RUSSIAN FANTASY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26596, 20 October 1947, Page 5

RUSSIAN FANTASY

“ BLOOD-CURDLING PICTURE ”

“LITTLE ASSEMBLY” PLAN

APPEAL FOR REASONED DISCUSSION Rec. 6.30 p.m. NEW YORK. Oct. 17. Sir Hartley Shawcross (Britain) appealed to the Assembly’s Political Committee to-day to try to picture international politics as something other than a perpetual struggle whereby one side tried to get the better of the other. He urged the committee to adopt the British modification of the United States “ Little Assembly ” plan, saying it represented a middle way between the rather large powers the United States proposed and the Soviet'* almost total opposition to it. “ Why is it our Soviet friends—for we want .them to be our friends —are so frightened of discussion, for discussion, after all, is; what we contemplate here? Is it too late to try to nut aside vituperation, recrimination, and inflammatory, provocative speeches, one leading to another, with suspicions and talk of war? Is it too late to substitute reasoned discussion for that of terror and abuse? ” he asked.

Sir Hartley declared there was no problem facing the world which col id not be resolved provided it was discussed frankly and forthrightly, with goodwill and without humbug. The committee which it was proposed the Assembly should establish was experimental for one year. Could not the' delegates approach it in that spirii and make it heb? towards the solution of the world’s differences? He added sarcastically: “Mr Vyshinsky has conjured up a blood-curdling picture of warmongers, Fascists, beasts, goblins, and ghosts engaged on some dark plot—some deep machination to subjugate and set aside the United Nations Charter in order to prevent the Soviet delegation from exercising the veto in the altruistic way it always does for the protection of small Powers, who, I am afraid, are most ungrateful. Mr Vyshinsky’s exciting excursions into the realm of fantasy were not, of course, intended for the committee, but for an audier.ee as far removed from the committee as were the excursions themselves from the realities of the world situation.” Sir Hartley Shawcross said he feared, however, the Soviet’s real reason for objection to the Little Assembly proposal was that it thought it was unreasonable that world opinion should have an opportunity of expressing itself more than was absolutely necessary. “We are so ready to try and meet the views of those who disagree with us if we can do so without sacrificing the principles which we believe vital and true. Will our Soviet colleagues never try to meet us part of the way? ” he said. Mr Gromyko, rejecting Sir Hartley’s plea, said that as far as this issue was concerned, the Soviet did not have the word “ compromise ” in its vocabulary. The “ Little Assembly ” plan had been produced because the United States had been prevented from dictating the Security Council’s actions through its “obedient majority.” The plan was supported by the warmongers who were anxiously awaiting the ruin of the United Nations.