The Return

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New Yorkers acted as if, overnight, the U.N. had been transformed into a giveaway quiz show. They trooped to Lake Success, jammed the Security Council chamber, the corridors and other conference rooms (where television sets relayed the proceedings a few feet away). Some 23,000 requests for tickets had to be turned down. Among those who came to see the Russians' return to U.N. was Margaret Truman, who squeezed into the press gallery with a party of six. "History," she said, "may be made here today."

Who Is Cruel? For most of the six months and 18 days while the Russians boycotted it, the Council had been an effective body. Members had bickered and procrastinated, but—freed of the Russian veto—they had again & again achieved basic agreement. When the North Koreans attacked, the Council took the most important action of its life (TIME, July 10), became the world's voice in denouncing the Communist aggressors.

The Russians decided that staying out of U.N. was doing them more harm than good. Last week, Russian Delegate Jacob Malik, a Russian career diplomat with a clean-cut, almost American-looking face, was back. It was Russia's turn to preside over the Council for a month, and Malik, through his first week in the chair, made the most of the chance.

The Russian had hardly seized the gavel when he pounced back to the issue over which he had walked out. The Nationalist Chinese delegate, Malik "ruled," had no right to sit in the Council, since he did not represent the Chinese people. When the U.S. and friends challenged this arbitrary ruling, Malik tried another tack. He submitted a provisional agenda which blandly ignored the rule of taking up unfinished business left over from the preceding session (a U.S. resolution condemning North Korean aggression). Malik proposed two items of his own: the seating of Communist China in the U.N., and "peaceful settlement" in Korea. His terms for "peaceful settlement" were immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of U.N. troops—i.e., the surrender of all Korea to its Communist aggressors.

Cried Malik: "American ruling circles . . . endeavor to base their whole policy towards other peoples on a dictatorship of domination and compulsion, which they camouflage with hypocritical references to democracy . . . By democracy they mean the natural and unlimited power of domination by a small, cruel and power-loving handful of millionaires . . ."

The U.S.'s veteran Warren Austin made a ripsnorting rebuttal. Shaking his forefinger and waving his arms, he disdained any deal or proposal by the aggressors, denounced the Russian for "slander . . . obvious and shameless travesties."