Foreign Relations: Summit in Smalltown

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All week, summitry speculation had provided considerably more suspense than the all-too predictable Middle East debate in the General Assembly. The meeting in Glassboro only heightened the atmosphere of unreality at the U.N.'s glass house. Even as Johnson and Kosygin met, Byelorussia's Tikhon Kiselev was railing in the General Assembly against the Israeli "reign of terror" in Arab lands.

Five Principles. Kiselev's effusions were typical of the five-day prepackaged charade on Manhattan's East River. Moscow had demanded the convening of the 122-member Assembly, ostensibly to break the Middle East impasse. For its part, the Johnson Administration opposed the U.N. session from the outset, correctly anticipating that it would accomplish nothing and that the Communists intended it to be a propaganda spectacular. Once confronted with the inevitability of the session, the U.S. did use the occasion for extensive diplomatic lobbying by Secretary Rusk. He saw many of the foreign officials privately, and even conferred secretly one night with United Arab Republic Deputy Premier Mahmoud Fawzy.

As to the public proceedings, it was the Administration's view that Johnson's presence there—regardless of summitry—could only invest the session with unwarranted dignity. Yet the U.S. had to speak out. For a forum, Johnson selected a State Department briefing for educators just an hour before Kosygin was to take the podium at the U.N. The President gave a sober, statesmanlike prescription for sanity in the Middle East. His "five great principles of peace in the region" called for each nation's "fundamental right to live" and be respected by its neighbors, "justice" for Arab refugees, unfettered maritime rights, control of the arms race, and maintenance of the "political independence and territorial integrity" for all.

Soft Voice. Johnson unmistakably supported the Israeli cause, although he shrewdly avoided crowing over the Soviet-Arab defeat. Specifically, he put the American imprimatur on Israel's premises for peace: Arab recognition of Israeli statehood, an end to the state of belligerence that has existed since 1948, free use of Suez and the Strait of Tiran, direct Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. Yet he also skirted the role of Israeli advocate. "Certainly," he said, "[Israeli] troops must be withdrawn."

Speaking in a soft voice and clearly directing himself to Kosygin—who was watching the President on television and getting a running translation—Johnson said: "We think we have made great progress in improving the arena of common action with the Soviet Union. Our purpose is to narrow our differences—where they can be narrowed—and thus to help secure peace in the world for future generations." In a less charitable aside to the Communists, Johnson proposed that all Middle East nations report new weapons shipments into the region. "Now the waste and futility of the arms race," said Johnson, "must be apparent to all the peoples of the world."