T H E T A B L E T , J u l y 15th, 1950

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 196, No. 5747

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, JULY 15th, 1950

SIXPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE AMERICAN ROLE Leadership in Europe and in Asia

THE RETURN OF AN EXILE POST-WAR SWITZERLAND The Comte de Paris Lands in France By Arnold Lunn

BERLIN AND KOREA A Visit to Soviet Berlin. By Christopher Hollis, M .P . A LETTER FROM WALES THEODOR HAECKER

By H . W . J . Edwards

By Bela Menczer

A POLICEMAN’S LOT

T HE blue banner emblazoned with the white seal o f the United Nations which is now flying over General MacArthur’s headquarters was devised in 1947 for the use of the United Nations representatives on the northern frontier o f Greece and flown later by Count Folke Bernadotte when he went as the United Nations Mediator to Palestine. On both these occasions the flag saw a great deal o f fighting. This time, however, it flies for the first time over the combat troops o f an international army.

The Security Council’s decision containing the provision about flying the flag of the United Nations has an important political meaning. I t does not affect the military position in Korea, where the United States forces will have to go on carrying the main burden, but it signifies that General MacArthur is commanding a force which represents the world organization in an effort approved by an overwhelming majority o f the members o f that body. Thus has been upheld the principle contained in the preamble of the United Nations Charter, “ that armed force shall not be used save in the common interest.” In other words, it has been emphasized that the war in Korea is a United Nations war, no t ju st a United States war, or, as Mr. Austin, the American delegate in the Security Council put it, th a t “ the issue is not between two power blocks but between an aggressor and the United Nations.” The Americans are there only as “ policemen” ; and it does a t present seem that their lot is not a happy one.

I t was most important that the position should be thus clearly defined. For one thing, the American public would have been very reluctant to enter into a “unilateral” military campaign, but it gladly accepts the role o f representative o f the will o f the free nations o f the world. For another thing, should the Korean conflict spread, fifty nations who supported the Security Council’s decision would now be aligned against those who might join forces with the Communist aggressors. Pravda, complaining that “under the flag o f the United Nations an attempt is being made to form a coalition o f imperialist plunderers for the bloody suppression o f the Korean people,” clearly shows that the Russians do not underestimate the moral effects which the forming o f the formidable coalition, on the basis o f the United Nations, might have throughout the world.

It has now been established that the United Nations can act if and when its members choose to make it do so. But there remains the question what effects the Korean intervention will have upon the future o f that organization. The fact is that its military action has been made possible only because the Russians decided to boycott it and, as an American correspondent put it, have been finally hoist on their own petard. Had they been present in the Security

Council, they could have used their veto to block the action suggested by the American delegate and sponsored by the majority o f the members.

Thus the prestige o f the United Nations has been tremendously strengthened, and its non-Communist members have been able to demonstrate that the obduracy o f the Russians was indeed the only cause of the impotence into which it was gradually slipping. Now, having tasted the flavour o f free decisions and actions, they will hardly be willing to let the organization relapse into its former incapacity—and that is what would happen, should the Russians come back and paralyze the United Nations by their repeated negative vote. On the other hand, if the Russians walk out of the organization or even if they pursue their policy o f abstention, the United Nations will definitely acquire the character o f an anti-Communist grouping, and in that case some o f the members who profess an integral neutrality—India, for instance, or Indonesia, or even Sweden—might feel uneasy and might resign their membership. General MacArthur’s Responsibility

That is why it is so essential that the Korean conflict should keep the character o f a United Nations action—a police action, as President Truman called it—and that this should be well explained to the general public of all the countries concerned. Pandit Nehru met strong opposition in his own country for having approved the Korean action. When he was reminded by his critics that he had promised not to take sides in the struggle between the Western democracies and the Russians and their satellites, he was able to silence them by pointing out that he was not taking sides in what is termed the East-West struggle, but simply supporting the United Nations. Yet he will encounter again and again—and so will other leaders in the other Asiatic States—the dangerous Communist propaganda, which tries to depict the Korean incident as just another example o f American “imperialism” seeking to interfere among the Asiatic nations.

As Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations, General MacArthur also faces a most delicate political mission. His eminent military abilities have already been amply tested, during the war against the Japanese, but now he has to prove that he is not only a great military leader but also a great statesman ; and this vigorous American commander, whose energy seems to defy his age, has always shown a marked preference for doing things in his own way. This time, however, he will have to satisfy not only the American authorities, but also the Governments and peoples o f some fifty nations. He will have to make it plain that he acts in the spirit o f the United Nations, whose flag he received from Mr. Austin with Mr. Trygve Lie’s message : “ I hope that it will