MIDDLE EAST: Toughest Job

A cool, thin-lipped man stepped off a plane at Lydda Airport last week and brusquely fended off newsmen. Major General Vagn Bennike of Denmark had come to take over the job of U.N. Truce Supervisor, and in the festering ruce between Israel and Jordan (toll since January 1952: some 280 incidents), silent impartiality is the umpire's prime asset.

It also helps that he is unknown. Ben-nike. 65, was an underground commander who once hopped out the third-floor window of an apartment as the Germans came through the door; he also has a master's knowledge of explosives and military engineering. But he has never been to the Middle East before. "All I know of this land," he said, "comes from my study of ancient fortifications."

Last week Bennike pored through a mountain of documented failure in the hillside office of his predecessor, Lieut. General William Riley, U.S.M.C. (ret.). In four years on the job (he succeeded Ralph Bunche), Riley had earned the liking of the Israeli and the distrust of the Arabs; he conceived his job to be "maintaining the status quo" and had done no more than that. He presided over an unworkable truce—unworkable because it ignored natural boundaries, split farmers from their lands, divided the holy city of Jerusalem, exiled thousands of refugees, deprived thousands of Arabs of their properties with no deadline for compensation. It had proved unworkable most of all because of the accumulated passions and suspicions on both sides. It would be Bennike's task to try to lessen those. Said Old Marine Riley on the way out: "It's the toughest job in the world."