UNITED NATIONS: Who Must Obey?

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"Hungary has become one big cemetery. The acts perpetrated by the army of the Soviet Union in Hungary beggar description . . . Men, women and children are led forcibly outside Hungarian territory. Executions have felled hundreds every day. And all this is being done despite indignant humanity which turns to the U.N. ... as the only means of putting this slaughter, this butchery, to an end."

With this emotion-packed preface Cuban Delegate Emilio Nunez-Portuondo last week introduced into the U.N. General Assembly a resolution which, besides reiterating the U.N.'s previous demand for withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary, called upon the Russians "to cease the deportation of Hungarian citizens and to return promptly to their homes those who have been deported."

"A Fetid Odor." Watered down as it was—in its original form it had bluntly accused the U.S.S.R. of genocide—the Cuban resolution infuriated the Soviets and their Hungarian stooges. Hungary's Deputy Foreign Minister Endre Sik, by his own admission a former Soviet citizen, flatly denied that any deportations were taking place and contended that "this declaration by our government makes it clear that there is nothing for the General Assembly to discuss." Shaggy-haired Soviet Foreign Minister Dmitry Shepilov snarled that the Cuban resolution "has about it the fetid odor of provocation" and blamed the trouble in Hungary on "reactionary fascist elements" spurred on by "the American intelligence."

Though the Cuban resolution passed by a vote of 55 to 10, 14 nations abstained. Among them: India. Indonesia and every Middle Eastern country save Iran and Iraq. Despite this lingering trace of doublethink, however, there were encouraging signs that bit by bit the Asian and African nations were coming to recognize that Russian imperialism was just as immoral as any other kind. Three weeks ago India's U.N. Delegate Krishna Menon had outraged many, including his own countrymen (see below), by voting against a resolution which called upon Hungary to admit U.N. observers. Last week, under pressure from New Delhi, hot-eyed Krishna Menon did an about-face and, together with the Ceylonese and Indonesian delegates, sponsored a resolution urging Hungary to comply with the very demand India had originally refused to support.

Everyone or No One. Where the harsher Cuban resolution had won the support of only four Asian "neutrals"—Burma, Cambodia. Ceylon and Laos—every Asian member of the U.N. and more than half of its twelve Arab members lined up against the U.S.S.R. to pass the Menon resolution by a vote of 57 to 8. Rarely in its battle to win the good opinion of humanity had Russia suffered a more significant defeat.

Even so, there was little faith that the Russians would comply with the U.N.'s demands, and the utility of a U.N. which could win nothing but moral victories over the U.S.S.R. was increasingly in doubt. Bitterly French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau told the General Assembly: "The U.N. must decide to impose its decisions on everyone or resign itself to impose them on no one."