United Nations: Red, Green or Yellow

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Throughout the summer and fall, the great blue-and-white General Assembly hall had been under the rule of the jackhammer. The semicircular rows of gleaming oaken desks had to be rearranged to make room for the U.N.'s population explosion: 115 members this year, v. 99 in 1960 and 51 at the founding. To pare down the time it takes for all of the delegations to vote, the desks were fitted out with buttons connected to a pair of large electronic boards beside the podium—green lights will flash on for aye, red for nay, yellow for abstention.

If the decor has changed, so has the mood. As the 19th General Assembly prepared to open this week, the euphoria flowing from last year's partial nuclear test-ban treaty was largely gone.

Red China, for the first time supported by France and a majority of Africa, is making its strongest bid ever for U.N.

membership—and although the betting is that there will still be enough red or yellow lights to stop Peking, it will be close. Of more immediate consequence is a new duel between the U.S. and Russia. The Big Two are on what appears to be a collision course over Moscow's unpaid U.N. bill of $52.6 million —and many delegates fear the U.N.

itself may be the first of the crash victims.

Change of Mind. The money is Russia's assessed share of the cost of maintaining U.N. peace-keeping forces in Suez and the Congo. Russia supported the original U.N. action in both cases, but later changed its mind—to give Nasser a free hand in the Suez area, and to aid Red stooges in the Congo after Leftist Patrice Lumumba was assassinated. Moscow now claims the assessments are illegal, and despite the unanimous verdict of the International Court of Justice that they are binding, the Kremlin has refused to pay its share since early 1962. Washington threatens to open this week's session by demanding the invocation of Article 19 of the U.N. Charter—which declares that any nation two years behind in its payments "shall have no vote" in the General Assembly.

If the U.N. refuses to go along, Washington has threatened drastic reductions in its own contributions—currently 37% of the entire U.N. operating budget. Russia's counterthreat: any punitive action would force Moscow to "face the necessity of reviewing its attitude toward the United Nations."

Voluntary Fund. Terrified of the prospect of a Russian walkout, the bulk of the U.N. membership has spent most of the year searching for a formula that might avert the crisis. A 21-nation working committee, followed by a four-nation "good offices committee," proposed a voluntary all-purpose peacekeeping fund so that Russia would not have to contribute directly to operations it considered illegal. The U.S. has offered a variety of minor concessions to Russian pride. So far, Russia's position has not changed. But Secretary-General U Thant was working hard to avoid a showdown, proposed delaying the issue. Most delegates still managed to persuade themselves that the clash would somehow be avoided. "There has to be a settlement," said Liberia's pro-U.S. Ambassador Nathan Barnes. "I just can't believe either the U.S. or Russia wants to destroy the U.N."