A Shade of Difference (107 page)

“Mr. President, the distinguished delegate of Panama has spoken of racial conditions in my country and of his noble motives in asking this Assembly to intervene in them. I shall not comment on his remarks, except to say that it is possible to oppose his point of view, and oppose such action by the Assembly, without being an opponent of the United Nations.

“That charge, which is flung against anyone who dares to say that the UN is not perfect in every respect, is both childish and self-defeating.”

There was a murmur of protest, and into it he spoke more sharply for a moment.

“You and I are the United Nations, and
we know
we aren’t perfect. All of us here realize that there are shortcomings and weaknesses in the organization, and I think we all agree that only if they are eliminated can the UN be the instrument of hope that it was originally intended to be.”

“Just so you don’t spell out too carefully what they are,” the
New York
Times
observed to the
Denver Post
.
“Then
we can all agree.”

“It is this,” Hal Fry said, “that I should like to discuss for a moment. It is, essentially, the same issue that was presented in the early hours of this morning in our debate on the resolution concerning Gorotoland. It is the UN itself that is on trial here, not the United States.”

At this there was a laugh, deliberately raucous and rude, from somewhere on the floor. He turned upon it, though the sudden movement increased the dizziness and also brought a sharp surge of nausea that took a second or two to abate. When it did, he spoke without niceties.

“Some delegate laughs. Some cowardly, nameless delegate laughs.”

There was a gasp of surprise, but he went on strongly while below Claude looked at Lafe with a quizzically questioning air.

“Who is he laughing at, Mr. President? The United States? I think he is laughing at the UN. I think he is laughing at the hopes of the world. I think he is laughing at himself, for his laugh is symbolic of just that mood of intolerance and impatience and injustice that has come to hang over our deliberations here in recent years like an ominous cloud.

“The death of the UN lies in that cloud if it continues, Mr. President. And delegates who sneer and laugh and voice intolerance and hatred and disrespect for one another’s good faith and one another’s problems only make it worse.”

There was an uneasy stirring of sound at both his tone and his words, and in the midst of it the eyes of the delegate of Belgium caught the eyes of the delegate of Portugal. With a sardonic gravity, they winked.

“Mr. President, too often, of late, we have permitted the dead hand of history to rest upon the deliberations here. Nations, some of them new here and some of them understandably hurt by the past, have attempted to turn the UN into a vengeful instrument against those they blame for that past. But that world is dead.”

Someone shouted “No!” but he ignored it.

“What do you do, Mr. President,” he asked with an earnestness springing from a genuine anguish of spirit compounded by the steadily increasing pain of his body, “after you have punished the past? Do you keep on punishing it, forever after, long after it is only a distant memory?

“What happens to the UN when everyone is free and all the decisions of history have been turned upside down and made over again?

“What then?
What then, if in the process you have set aside law and justice and orderly progress and decent dealing between men?

“What happens to you, having turned the UN into an instrument of vengeance, when you attempt to turn it back into an instrument of peace?

“It cannot be done, Mr. President. It will have been twisted and torn too far.
Nothing can ever again establish the rule of law in the affairs of men if law is permanently flouted here.

“It is this we should be concerned about, Mr. President, not the punishments of the past. Particularly not when, over most of the earth’s surface, including my own country, those responsible for the past are working sincerely and diligently to correct its errors.”

Again there was laughter, knowing, sardonic, superior, unyielding. An expression of anger crossed his face, but he concluded gravely and without rancor.

“Mr. President, the Congress of the United States has passed the resolution for which this debate was temporarily suspended. My government has acted in good faith to keep its word to the nations. We ask now that the nations keep their word to us.

“I respectfully ask that you defeat the resolution of the Ambassador of Panama.”

To a mixture of applause and boos, about equally divided, he bowed to the President and came slowly back up the aisle, his face looking very tired and sad for a moment, so much so that many delegates nearby commented to one another. But in a minute or two he straightened his shoulders again, took a deep breath, and came on up the aisle to his seat.

“Good work,” Lafe said encouragingly as he sat down, but he shook his head.

“It wasn’t all I wanted to say,” he confessed in a disappointed voice, “but no matter.”

“There’ll be another chance later. This won’t end for a while, yet.”

“It won’t,” Hal said wryly, “But I may.” Then at Lafe’s alarmed look he smiled and put his hand on his arm. “No, I’m all right.”

“Really?”

“It’s not bad,” Hal said, telling the lie he must. “And if it is, I have the pills. I haven’t taken any, though,” he added with pride, “and I’m not going to, if I can help it.”

“Good,” Lafe said, turning to look toward the rostrum as a wave of applause indicated a new speaker, obviously eagerly awaited. “Here comes Guinea, and now I expect we’re in for it.”

This they were, as the stark young delegate of Guinea stood before the Assembly like an ebony carving from his native land and waited for the susurrus to die down. When he began to speak, it was in no conciliatory or reasonable voice. Here was an avenger of the past, with a vengeance.

“Mr. President!” he snapped in French as many earphones went on and many dials were spun for translation. “The distinguished delegate of the United States talks piously about the United Nations and concludes by saying that his country has kept its word with us, therefore we should keep our word with it.

“When did we give any word to his country, Mr. President? I do not remember that it was any bargain. I remember the colored American who authored the resolution in Congress, who is no brother of ours”—there was a shout of approval and in the U.S. delegation Cullee Hamilton scowled and stirred angrily—“begged us to stop debating and promised us that the Congress would pass the resolution. But we made no promises in return, Mr. President. We made no promises, because we assumed,” he said with a scathing sarcasm, “that if the United States were as honorable as the United States always says it is, we would not have to make promises in order to persuade the United States to do the right thing.

“That is why we made no promises, Mr. President!”

A roar of laughter and applause greeted this. The delegate of Guinea hardly paused to let it die down, so absorbed was he in his attack and so swiftly did his hurrying words come tumbling out.

“Mr. President, the delegate of the United States talks about the dead hand of the past. It is all very fine talk for one whose country last felt the hand of colonialism in 1776. Some of us felt it only yesterday. Our memories may be more vivid than his, Mr. President, about colonialism!”

Again there was a burst of applause as he rushed on.

“Furthermore, it is all very well for him to attempt to cloud the issue and conceal it by talking noble things about the United Nations. He does not have to lecture us on the United Nations, Mr. President. We are grown up enough to know about the United Nations. What we are talking about here are the shameful racial conditions in the United States. Why does he not give us a little lecture on that, Mr. President? Why does he not talk to us about the shame of his own country, Mr. President? That is what we want to hear about from him!”

Applause, wilder now, greeted this.

“Mr. President, no truer words were ever said than those uttered by the distinguished delegate of Panama, author of this resolution.

“You know—I know—anyone of color knows—what the true situation is in this pious nation that lectures the world on international morality. Whole areas of this country are closed to those of us who are not white. We cannot eat in certain places. We cannot travel in certain conveyances. We cannot live in certain sections of cities. We cannot do this, we cannot do that. No more can Americans of color—though our distinguished friend from Congress, who by some mistake of nature looks black even as he talks white—no doubt will try to pretend to us that these things do not apply to his own race. He knows they do, Mr. President! We all know they do! What a flaunting and a shame to mankind, Mr. President! What a flaunting and a shame!”

Applause and shouts, deeper and uglier now, welled up from the floor.

“Look at this, Mr. President!” he cried, suddenly producing from somewhere in the folds of his brilliant robes a copy of the early-afternoon edition of the
New York
World-Telegram.

“What do we read here? I will tell you. There died in Washington on Thursday, after a speech trying to defeat the resolution of our white-black, black-white friend from the Congress, one of the most powerful racists in the United States. Senator Cooley! No friend to you, my friends. No friend to me.

“And so what happened this morning? The Senate of the United States held a special memorial service in its chambers to honor this great racist. And who attended? The President of the United States! The Secretary of State of the United States! Most of the leading members of the government of the United States! To do honor to this old racist, Mr. President! That is how sincere the United States is about the racial question, Mr. President! That is the good faith of the United States!”

He raised the paper and shook it angrily above his head, several pages slipping out and fluttering about him to the floor. “That is what the United States really thinks, Mr. President. Honor to a racist!”

“Oh, Lord,” Lafe said in a tone of angry disgust, making no attempt to keep his voice down in the excited babble that followed. “Will they
ever
understand?” In the British delegation Lord Maudulayne leaned forward and answered him down the row. “No. They never will.”

“Mr. President,” Guinea said, “there is no argument capable of justifying these things. There is nothing anyone can say that will thwart the aroused conscience of mankind on this issue. It is not the United Nations which is on trial here. It is the United States. No pious lectures from anybody, white or black, or black-white or white-black, can change that fact, Mr. President.

“Let us vote for this resolution! Let us show the racists of the United States what the judgment of mankind is upon them! Let us register humanity’s disapproval as it should have been registered long ago!

“My country is not afraid to do it.

“Is yours?”

And as a great roar of “NO!” welled up, he turned, bowed to the President, bowed to the Assembly, and came down.

“Well!” the London
Daily Telegraph
remarked in the press gallery. “That rather puts it up to you chaps, doesn’t it?”

“I guess it does,” the
Associated Press
agreed crisply. “And here comes Cullee Hamilton to do it.”

“But not looking like the Wreck of the Hesperus,” the
Telegraph
protested with a groan. “Oh, my God, now! How corny can you be?”

“About as corny as Terry a week ago. I don’t remember any great protest then.”

“But these buggers won’t see the connection. It’s psychologically all wrong, I tell you. Wait and see.”

It was not until Cullee reached the rostrum and turned, however, that the full impact of his appearance struck the Assembly, and then it was several moments, as he bowed to the President and came to the lectern, before the angry and scornful murmurings began. Once started, they mounted rapidly as he stood there looking with an angry scorn of his own upon the restless crowd. There broke out in the Soviet delegation a pounding of desks and a harsh booing that was instantly taken up across the floor. Cullee turned without expression and gazed impassively at the President, who nodded and pounded angrily with his gavel. At first it seemed to do no good. Then the hostile noises gradually subsided enough so that he could be heard against them.

“If the Assembly does not accord its speakers common courtesy in this debate,” he said, his round cheeks aflame with indignation, his whole plump little body seeming to quiver with anger, “then the Chair will suspend this meeting!”

“The Chair has no right to suspend a meeting!” someone shouted from the floor, and the President crashed down his gavel upon the words as though he would drive it through his desk.

“The Chair, the Secretary-General, and the Deputy Secretary-General will leave this podium. What will you do to run the meeting then, you who have so little regard for the dignity of the United Nations!”

“Mr. President!” Vasily Tashikov cried, jumping up and rushing down the aisle. “Point of order, Mr. President! Point of order! The Chair has no right to abandon the meeting! The rules do not permit it, Mr. President! The rules do not permit the Chair—”

“Then the delegate of the Soviet Union
will take his seat!”
the President cried, spitting out the words. “And this Assembly will
proceed in order!”

And presently, grumbling and pouting and resentful, like an unruly group of children, those delegations that were responsible for the demonstration gradually quieted, while those other delegations that had not participated waited with a silent but ill-concealed impatience for the debate to proceed.

“Mr. President,” Cullee said into the queasy calm that ensued, “I wish to thank the distinguished delegate of Guinea for his polite, pleasant, dignified, honorable, kind, decent, tolerant, fair, helpful, and constructive address. He has called my country vicious names. He has called me vicious names. If he thinks he can scare either, he has another think coming.