Victory at a Price

For the first time in the 7 1/2 years of U.N., the U.S. found itself in a minority on a major issue: Should India be invited to join the Korean peace conference? In the old days, such a matter might have been settled over Martinis in private, with the British, or the Americans, or the French giving a point here, taking one there, so that they might present a united front to Messrs. Vishinsky and Malik. But last week each side pressed its dispute not only to the floor but to a vote, and in the debate the Russians got a full chance to see for themselves how basically the Western partners are apart.

The issue of India--more broadly the issue of seating neutrals in a peace conference among belligerents--caused some alarm among observers accustomed to agreement among the Western Powers. It dramatized what the Christian Science Monitor, on the one hand, called an "almost universal, really appalling decline of confidence in U.S. leadership," and parallel U.S. loss of confidence in her allies on the other. For most Europeans and Asians, the issue was their "realism" v. U.S. "rigidity." For most Americans, it was "firmness" v. "appeasement" of their allies.

The Two Positions. High above the Pacific, on his way back from talks with Syngman Rhee, Secretary Dulles framed a U.N. resolution calling for a peace conference between "two sides"--the 16 nations that sent troops to Korea and the Communists. For the U.S., such a plan had manifest advantage.

With the Chinese Communist army undefeated, chances for an agreement on the unification of Korea, free elections, withdrawal of foreign troops or any other Korean issue, looked pretty slim. But the Communists would be more likely to yield ground in two-party talks (as they had, after two years' wrangling, at Panmunjom) than they would at a round-table affair, with all kinds of chances to create diversions and confusions. Furthermore, the U.S. feared that it might be thrown on the defensive in such a round-table conference, with Britain, perhaps, pressing for more trade with Communist China, or the French trying to unload their commitments in Indo-China, or the Indians calling for U.N. recognition of Communist China and the neutralization--if not surrender--of Formosa. Besides, Syngman Rhee had warned Dulles that South Korea would not sit in the conference if India were there.

The British wanted a round-table conference as a prelude to what they sometimes call "a settlement of the cold war." The British wanted India there. They cherish the notion that Red China can be separated from the Kremlin, and they think that India can help them turn the trick. Furthermore, Syngman Rhee is anathema to the British. The Times of London sneered last week that the U.S. was beginning to "look more and more like a satellite of South Korea," an odd attitude in those who, in the next breath, accuse the U.S. of stubbornly disregarding the opinion of others.

The allies tried to reach agreement behind the scenes, but failed. Then they went to the 60-nation U.N. Political Committee. "We do not wish to perpetuate the concept of two sides," said British Minister of State Selwyn Lloyd. "We do not want a kind of political Panmunjom." U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge replied that a round-table conference would "resemble a garment housewives used to wear ... a 'Mother Hubbard,' covering everything and touching nothing."

Bitter Words. Last week the debate was not so polite. Delegates thumped the horseshoe tables before them, waved their fists at their neighbors, while visitors poured in from the 95DEG New York summer to hear and watch the air-conditioned argument.

Thin-faced Y. T. Pyun, South Korean Foreign Minister, spoke first. He denounced "betraying and scheming" India for "trafficking with Communists and intriguing with them to make the free world look contemptible." India's long-haired Krishna Menon, an ascetic who believes in Gandhian nonviolence, did not reply, but his knuckles showed white as he gripped his cane.

Then white-thatched Andrei Vishinsky, happy to be useful when splits might be widened, argued for 71 minutes that 15 nations, including Korea's "neighbors," Czechoslovakia and Poland, should "settle the Korean question." Lodge, a cool customer in debate, remarked casually that Poland was hardly a neighbor to Korea. Nettled, Vishinsky said he knew "as much about geography as Mr. Lodge." Another exchange:

Vishinsky: "You cannot dictate the terms of this conference. You didn't win a victory. Are you flying through the clouds on wings of ideas that you represent the master race?"

Lodge: "Mr. Representative of the Soviet Union . . . has missed another one of several great opportunities in his life to keep quiet."

Meanwhile, on each side, the lobbyists were getting out the vote (the British, on Winston Churchill's phoned instructions, did not try to apply the whip or twist any arms).

21-27-11-1. When the vote came in the Political Committee, the results were: for the U.S., 21; against the U.S., 27; abstaining, 11; not participating, 1 (India). This was a simple majority for the invitation to India, but it was not the two-thirds majority required to get it through the General Assembly. Of the 16 nations with troops in Korea, however, only two--Greece and Colombia--stayed with the U.S. in the vote. Such old U.S. friends as Norway, Mexico, Canada, Sweden, Australia and Liberia voted against the U.S. The Philippines and Israel abstained; so did France (some said in return for U.S. support on Morocco) and Turkey, whose troops played a great part in the fighting. Seventeen Latin American countries, Greece, Pakistan and Nationalist China voted in the U.S. column.

The U.S. had won its fight. The committee then took the Russian plan to a vote, and mowed it under, 41-5.

Myopia & Light. In the resultant editorial hand-wringing the world over, the sensitive Indians were probably the most bitter. THE WORLD'S CHAMPION BLUNDERER, headlined the middle-of-the-road People of Lucknow, meaning the U.S. "An affront to peace," said the big Times of India. "History will not pardon her [the U.S.]" said Calcutta's conservative Amrita Bazar Patrika, "if humanity is pushed into another holocaust by her myopic politicians." But there were notable exceptions to the cries of grief and indignation. In staunchly anti-Communist Greece and Turkey, pro-government papers backed the U.S. position. In London, Beaverbrook's Daily Express raised a lone voice blaming the government for letting India "drive a wedge between Britain and the U.S."

At the U.N., however, in the characteristic fashion of diplomats, everybody tried to look the other way, as if nothing had happened. India withdrew, thereby averting a second damaging vote, this time in the General Assembly. The Assembly passed the U.S. "two-sides" plan 43-5, with ten abstaining. Russia was permitted, 55-1, to join the conference "if the other side desires." Menon told the Assembly that he and Lodge were "great friends." Lodge said that Menon was "the great representative of the great leader of a great nation." The U.S. promised to back India's Mme. Pandit as the next President of the Assembly, for the session starting Sept. 15, in which Red China's counterproposals would presumably come up for discussion and the argument would be resumed.

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