THE TABLET December 15th, 1956. VOL. 208. No. 6082.

TH E TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

DECEMBER 15th, 1956

NINEPENCE

What Can be Made of the United Nations ?! The American Opportunity West German Opposition : The Short-sighted Opportunism of the SPD

The Art of Autobiography : Motives Behind Memoirs. By Sir Arnold Lunn

Gothic Origins: The Invention of Abbot Suger? By Lance Wright

In Obedientia Confessionis : Meditations in Advent: III. By the Bishop of Aberdeen

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

HOW BEST TO HELP HUNGARY?

'T 'H E NATO meeting in Paris occurs at a time when, as

Mr. Dulles opened the proceedings by saying, there must be no weakening of NATO in Europe as the Soviet difficulties increase. We discuss below what possibilities there are for American policy inside the United Nations as a means of bringing the majority of the world Governments into line against the Soviet Union. This policy has to be pursued simultaneously with the more concrete policy of strengthening NATO. It is no time for Britain to begin to say the burden of the commitment to keep troops in Germany is too heavy. It was for saving the European Defence Community by accepting that commitment for Britain that Sir Anthony Eden received the Garter, a bare two years ago, in the same year in which he negotiated the evacuation from the Canal Zone with Colonel Nasser, with the fullest warnings that, whatever there was to be said for the policy of leaving, it was not going to gain Nasser’s friendship while latent war with Israel remained. The larger the Allied Force in Germany, the more promptly the Germans fulfil their part of the arrangement, the better the prospect of getting the Red Army out of Central Europe in return for a parallel drawing back of the Allies in order to create a neutralised middle territory : or alternatively, the more encouragement the subjugated peoples will have to refuse to go on being exploited by the Russians.

As the Hungarian nation continues its struggle, it must become increasingly difficult for the rest of the world to limit its help to first aid, and the time has surely now come for the United Nations to act in one specific matter at le ast: to refuse to recognise the Kadar Government as a separate Hungarian Government, and to proclaim that they are merely a branch of the Russian Government—a small group of traitors to the cause of Hungarian independence. De facto it may still be necessary to deal with them, but the position should be ended by which the United Nations admit a Russian nominee to enter the United Nations Assembly, calling himself the Foreign Minister of Hungary, while the Secretary-General is still firmly shut out of Budapest.

These one-sided arrangements should cease, and the Assembly should be clear that it will recognise de jure a Government in exile, provisionally and broadly based on the Hungarian political parties according to the strength they had before the Communists seized power. The great practical advantage of this would be to intensify the difficulty facing the Russians of finding Hungarians who will do their dirty work for them. The solidarity of the Hungarian nation, the close attention and active sympathy of the United Nations, the branding by the world outside of any Hungarian who becomes a Minister to fulfill the purposes of the Russians, could force the Russians to move directly and destroy the pretence that what is going on in Hungary is an internal domestic issue and not the seizure of one country by another, in the simple terms which members of the General Assembly will not be able to shirk or deny.

The great responsibility now rests on Mr. Dulles, flanked by his President and his new Assistant Secretary, Mr. Herter. They have to show that they can be firm towards Russia, and not only towards Britain and France. Our compliance should make it easier, but it is still not easy, because so very many of the countries which make up the seventy-nine United Nations are ex-colonial territories. Their spokesmen are men who made their public reputations in the work of achieving independence against Britain or France. It is in the line of what they know and understand when the United Nations condemns colonial Powers, while the condemnation of Soviet Russia (an ugly enemy, they may also think) is outside the present orbit of their emotions. Whether the frontiers of the Soviet Union are half-way across Europe or not does not, in truth, greatly excite them. Those frontiers have been there since they and their Governments began to pay any part in international life.

It is quite understandable that the Hungarians expected that more could have been done for them beyond relief and hospitality; that what has so far been lacking is even a small part of the resolution with which they are themselves aflame. All this is only too true, but we believe that, provided they do not weaken, the rest of the world will find itself compelled to do more to help them, even to the point of taking risks comparable to those taken when the Berlin air-lift was organised. Almost everything will turn on the firmness of the men in charge of American policy, and on Mr. Hammarskjoeld. But while precedents are being created