OCR Text |
Show demieircal Assembly Qeks Umdleir Wy U. N. Delegates Convene At Town Hall of the World By BAUKIIAGE Su$ Andy tt and Commutator. WASHINGTON. At the opening of the current session of the United Nations general assembly I made the usual rounds greeting friends from far corners of the earth whom these meetings bring together. Two converged upon me and one of them began to discourse on the fact that we three were becoming be-coming conference veterans. He started to tay M. . . . let's tee how many la It, there wai the first Quebec, then the seconJTJuetiec. ..." But the other man Interrupted him and remarked gently: "Oh, no, it goes further back than that This is my forty-fourth. Remember there was a League of Nations too?" The younger man stopped. Of course, his gray haired colleague was right. "And you still believe," the younger man asked earnestly, "that some day they'll work?" "Certainly," was the reply. And it was made with such simple sincerity sincer-ity that we "youngsters" felt a litUe reproved. The next day 1 walked to a railway rail-way station across the beautiful Flushing Mead- il ows in the twi- ; J light, the scent of ' 'I v K' new-mown grass c'J- 1 all about us, with ; -v, ) one of those prod- V igles. an "Instant " , translator." She lVj was one of the fe- I j ? male of the spe- v 1 cies who art j 1 ;;. ''w quite as efficient ' as the males. But ' it was not her feminine charm v which attracted me If such were to be discovered. I tried to ask her a little about her work, my first question being: "Isn't it interesting?" "Interesting? Oh, for a while," she answered, "but one would like to get around a little more. I have been here sine spring. I'd like to get back to the Orient and other - places.", 1 mentioned that we had had simultaneous ' translation ai Nuernberg. "Oh, I was there." she said, "and always cold. One could never get warm, any- where." 1 agreed. "And," the added, "I went there direct from India." . . ( 1 tried to get some observation from her on the idea behind these conferences and their effort to bring about ,. world understanding and world peace. "Do you think that they are worthwhile?" I asked. (We're always asking that, hopefully hope-fully if a little wistfully.) . ., "Oh, yes." she replied quickly, "they are much better than none at all, much. But I feel that the men here do not really wish, to make sacrifices to bavt peace. The men in their own governments do not wish them to make 'enough concessions conces-sions to rob the officials in the different dif-ferent governments of their own power. And so the beautiful words they use arc only rationalisation. They express Idealistic thoughts, but when it comes to acting to implement imple-ment them, they do not wish to go that far. They already have satisfied satis-fied that feeling they know they should have, to do the right thing. Then they do not have to do it. Just aa all of us rationalize our own misconduct." mis-conduct." , ....... That gave me a pause. It alto gave me some hope for this setaloa for I believe that the powera of the atsembly will be strengthened to that they caa enforce what the people want. The One -words and Idealistic ' plana will have more force If ' the permanent committee of the atsembly on peace and tecurlty, which Secretary of Slate Mar ahall proposed, la created, it . will be in -settlor) all the time. ' Its voire, unmufflrd by the ever uae of the atultifylng veto, will be ' heard continuously; not ' merely when the atsembly Itself 1 ' It In teuton. Word Contain . Great Significance ! Words still are making trouble, as they always have. It isn't what we say so much as what people think we mean. For instance, there was a long discussion of the word "Impinge," "Im-pinge," on the second day of the assembly as-sembly meeting. This was Just the English meaning, discussed among English-speaking reporters. Secre-tary Secre-tary Marshall had said this new permanent per-manent committee of the assembly would not "impinge" on the security council. The great argument about the committee has been that it was Intended to by-pass the tecurlty council Itself, snd thus duck the veto. If the Engtlsh-apetklng reporters report-ers weren't quite sure how far you go, or don't go, when you "Impinge," It's no wonder there wts confusion when It was translate d Into hair a dote a other language!. It was the translation of one word which nearly caused a revolution In Korea and made the work of the American commission there infinitely infi-nitely more difficult It also has affected af-fected the whole course of action by the assembly on Korea. It wst the word "trusteeship; i t . There is no word which properly translates "democracy" in Russian. When using the term the Russians merely give the English word its Russian form. But what a gulf between be-tween their meaning and ours. Liberty Lib-erty of the individual is not implied st all in the Russian concept Indeed, many people have said there Is no real desire for liberty on the part of the modern mod-ern Russian generation. And yet they constantly describe their country and their satellites as "democracies." There wts a good deal of electioneering elec-tioneering before snd during the close battle over the election for the presidency of the assembly. At first the American delegation had intend-ed intend-ed to vote for Oswaldo Aranha of Brazil. He is an old and staunch friend of the United States. But be felt that Brazil had had enough honors at the recent conference in Rio, that he had served one term before and that it would be best not to run. He said he didn't want the job. So our delegates pledged for Evatt of Australia, who was exceedingly exceed-ingly anxious to be elected. But the Latin-Americans would have none of it They demanded Aranha run. The contest narrowed to him and Evatt This put Russia on the spot. Latin-America Latin-America wants to liberalize the veto, Evatt would tear it to pieces. And the veto is the Russian pet. But the United States was for Evatt so Russia voted for Aranha and he won. The Russian delegation went ' Into a huddle on the floor. The Ruttian atooges had to be told Just how to vote. And who should be the man who ran around, taking orders or shall we say suggesuont rrom the Russian delegation to the various groups, Albania, Poland and the others ' under the Russian thumb? j It was Sarge M. KoudtJavtsev, a member of the staff of advisors to the Russian delegation. That name didn't mean much to me but I was reminded by Paul Ward of the Baltimore Bal-timore Sun, who always has a sharp eye out for such matters, that this active gentleman was the man named as , the "architect" of the Russian spy system, in the report on the plot to obtain official secrets from the Canadian government ' Two women are exceedingly popular popu-lar at the assembly meetings and their popularity seems to grow. One Is Mrt. Pandit Nehru, wife of the Indian leader, and one Is Mrs. Eleanor Elea-nor Roosevelt. They are both active i v MRS. PANDIT NEHRU and Intelligent Mrs. Pandit (last names come first in India, as in many other countries) has been named ambassador to Russia by her new government I couldn't help thinking, consider-Ing consider-Ing the recent emancipation of women wom-en in India that Mrs. Pandit was more like Mrs. Roosevelt than Mrs. Roosevelt herself, when you consider con-sider the unconvenUonality of both Judged by the standards of their respective older generations. |