Anniversary Week

Two years ago, amid expressions of high hope that reverberated through the clerical hush of London's Church House, the U.N. Security Council met for the first time. Last week, as it met for the 229th time, the anniversary passed unheralded. Said Russian Assistant, Secretary-General Arkady Sobolev: "This is hardly an auspicious time for a birthday celebration."

The Security Council could look back on a sizable list of frustrations and failures. It could also note one current achievement: from Java, U.N.'s Good Offices Committee reported to the Council last week that the Dutch and Indonesians had at last agreed to truce terms. But the success was dwarfed by threatening new business.

Cries In the Council. The Council (in U.N.'s apt official phrase) was "seized with" the India-Pakistan conflict. India's Minister without Portfolio, N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, accused Pakistan of arming Afghans and tribesmen of the North-West Frontier Province for their raids on the state of Kashmir (which recently joined India). His Oxford accent crackling crisply, Ayyangar appealed to the Security Council to use its "undoubted influence and power."

"The most disquieting news from India today," cried he, "is the fast which Mahatma Gandhi has entered. I wish we could notify him as soon as possible of a settlement between the two Dominions." Much affected, the Council decided to meet as often as possible until a solution was reached. Then they went to lunch. Next day, Pakistan's crescent-bearded Foreign Minister, Sir Mohammed Zafrullah Khan, replied to the Indian. For 3 1/4 hours (breaking Andrei Vishinsky's U.N. record of two hours), he spoke without script, working only from notes passed up on an assembly-line basis by his advisers. On the third day, Sir Mohammed spoke 2 1/2 hours more. His gist: India was lying, was itself guilty of racial war against Pakistan or--in U.N.'s own word for it --of "genocide." Cried he: "[Moslems] are expected to say: 'My brother may have been killed, my father may have been killed, my wife may have been raped and my children butchered, but I ... must not retaliate.' That kind of thing might be expected of angels."

The Security Council devised a resolution imploring both India and Pakistan "to take immediately all measures within their power . . . calculated to improve the situation." As a first step, Ayyangar and Sir Mohammed were asked to sit down together and talk things over. When the two posed for the photographers (see cut) an Indian bystander said: "They are really very good friends, you know." By week's end, tension in the two countries had abated and Gandhi ended his fast (see FOREIGN NEWS).

Jitters in the Penthouse. Meanwhile, at a respectful distance from the Security Council Chamber, in a sunny top-floor room nicknamed "the penthouse," U.N.'s Palestine Commission was meeting behind closed and guarded doors. The commission's problem was to find a new police force to take the place of the British--and before Partition Day. Military experts estimated that two divisions at the very least would be needed to maintain order in Palestine. The commission did not have power to send a platoon to Hoboken: the decision rested with the Security Council.

Meanwhile, the commission itself was preparing to leave for Palestine. The mission might well involve personal danger, so U.N. would pay for life-insurance policies for each commissioner. How much was a U.N. commissioner's life worth? In a preliminary way, U.N. was thinking of $50,000 a head. Not all commission members agreed. Vicente J. Francisco, Philippine member, thought the insurance should be nearer $1,000,000.

"Let the Voice of Women . . ." In conference room No. 2, the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, which is composed entirely of women, also met last week to consider its principal subject. Opinions were expressed with clarity, though sometimes with rather unparliamentary edginess. Once, when she was asked to read aloud a statement from a report, Judge Dorothy Kenyon of the U.S. snapped out: "It's on page 24, and you can read it yourself!"

Resolved the women somewhat bitterly: "It is our common lot to live our short span of years together on this planet. Let us use our time wisely. . . . Let the voice of the women ring out. . . ." They also challenged the world bill of rights recently drafted in Geneva by another U.N. group (the Commission on Human Rights) for proclaiming that "All men are born equal. . . ." The women condemned both polygamy and licensed brothels ("they produce a false sense of security"). At the end of a lengthy speech, Mrs. Jessie Grey Street of Australia made the most unprecedented peroration in U.N. history: "And now, Madam Chairman," she said, "I am going to the toilet."

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