The Battle of the Fables

In four years of U.N. debates, Russia's Andrei Vishinsky has led before his resigned listeners a never-ending proverb-and-parable parade of sly foxes, bad wolves, innocent lambs, triumphant virtues and defeated vices. Last week, Britain's smart, literate Hector McNeil rose to smite the master with his own weapon.

Borrowing from Ivan A. Krylov (1768-1844), the Russian Aesop, McNeil said: "It seems . . . that a poor serpent was unhappy because everyone was afraid of him, and he concluded that the fear was due to his unfortunate voice. So the serpent pleaded with Jupiter to give him the voice of a nightingale. Up in the tree he went and started to sing with all the seductive charm of the nightingale.

"By and by, all the birds of the forest came creeping around, charmed. But no one came very near him.

"So the serpent asked angrily: 'Do you dislike my voice?'

"'No,' said the starling, 'you sing aswell as a nightingale. But I must confess to you that our hearts were troubled when, as you sang, we saw your sting. We enjoyed hearing you sing, but please, please, sing a little farther away from us.''

For a while Vishinsky seemed licked. But a few hours later he rose and addressed McNeil. "It would be well," said he, "if you would confine yourself to English fables, for perhaps your repertory is more complete. You made the mistake of not studying all of Krylov. One fable is The Slanderer and the Snake. I am not going to tell you whom I am thinking of; you can interpret it as you wish.

"The snake and the slanderer, according to Krylov, engaged in a solemn argument as to which should go first, and each said the honor should be his. The problem came before Beelzebub.

" 'You are evil,' said Beelzebub to the snake, 'and most deadly is your fang; but you cannot wound from afar like the deadly tongue of the slanderer, from which there is no escape, even though mountains or oceans intervene. It is clear that he is more evil, so give place to him.'

"Since then, slanderers have been more honored than snakes--in hell."

Vishinsky had risen to the challenge, and the honors for mordant criticism in U.N.'s pleasant afternoon seemed even.

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