UNITED NATIONS: Just Beginning

Last week the United Nations General Assembly, after much anxious hesitation, "settled" the 30-year-old Palestine dispute. They voted, 33 to 13, to partition Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish.

"This is the day that the Lord hath made!" cried a rabbi in the U.N. delegates' lounge after the vote. "Let us be glad and rejoice therein!" One happy Zionist, Marcus Wulkin, rapturously bussed Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, chief U.S. representative on the Jewish Agency for Palestine (see cut). But Arab representatives stalked out of the Assembly chamber, saying they would fight the plan. U.S. Delegate Herschel Johnson, who had steered the partition plan to parliamentary victory, was wary of premature rejoicing. "This thing is just beginning," he said wearily.

Uncertain Days. In the tense final days of the debate, the crowd in the galleries and the speakers on the rostrum alike grew more emotional. Pakistan's Sir Mahmoud Zafrullah Khan, ending an argument against partition, threw back his bearded head and cried: "All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Universe." In his last harangue Iraq's excitable Fadhil Jamali accused Zionists of financing a recent Communist conspiracy in Bagdad. The crowd booed, stamped and jeered.

Until the very moment of public decision at Flushing Meadow, no one knew whether U.N. would approve partition. A two-thirds vote among nations voting in the full Assembly was needed to win final approval. In the middle of the week, defeat of the partition plan seemed probable. Nations like Haiti, the Philippines, Liberia, Greece, which normally follow the U.S. lead, said that they would vote no. Both the U.S. and Russia (together for the first time on a major issue) supported partition. But the very fact of U.S. Russian agreement seemed to free many smaller nations from the necessity of taking a stand.

"Certain Misgivings." The U.S. had carefully refrained from bringing open pressure on other delegations to vote for partition. But as an Arab victory became likely, U.S. officials in Washington, in Manhattan, at Flushing Meadow, began stating the case for partition more firmly.

One day Haitian Delegate Antonio Vieux spoke heatedly against partition; two days later he announced shamefacedly that his government had ordered him to switch to yes. Filipino Delegate General Carlos Romulo, on Wednesday, orated against partition and sailed away on the Queen Mary. Saturday a new Filipino delegate flew in from Washington, voted yes. Liberia, which voted no in committee, said yes in the final roll call. In the final days Arab and Jewish hopes alternately soared and plummeted.

By Friday, a victory for partition looked probable. But when the Assembly president, Brazil's Dr. Oswaldo Aranha, was about to call for a vote, the Arabs won another delay. France's Alexandre Parodi rose. France, afraid of unrest among her 13,000,000 Moslem nationals in North Africa, hesitated to support partition. "We have come to the moment of decision," said Parodi, "and I feel certain misgivings. . . ." Was there really no possible ground for compromise, he wondered? Parodi got a 24-hour recess.