International: Farewell to Success

In the empty corridors, the bilingual signboards, knocked askew by wreckers and furniture movers, crazily pointed the way to nowhere. In the big lounge where delegates from 60 nations had tirelessly argued—or tiredly tried to forget their arguments—scuffed and dusty furniture stood waiting for the auctioneer. After nearly five years, United Nations headquarters was moving away from its reconverted war plant at Lake Success and into its new steel and glass building in mid-Manhattan.

U.N.'s departure did not ruffle the little Long Island village whose hopeful name the U.N. had made famous in the far corners of the world. No ceremony marked the occasion. In the committee rooms, where Molotov, Gromyko, Malik had ranted and been answered by the champions of the free world, a rearguard of U.N. staffers stuffed their briefcases with forgotten oddments. War workers from the Sperry Gyroscope Co. (which is taking over the whole of its buildings for expanded war production) were crowding the huge cafeteria where Foreign Ministers, stenographers and visiting movie stars had stood in patient lines for lunch. Two U.N. staffers sat for a moment listening to the sound of the workers' talk; all in English, it rang strangely out of place in the room that had once echoed to the babel of a score of tongues.

From a narrow corridor where engineers were dismantling sound equipment, a sudden flash of broadcast oratory from the General Assembly session at Flushing Meadows rent the air: ". . . Violations of sovereignty . . . third world war . . ." "Listen to him," said one of the technicians with a grin. "That's old Katz-Suchy, the Polish delegate."

With a flick of the wrist he cut the connection, stilled the threatening harangue.