Outer Mongolia and U. N.
“Every American will share the feeling displayed toward Outer Mongolia’s application by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the American spokesman at the U.N.,” commented editorially the Philadelphia Inquirer on November 21. “That Central Asian country owes its chief distinction to the fact that the livestock outnumber its less than 1,000,000 inhabitants. It was brought under Communist influence a few years ago. Russia installed a puppet government. It is no more independent—probably less so—than the State of Rhode Island. Moreover, Russia’s blackmailing tactics have raised another objection. There is not much argument about 17 of the applicants. But Soviet spokesmen have bluntly warned that if Outer Mongolia is barred, Russia will veto the others in the Security Council.”
Stating that “Failure of Lodge to reach agreement with other Big Four representatives at the U.N. over the weekend is wholly understandable,” the paper maintained: “But it is a question whether the broader gains that would come from increasing U.N. membership would not outweigh the disadvantages of admitting another Communist stooge. The point to remember is strengthening the U.N. itself. It will be more truly a world forum if it includes all nations except those, like Red China, which have disqualified themselves. It will have greater influence on nations now on the outside if they are brought in. It will have greater prospects for growth as the place where disputes among nations can be brought into the open. Until the question of broadened membership is solved, the U.N. will be under the handicap of speaking for only a part of the world. We hope present efforts continue until a satisfactory agreement is reached to open U.N.’s doors to deserving nations.”
Pointing out that “Russia again made it plain yesterday that if that curious political freak known in Moscow as the Mongolian People’s Republic and more accurately as Outer Mongolia were not included in this year’s United Nations membership ‘package deal’ she would refuse to consider any other membership proposal,” the New York Times editorialized on November 18: “It is not hard to see why the Russians want Outer Mongolia to become, so far as the U.N. is concerned, a sort of Inner Mongolia. They wish to produce its delegates when they need a Far Eastern mouthpiece. Their interest is both shown and intensified by the fact that they and their Red Chinese friends are building a railroad across this ‘People’s Republic’—in which the ‘people’ turn out 99.92 per cent of the registered voters to vote 99.67 per cent in favor of the Communist single ticket.
“The American distaste for this sort of thing is understandable. But does this distaste offset the advantages of getting into the U.N. such nations .as Italy, Ireland, Austria, Finland and Japan, which assuredly belong there? We don’t believe so. The U.N. will go on, with or without Outer Mongolia. We should not ask whether or not Russia is gaining a point by being obstinate. We should ask whether the eighteen-member bargain is worthwhile. The United States cannot now consistently vote for Outer Mongolia… It can, however, step aside and let others do so; and we believe this is the best solution of the current U.N. problem.”
“If by some fluke the People’s Republic of Mongolia, otherwise known as Outer Mongolia, is admitted to membership in the United Nations today,” observed the Cleveland Plain Dealer in its editorial of November 22, “its delegates will represent more goats, horses, camels and cattle than people. The chances of this Soviet appendage achieving membership are slim indeed. But as its chances diminish so do the possibilities for membership of a whole list of bona fide nations which will also be excluded.”
Stating that “The traditional procedure is to vote on each nation separately,” the paper went on to say: ”By tossing in Outer Mongolia the whole deal is complicated. The United States will abstain from voting on the European satellites, although it has no objection to their admission. It will fight, however, to keep out the Mongols. But if they are not admitted Russia will veto all the Western candidates.
“The result will be no admissions. Even if the United States did not object, the Nationalist Chinese would not recognize Mongolia as anything but part of the China they hope some day to regain. Nothing will be lost by leaving out the Mongolians with their 32 goats; horses, camels and cattle per capita. Nothing would be gained’ by their inclusion. But much will be lost by penalizing recognized countries through this pet’ scheme’ of the Russians.”
“Whether or not Outer Mongolia may be one of 18 countries” in a “package deal’ which would admit them to United Nations membership will probably determine,” editorialized the Christian Science Monitor on November 26, “whether any of the 18 can become members. The Soviet Union insists on the Mongolian membership. The United States has opposed it, but may relent.
“American opposition is not surprising, if the status of Outer Mongolia to be the only consideration. This country of only 900,000 persons has a government stemming from a Russian Communist military coup in 1921. The American view is that it is just another state in the, Soviet Union .... To bring it into the UN would mean almost certainly another General Assembly vote at Russia’s constant disposal. It would make possible an arrangement in which four more pro-Communist votes would be added through new memberships for Soviet satellites in Europe. But in return the Western bloc would get 13 new likely votes from non-Communist countries for whom the ‘package deal’ would open U.N. doors.”
“The U.N. ideal is universality,” recalled the Houston Chronicle in its editorial of November 28. “Under ideal conditions every nation could be a member of the world forum. But this is a bad way to approach universality. The (package) deal is wrong in itself, much as the 13 free nations should be admitted. And it is wrong in that it weakens the case of the free world against the admission of Red China, which, along with Switzerland, which prefers not to join, would be about the last nation on earth outside the U.N. fold when this cynical and immoral deal is accomplished.”
“The U.S. has agreed to the membership of the Eastern European satellites,” editorialized the New York Herald Tribune on November 25. The point at which it sticks is Outer Mongolia. Here is a country whose claim to nationhood and independence is of a shadowy kind and whose submission to Russia is at present complete. It does clearly go against the grain to put Outer Mongolia in the package. But is Outer Mongolia’s exclusion worth the price of also excluding Italy, Austria, Japan and the rest? In these latter countries a hard and fast stand by the U.S. can cost us much in good will, the more so because members so obviously lacking in qualifications as the Ukraine and Byelorussia (to say nothing of such a satellite as Czechoslovakia) are part of the international organization. The concessions involved in the package proposal are considerable fall around. The U.S. has retreated from its previous position; so has Russia. It would be highly unfortunate if so much progress toward compromise should come to nothing.”
“Until the voting actually begins and the results known,” declared the Oakland Tribune on November 15, “it cannot be stated with certainty that the Russians are determined to keep Italy, Japan, Austria, Spain and nine other non-Communist countries out of the U.N. But everything right now points to their invocation of the veto against whether or not the applications are considered in package deal or one by one.
“The U.S. has made a very generous concession to the Russians in this respect, a concession that will be considered by many Americans as probably too generous. We have promised to abstain in voting either way in the cases of Albania, Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary if the Russians in turn will promise to waive their veto rights against the others. The American offer seems to have been rejected by the Russians for the reason that the U.S. will not agree to inclusion of Outer Mongolia in the package although our abstention in the voting would be extended to that red satellite as a single case. The U.S. refuses to recognize Outer Mongolia as a state, which it is not. It is a Russian-dominated splinter of the old Chinese empire, and as a matter of fact is not recognized by Russia itself. Outer Mongolia has no department of foreign affairs and has no official representatives in Moscow.”
Stating that “the scope of American concession has been expanded to permit this stateless state to become a member of the U.N.,” the paper maintained: “This stated intention on the part of the U.S. to look the other way in the case of Outer Mongolia, on the other hand does not mean too much. A majority of seven votes on the Security Council is required. And it must be remembered that Nationalist China has it veto which it is most likely to exercise. It is so doubtful that the Mongolian proposal can get beyond either of those hurdles that the U.S. position has little meaning in fact although sounding like a major retreat on an important issue.
“What is more important than whether or not Outer Mongolia is given a seat is whether this country should be willing to waive opposition to the four Communist satellite states of Europe in order to win 13 Pro-Western votes in the Assembly. In as much as nearly every important development in alliances among either Communist or non-Communist states has been processed outside of the U.N. in recent years, it probably does not make much difference either way.”
Nehru’s Visitors
“In an effort to woo India as an ‘ally’ of the Soviet bloc Premier Bulganin,” editorialized the New York Times on November 22, “in a speech in the Indian Parliament, has again denounced ‘military groupings’ and declared that Soviet Russia is ready to solve all problems by peaceful negotiations. Unfortunately the Soviets’ idea of ‘peaceful negotiations’ has just been demonstrated in Geneva, where they refused to negotiate except for the purpose of further Communist expansion; in Moscow, where they used long-withheld War prisoners as pawns to extort diplomatic relations with Bonn; and in the United Nations, where they veto everything that does not suit their purposes. And the sincerity of their denunciation of ‘military groupings’ is demonstrated by the fact that they were the first to form, post-war alliances to consolidate a Communist bloc under their own domination.
“In such circumstances it is odd that Prime Minister Nehru, as the leader of a free nation; continues to cling to a ‘neutrality’ which undertakes to put both East and West on an equal basis. His refusal to align India with any ‘camp or military alliance’ is understandable as a policy for a newly independent and still inexperienced nation. And in view of the Soviet bid for India’s alignment with the Communist bloc, which the ebullient. Mr. Khrushchev blurted out to the point of calling India an ‘ally,’ it may even be regarded as a rejection of this bid. But in his equal moral evaluation of both the Communist bloc and the free world Mr. Nehru displays disregard of realities for which India herself may some day have to pay the price which other nations have already been forced to pay, to their regret.”
Quoting Nehru’s remarks that “it is not by military pacts and alliances and by piling up armaments that world peace and security can be attained,” and that “the only camp we would like to be in is the camp of peace and goodwill, which should include as many countries as possible and be opposed to none,” the New York Herald Tribune editorialized on the same day: “Mr. Nehru was clearly placing his guests on notice that India would not join the Soviet bloc, but he was using ideas and even phrases that are the stock-in-trade of current Russian diplomacy. ‘Camp of peace,’ for example, is a very common term in Soviet propaganda, and the Indian Premier’s reference to alliances sound almost like an echo of Bulganin at Geneva: ‘We are profoundly convinced that genuine security of European states can and must be assured only when an end is put to the policy of military groupings.”
Pointing out that “After a long period in which Stalin based his policy almost wholly on the tight ring of Communist-dominated states which the “Red Army had enslaved, using Communist-dominated movements in other countries as his chief offensive weapon, the new Soviet leaders have come to a realization that neutralists arc well worth cultivating,” the paper opined: This attitude, so far out of line with the Stalinist approach, has been adopted very deliberately. It holds the Soviet bloc intact, and concentrates on those states,—India, Burma, Indonesia, Egypt among them—which for one reason or another have rejected military ties with the West. The immediate purpose is twofold: to deprive the West of possible allies and to serve as a weapon in the Russian effort to break up such actual alliances as NATO and SEATO.
“The West cannot supinely allow this process to continue Neutralism is a present fact; what is necessary is to insure that the neutral of today does not become the enemy of tomorrow; That Russia openly recognizes the neutralist states as fertile fields for its diplomacy is challenge to the free world to meet this threat with statesmanship. There is still a war of ideas under way, a battle against hunger in many parts of the earth, a need for help in developing resources. The United States, facing this challenge, can well afford to re-examine the scope of its foreign economic policy.”
“Nehru and his lieutenants listened politely to the declarations of Soviet Premier Nicolai Bulganin and Soviet Communist Party Chief Nikita Khrushchev about the ‘camp of peace,’” commented editorially the Des Moines Register on November 22, “-meaning the tight alliance of Communist dictatorships, armed to the teeth and with a long record of aggression. Nehru is quite conscious of Communist aggression. He still has hundreds of Indian Communists in prison for their part in armed insurrections in India. Yet Nehru is convinced that Communist ‘peace’ talk is not all just hog-wash, but that the Communist lands do need a period of peace for their own purposes.
“So does Nehru’s India. So does the human race. Nehru believes, in encouraging Communist peace talk, and trying to hold the Communists to it and build on it. He feels that the aggressiveness and tyranny of Communist lands is much more likely to mellow in a period of peace than if they have to fight for their lives in war Or blockade or arms race …. India and the Communist Big 2 are quite consciously trying to captivate each other with ‘peace’ talk, and the ‘peace’ Nehru of India talks about is the genuine article. He is playing a dangerous game for very high stakes, playing it bravely and skillfully, for India’s future and the future of the whole world.”
“Prime Minister Nehru said ‘India is in no camp,’ editorialized the Oakland Tribune on the same day. “Prime Minister Bulganin said: ‘We have always been against the cold war and do not wish it to return.’ Both those men are going to have to display amazing qualities of political dexterity if they follow a course of action that fits their words. They won’t, of course. And although the West has at times displayed inordinate quantities of gullibility in taking the word of both Mr. Nehru and Mr. Bulganin, very recent experiences should dispense of that character in our national makeup.
“For Mr. Nehru to attempt to brush aside his close alliance with Russia and Red China in his Asiatic alignments with the statement ‘India is in no camp’ is a futile gesture: He is on record as being in full agreement with Red Chinese leaders in the ‘Five Principles’ to which he subscribed jointly with Chou En-lai. He is also on record as having with Bulganin at Moscow in a similar declaration of relations between India and Russia. He is on the record nowhere as having paid tribute to the United States for its contributions in the war against communism.”
In their editorials on November 18 and 19, while the London Times viewed the Russians’ Indian visit as “the latest move in the long development of Communist enterprise in the area,” the News Chronicle declared: Pandit Nehru faces some of the most critical days of his career. This is technically a commercial visit, but all kinds of things than trade can follow the flag. Narshal Bulganin’s arrival in India has been preceded by a welter of offers, and superficially at least the trip is assured of success.”
“Mr. Nehru must be asking himself one question .in particular,” commented editorially the Daily Telegraph on November 21: “Can Russia afford to contribute significantly to the industrialization of both India and (Communist) China? Here are two great countries with very similar problems who are trying to solve them in different ways. For while (Communist) China aims at full Communism, India goes no further than State capitalism of the Western Socialite type. Can Russia, even at this stage, afford to back either to anything like the extent necessary to gain a real industrial strangle-hold? Or is Marshal Bulganin, like Bismarck, just re-ensuring?”
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Philosophy of Courtship
Follow a shadow, it still flies you;
Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
So court a mistress, she denied you;
Let her alone, she will court you. —Ben Jonson, 1573-1637