The U.N.’s 17th Assembly

Wednesday, the 24th October, was “United Nations Day” when every year one nation provides an artistic entertainment for the delegates. This year, it was the Russians’ turn; since morning the place had been swarming with coat-tailed members of the Leningrad orchestra. The Security Council interrupted a dreary session (which everybody knew would produce no solution to the current crisis) so that the nations could be united in Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. When the concert was over, the delegates left their be-furred ladies and hurried into huddles or to the radio—to hear that the crisis was almost over: Khrushchev had written a letter to Bertrand Russell, had proposed a summit meeting, and had ordered his ships to turn around. This was the time for Dean Rusk to say “The other fellow has blinked”—not two days later, as reported in the Saturday Evening Post. There were three more meetings of
the Security Council, one of which gave Mr. Stevenson the c...