Child Prodigy

Diagnosticians, who for the past two months have kept their fingers close to the pulse of the United Nations, can be well pleased with the state of their patient's health. Still an infant--unable to stand without the aid of its powerful parents--more inclined to emitting peculiar noises than to action--the United Nations has weathered its first rash of childhood diseases. If its environment remains favorable it will grow to a healthy maturity.

The optimism which marked the end of the General Assembly's second session was founded not so much on the basis of work done as on the atmosphere of amicability and reasonableness which characterized its closing weeks. Hopes that the frictions that had plagued the Foreign Ministers' Conferences would be absent at Flushing were dashed as soon as the Assembly passed the back-slapping preliminaries and settled down to business. The same old demands and accusations were dragged from delegates' dispatch cases and presented "de novo." The same unwillingness to compromise was evident. Stalemate seemed likely.

Then Russia yielded on two hotly disputed points, and developments came thick and fast. Since October 29, the Assembly had been bogged down in a fruitless discussion of disarmament and atomic control. Russia had championed the publication of armament statistics but had opposed an inspection system or the abrogation of the veto in matters concerning disarmament. Exactly why the Soviet delegation about-faced is not clear, and all sorts of motives from the most base to the most noble have been advanced; but on November 29 Mr. Molotov agreed to an international arms inspection, and five days later came out in favor of dropping the Big Power veto over the inspection machinery.

With the air thus cleared there followed an interesting little game in which representatives of the three major powers leaped frequently and with eye-defying rapidity from one side of the fence to the other as the exigencies of national interests required. Final action came on a resolution from the Political and Security Committee. The resolution recommended establishment of measures for disarmament and a vetoless inspection, control of atomic energy, acceleration of the establishment of an international police force, and a balanced, progressive reduction of armed forces. The resolution was only a declaration of policy, and responsibility for its implementation rests with the Security Council. Its success will depend on the sagacity and reasonableness of the Big Three; but many procedural difficulties and ancient road blocks were removed by the General Assembly's action. Well intentioned, sincere efforts for peace will encounter fewer snags as a result of the forth-right, open discussions that have just ended.

Hypochondriac purists will still have a large supply of pessimistic dismay and insomnia to keep them happy, for the first United Nations meeting on American soil dealt inadequately or not at all with many international sore spots. Franco Spain received only a routine rebuke; the veto is still too powerful a weapon in U.N. procedure; and trusteeship questions are still undecided. But the credits outweigh the debits, and the recent General Assembly Session may have charted a road on which nations can travel together in peace.