Out of the Stall

Jacob Malik's dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria--the customary gesture of retiring Security Council presidents--seemed as interminable as the month he held the Council chair.

The feast began with sturgeon, smoked salmon and caviar on bliny (Russian pancakes). Vodka flowed, but no toasts were exchanged. After soup came partridge stuffed with wild rice. After the salad trailed bowls of fresh pineapple and sherbet. Then followed filet mignon, vegetables, a magnificent baked Alaska, and fruit again. Cracked the U.S.'s Ernest Gross: "I thought the meal was over three times before it was." Asked if it had been a Russian dinner, Britain's Sir Gladwyn Jebb sardonically quipped: "Not Russian--Edwardian. It was one more proof that the Soviet Union is 40 years behind the times."

Next day was Malik's last as president. All month long he had introduced one irrelevant resolution after another, to give himself fresh springboards for propaganda. Now he introduced two more, one denouncing "the unprovoked, barbaric attacks" of U.S. planes on China, and the other, "monarcho-fascist terrorism in Greece." With savage suavity, Jebb labeled these two items for what they were, Jebb called Malik's charge of U.S. aggression a document "beneath contempt, except for its only obvious use, namely, its distribution as a propaganda leaflet." Of Malik's resolution on Greece, Jebb said: "For the representative of a country which maintains millions of its own compatriots in slave labor camps ... to denounce other governments for alleged misdemeanors as regards political prisoners is just about as nauseating a spectacle as that of Satan rebuking sin."

New Chairman. The following day, in an equally caustic mood, Sir Gladwyn took over the Council presidency for September. He promptly broke through the roadblock set up by Malik. Before the session was 60 seconds old, Britain's Jebb invited South Korea's patient John M. Chang to sit with the Council during its discussion of North Korean aggression. Malik waved for attention, snapped his fingers, called "point of order" twice in English. But Jebb kept eyes on Chang until the Korean was seated at the table. Then Malik got the floor.

As usual, the Russian objected to the seating of a South Korean without equal representation for the North Koreans. His arguments were the same lie-studded ones he had delivered before. Three times he spoke lengthily, then when he sought the floor for a fourth time, Jebb snapped: "I suppose you could go on making your arguments forever." Malik said he needed only "one sentence" this time. Jebb's retort was rapier-quick: "I would be delighted to hear a speech of one sentence from the Soviet Union representative." The audience laughed and cheered. Malik flushed. Jebb let the noise linger 45 seconds before he gaveled for silence.

Final Word. When Jebb called for a vote, everyone but Malik favored a seat for Chang. Then, Jebb gave Chang the floor and the final word of the week.

In barely accented English and with incisive facts, South Korea's representative indicted Malik's masters for a plot against Korea. "It has been the aim of the Soviet Union," he charged, "to enslave and subjugate the people of Korea ... to force the formation of a Communistic dictatorial government in Korea." Chang gave details: how the Russian army in 1945 brought in Communist expatriate Koreans to be the puppet leaders of a police state; how terror stalked the north, purging especially "bishops, pastors and other men of Christian faith"; how elections were rigged in characteristic Soviet style.

Continued Chang: "The people of Korea are grateful for the courageous and self-sacrificing support of the free nations ". . ." Then he stated his government's war aim: the right to administer both South and North Korea until free elections could be held throughout the land.

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