Difficult Vote

Wisconsin's noisy Joe McCarthy tried to inject himself into the issue of whether Ambassador Philip Jessup should be confirmed as a delegate to the U.N. General Assembly. A Senate subcommittee split 2 to 2, and the man who cast the decisive vote was New Jersey's Republican Senator H. Alexander Smith.

There are few more conscientious men in the Senate than 71-year-old Alex Smith, and few more knowledgeable on U.S. foreign affairs. A student of Woodrow Wilson's at Princeton, he worked in Herbert Hoover's postwar relief organization in Belgium, Finland and the Balkans after World War I, and has long been a director of the Foreign Policy Association. As a lecturer in international relations and trustee of Princeton's Yenching Foundation, he has watched U.S. Far Eastern policy long and closely.

Smith knew Philip Jessup's part in that policy and disapproved of it. But would a vote to reject Jessup be construed as an acceptance of McCarthy's charges that Jessup was the next thing to a Commu nist? For days, Smith wrestled with this problem. Last week Smith exposed his troubled thinking to public view. He wrote: "I have known Philip Jessup for many years and I have absolute confidence in his integrity, ability and loyalty to his country. I am convinced that he has not and never had any connection with the Communist Party."

But, said Smith, "the real issue raised by Dr. Jessup's nomination in the light of past and present events is the approval or disapproval of our overall Far Eastern policy. Dr. Jessup has been identified with those forces in and outside the Administration which were responsible for the Far Eastern policy which has led to the present crisis. He was editor of the China white paper . . . He participated in the unfortunate events which led to the summary dismissal of General MacArthur. He is the symbol of a group attitude toward Asia which seems to have been proven completely unsound. This is not a case of mere difference of opinion. This is an issue that may well involve the future of Asia and the world." On this ground, Smith concluded, he would vote to reject Jessup's nomination. It was, he admitted, "the most difficult vote" in his seven years as a Senator.

In the closing rush, the Senate hastily approved all other delegates for the U.N., but passed over Jessup's nomination. No sooner had Congress adjourned, than Harry Truman announced that he was giving Jessup a recess appointment.

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