UNITED NATIONS: Veto No. 51

Waking up at last to an opportunity that had been knocking loudly for weeks, the U.S. responded to Soviet Russia's vitriolic germ-warfare propaganda. The U.N. Security Council took up a U.S. resolution proposing an on-the-spot International Red Cross investigation of Communist charges that the U.N. forces had waged germ warfare in Korea. U.S. Delegate Ernest Gross challenged: "If what we say about the campaign of hate is not true, the Soviet government can show us up [with] ... an impartial investigation."

Russia, of course, wanted no such thing. Soviet Delegate Jacob Malik used all the familiar stalling tactics—he demanded priority for an entirely different subject (new U.N. members) and was voted down; he insisted that representatives of Red China and North Korea be invited into the debate, and got voted down again. Then he strolled out to the delegates' lounge while the Council discussed the U.S. proposal.

When the vote came, however, Malik was quick to put his newspaper down. Ten of the eleven Council members voted for the investigation. Malik killed it with Russia's sist U.N. veto. Then the U.S. bounced right back with a second proposal: a resolution roundly condemning "the practice of fabricating and disseminating" the germs of untruth. Malik announced that he would veto that one, too.