THE TABLET August 9th, 195S. VOL. 212. No. «168
i ' ” 'AB! ..r A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW
Published as d Newspaper
Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria
FOUNDED IN 1840
AUGUST 9th, 1958
NINEPENCE
The Incubus of Socialism: The Great Drag on the Labour Party
Intervention at Czestochowa: Church and sta te in Poland
Conversation in Beirut: Business as Usual. By J. E. Alexander
The United Nations: Retrospect and Prospect. By Sir Alec Randall
Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess
NEW YORK AFTER ALL
A LTHOUGH it is a disappointment for General de
Gaulle, M. Khrushchev’s changed line, calling for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly instead of a few Heads of Government, has been promptly accepted by the Americans.
After his visit to Mao Tse Tung, representing the Communist China which is excluded from the Security Council in favour of Formosa, M. Khrushchev was strengthened in his objection to bringing in the Security Council.
Both America and Britain have strong reasons for wanting to associate the United Nations with any Summit talks. They want above all to keep the discussion wide, and not just to meet in the face of the world to hear M. Khrushchev demanding th a t the American and British troops withdraw. They want to place the presence of those troops in its full context, and to demonstrate to the world that they are not craftily seeking to establish or re-establish their military authority, but are only concerned to prevent violence and bloodshed, something which should appeal strongly to every Government round the world.
Over the Lebanon, it does not look as though there would be very much for the United Nations Assembly to discuss. General Chehab was accepted by the Opposition to replace President Chamoun because he not only embodies the Army’s neutrality as between the pro- and anti-Chamoun factions, but made it plain that he would ask the Americans to withdraw ; and the Americans reiterate that they are only too willing to withdraw when asked to do so by a properly constituted and stable Government. Presumably General Chehab will withdraw the motion already tabled by President Chamoun, asking the United Nations to take note of the indirect aggression by arms and men as well as by propaganda of the United Arab Republic.
Most of the eighty countries whose Governments are represented in the Assembly are instinctively opposed to indirect aggression. Often the Governments are new and weak, with no great hold over the masses whom they have aroused in order to achieve sovereign statehood.
Most of them are anxious to stand well in the eyes of the world, but they also want to be approved of when they make themselves masters in their own house, and they have a continual hankering towards authoritarian practices, press censorships and a very limited tolerance towards political opposition. All the countries which have ever been colonies—and they make up a majority in the Assembly, if Central and South America is in cluded, as by the prevailing mentality it should be—will be against the landings. But the Governments, if not the peoples, will be against indirect aggression.
Among the countries a new State, like so many other members of the Assembly, is th e State of Israel, and much will depend on the attitude of the Afro-Asian bloc of thirty States, as it is realised th a t the British troops in Jordan cannot be judged apart from the future of Israel. We went into Jordan very largely to show solidarity with the Americans, and to reassure Turkey, Persia, and Pakistan ; and it was the joint intervention th a t was impressive. If the Americans leave the Lebanon, we might reasonably ask them to send a token force into Jordan, where the withdrawal is going to be a much more difficult matter. The Arab refugees from Palestine, who make up over half the King of Jordan’s subjects, feel no sort of interest in the independence of Jordan, or in the continuance of the King on the throne. They are in Jordan because it adjoins the lands to which they have been waiting ten years to return. They judge that their prospects of return would be greatly increased if Jordan were in the United Arab Republic encircling Israel. It was to placate them, and other Jordanians as well, that the King dismissed Sir John Glubb, and gave up the British subsidy ; and, since he called in the British after all. no-one now puts his chances very high without them.
It will be Jordan, and not the Lebanon, th a t will preoccupy the Assembly. But the concept of indirect aggression has very much less relevance or force in connection with Jordan, whose future must be discussed not in the singularly unsuitable language used by Mr. Selwyn Lloyd when he returned from New York, talking about its " integrity and security,” but in terms of keeping the
