BATTLE OF LAKE SUCCESS: Junior S.O.B.

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Questions & Answers. "Point of order!" called China's scholarly Dr. Tsiang. Malik had ignored the majority will, had refused to ask the South Korean delegate to the Council table (unless the North Koreans were invited, too). He knew that if he ruled against the delegation's admission, the Council majority would vote him down; so Malik simply refused to hand down a ruling. Tsiang burst out: "After a point of order is raised, the president must render a ruling . . ."

Malik, the president of the Security Council, yielded the floor to Malik, the Soviet delegate. Once more he blamed the Korean war on U.S. "aggressors" and their South Korean "vassals." When that speech was over, Tsiang asked, with Confucian irony: "Now that the president of the Security Council has had the benefit of the wisdom of the representative of the Soviet Union, he should be in a position to give that ruling." The chamber echoed with laughter. Malik still stalled.

Then Warren Austin tried his hand. The week before, Austin had been flamboyant in gesture and voice. This time, on the advice of his aides, he held himself to a quieter, lower and more effective pitch (which also came across better on television). The chamber was tense and hushed as Austin spoke. All the faces around the Council table (except those of the Russians and the long, smart-aleck face of Yugoslavia's Ales Bebler) looked pleased; by the end Secretary General Trygve Lie wore a wide grin. Said Austin:

"Whose troops are attacking deep in the country of somebody else? Whose country is being overrun by an invading army? The Republic of Korea.

"Who is assisting the Republic of Korea to defend itself? The United Nations, with the support of 53 out of 59 members.

"Who has the influence and the power to call off the invading Northern Korean army? The Soviet Union.

"Who then is supporting the United Nations Charter and working for peace? The 53 members of the United Nations who are assisting the Republic of Korea.

"Is the Soviet Union one of the 53 ? No.

"What member of this Security Council is assisting the invaders in the Security Council? The Soviet Union . . ."

For a full minute, the audience in the visitors' gallery applauded (although applause is forbidden and almost never heard in U.N.'s sedate halls). Malik vainly pounded his gavel, furiously threatened to expel the public from the chamber.

Way of Hope? At the next session, Warren Austin again leaned forward across the table, to deliver the longest speech of the day—more than an hour with its French interpretation. Said he: "To call [the North Korean aggressors] the representatives of the Korean people must be only a tragic witticism when addressed to those who know how quickly nationalism, patriotism and independence in other countries have been crushed to produce subservient puppet governments—zombie governments that breathe and speak and act, but have no soul.* The United Nations tried to peer through the mists that enshroud this regime. Nothing could be seen. The only voice that was heard was an echo of a greater voice that had come rolling and rumbling across steppe and tundra and mountain from a faraway place . . ."