dangerous effort.

In frustration and exasperation, Minnesota's Walter Judd cried: "We are sitting here doing nothing and letting the world go to hell." But most Congressmen, sobered by the testimony, were no longer eager to cast a vote for the revision plan. Marshall and Austin, though deploring the tactics, were far from decrying the spirit. They asked for a resolution supporting the U.S.'s patient efforts to shore up the structure of U.N. "from within" through the Little Assembly, and restriction of the veto in peaceful settlements.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.