Promise of Joy (39 page)

“But this no longer seems to be the case. Even though intelligence reports reaching mine and many other governments confirm that the leaders of both Moscow and Peking are in hiding, underground and far from those two supreme target cities, still they go on maintaining this dreadful charade of hostility toward one another and contempt for the rest of the world. We thought they had learned something. Obviously they have not. They still could resume at any moment the conflict that could destroy us all. It is truly terrifying.

“Already the sane world has moved far in the direction of stabilizing itself in the face of this crisis. Removal of the veto is a further imperative step. As the Charter now stands, this can only be done with the cooperation of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. My government begs them to weigh this matter with the most solemn consideration, to put aside their differences and their foredoomed attitudes and to join all of us in taking this absolutely fundamental and imperative step.

“I would hope, Mr. President”—and she paused and looked slowly around the circle from face to somber face—“that other members would join their voices with mine in urging this course of action upon the two contending powers.”

“We will,” Lord Maudulayne said promptly. “To Her Majesty’s government it is common sense—the last common sense, perhaps, that the globe will be vouchsafed. We too appeal to the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union to ponder, to reflect and to comply.”

“France most earnestly does the same,” Raoul Barre agreed gravely.

“Oh, and my government, also!” Krishna Khaleel echoed fervently. “We do appeal to the governments of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. India feels that she has been a staunch and steadfast friend to them for many years—a friend when others, perhaps, were not. Therefore we feel that we have a right, possibly a greater right than some others, to join now in urging our friends in Moscow and Peking to yield to the collective conscience of mankind in this matter. We do hope”—he turned with a sudden urgent movement toward the Soviet Ambassador, dour and silent, the Chinese Ambassador, grim-faced and tight-lipped—“we
do
hope—that you will permit this to be done. Please, we beg of you.
Please!”

“It is not easy for my government,” Cuba said, nervously fingering his luxuriant mustache, “to part company with our great friends of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, whom we have always admired and respected and with whom we have had the closest relationship in opposing the imperialist ambitions of the monopoly-capitalist oligarchy of the United States. However”—and for the first time in anyone’s memory, he actually broke down and talked like a human being instead of a Communist automaton—“all those things now seem very far away, I must say to our friends of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic. We are terrified of what may happen to humanity if you do not speedily desist and join us all in building a new and safer world. You are trying to kill each other,” he said, his voice breaking in a sudden harsh rush of emotion, “but you risk killing all of us! You must not, I say to you!
You must not!
Join us in repealing the veto—join us in all our efforts to save the world! We beg of you—we beg of you!”

“My government also,” Rumania said in his harshly guttural English, “has always been a friend and supporter of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. But we can go with them no longer. The games are over, the puppet show has stopped. We are concerned here today with no less than the death of the world. You must yield to the needs of humanity, my friends of Moscow and Peking, or be damned with all of us, forever. The veto must go, the peace-keeping force must be permitted to function, the relief commission must go forward with its work, you must use the sincere good offices of the President of the United States to settle your dispute, you must permit sanity to return and be maintained. There is no other way. My government, too, begs you to permit this fundamental step of repealing the veto. It begs you to participate fully in all the other proposals put forward by the President and endorsed by all the nations save your own, for the very salvation of mankind. You must, my friends,
you must.
There is no other way.
And there is no time.”

Presently, as Zworkyan and Sun continued to sit silent and glowering, the roll of the Council was concluded. Chile, Egypt, Ghana, Lesotho, Norway, Zambia and Australia had all joined their colleagues in appealing to the two contending powers. Neither ambassador responded, and so at last Australia turned to them directly and asked in a stern and challenging voice:

“Do the two powers concerned wish to address the Council, or shall we vote?”

Nikolai Zworkyan raised his hand at last and leaned forward to his microphone.

“Mr. President,” he said in Russian, his words translated swiftly, with all the proper indignant inflections, by the UN’s skilled translators, “my government has listened here today to the mouthings of children. Yes!” he repeated sharply as a gasp of dismay swept the room. “The mouthings of children! You wish us to yield to the imperialist warmongers of the United States, the military-capitalist oligarchy whose puppet is Orrin Knox! You wish us to destroy all the safeguards that protect my country and the cause of world revolution! You wish us to permit the capitalist-military puppet Knox to join the vicious betrayers of the revolution who pretend to have a ‘people’s republic’ in Peking! ‘People’s republic’! It is a fraud, Mr. President, a fraud and a mockery! They are murderers of the revolution, Mr. President, they wish to join the capitalist-military puppet Knox to destroy the Soviet Union! We will never permit it!
Never, never, never!”

And he sat back, glowering angrily about as a despairing murmur swept the room and around the circle his colleagues stared at him with absolute dismay. All except one, who leaned forward to grasp his microphone with both hands and spit into it a venom equally harsh and equally far away from all the mortal concerns that now confronted humankind.

“Mr. President!” Sun Kwon-yu snapped in a fluent and hurrying English. “Mr. President, my government has listened patiently to all the empty frightened words of petty powers who wish to destroy this United Nations and the people’s revolution. We reject them. We reject the attempt to destroy the United Nations and bend it to the will of the arch-conspirators, the arch-devils who are trying to destroy the People’s Republic and the people’s revolution, namely the U.S.S.R. and the United States! We reject the running dogs of capitalism who sit in Washington, the whoremasters of anti-revolution who cower in Moscow. We reject their conspiracy, we will destroy their evil. We will never yield to them, Mr. President!
Never, never, never!”

“Mr. President,” Ceil said into the hush that followed, “may I ask the two delegates, are they able to be in touch with their governments?”

“I do not need to be in touch!” Zworkyan said angrily. “I know what they want!”

“The people’s revolution does not need consultations!” Sun spat out. “Its representatives know from birth what is right!”

“Then we are hearing simply the old clichés,” Ceil said quietly, “the mechanical mouthings of machines that are broken at the center. Mr. President, I think we should vote on the resolution of my government.”

“I agree,” Australia said, his voice shaking with emotion but firm. “The vote will begin with Norway.… On this vote,” he reported formally five minutes later, “the Yeas are 13. Two of the permanent members having voted No, the resolution is defeated.”

“Mr. President,” Ceil said into the hubbub that instantly filled the room and was as instantly silenced when she spoke, “I wish to inform the Council that the President of the United States will speak to the peoples of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China one half hour from now. I suggest the Council stand in temporary recess to hear his address.”

“Mr. President!” Zworkyan and Sun cried together.

“Without objection,” Australia said loudly, banging down the gavel, “it is so ordered.”

“He isn’t wasting any time, is he?”
The
New York Times
remarked as he and his colleagues watched the milling crowd empty quickly out toward the General Assembly, where several huge television screens were being hastily set up.
The
London
Observer
nodded. “There isn’t any time left to waste,” he said. “But, Orrin, my friend,” he added as they too left the press section and headed for the Assembly, “you’d better be good.”

And good he was, for he had known for some hours that he was going to have to do exactly what he did.

Far off in some other world almost forgotten, it had been considered, by all those critics who now fawned desperately upon him, abominably bad taste for the democracies to attempt to do to the Communists what the Communists were always attempting to do to them. Even when the Communists succeeded, as they had on a good many occasions, any suggestion that the democracies do likewise had always been greeted with frantic denunciations from the most influential journals and opinion-makers of the West. So it had been very rarely that democracy had used against Communism the principal weapons Communism always used against democracy: internal subversion and the deliberate overthrow of opposing governments.

Now, however, he knew that it must be done, and because of the circumstances he had no doubt that he would succeed. Nor did he have any doubt that the method he intended to use was the only one. He was dealing with a billion captive, terrified, frantic people and there was no time or place for diplomatic niceties or sweet civilized exhortations. The hour compelled him to be as rude, crude, bluntly shattering and effective as he could possibly be. He must address them like a sledgehammer. The certainty lent an extra incisiveness to his voice as he faced the cameras of the world and began with a slow and somber emphasis:

“People of Russia, people of China!

“I speak to you from the outside world which looks to you to save yourselves and humanity from final destruction.

“You, the people of Russia and the people of China, have in your own hands the power to do this.

“You are the only ones who have this power.

“It does not belong to the cowardly leaders of Moscow who at this moment are hiding safely in underground caves near Kiev while you suffer the awful consequences of atomic attack.

“It does not belong to the cowardly leaders of Peking who at this moment are hiding safely underground in the mountains near Chungking while you suffer the awful consequences of atomic attack.

“It belongs to you, the people.

“You, people of Russia, people of China! It is to you I talk, not to your cowardly leaders who are safe and sound while you suffer.

“I have tried to talk to those cowardly men and they have refused me. The outside world has joined me in appeals to them, and they have refused us all.

“They would rather have you suffer, while they stay safe from harm, than end your suffering and make peace.

“They would rather have your wives, husbands, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, families, friends, die in the ashes of your shattered cities than give up their own lust for power and their own insane ambitions.

“They would rather have all of you suffer torn flesh, terrible wounds, awful atomic sicknesses, horrible deaths, than give up their insane lust for power and their insane hatred for one another.

“People of Russia, people of China! You do not hate one another, for all men are brothers. You do not want to war upon one another, for war only means the destruction of everyone. You do not want to suffer horrible things because cowardly men in secret caves decree that you must die while they remain hidden and safe.

“You want peace, as we, all the other peoples of the world, want peace. You who are still living want to bury your dead, bind up your wounds, rebuild your lives and your families, return to your quiet ways and live together in peace.

“Evil and cowardly men who control your two governments do not want this.

“They want you to suffer.

“They want you to know terror.

“They want you to die.

“Destroy them, people of Russia, people of China! Rise against these monsters who have already devastated so much of your two countries!

“Already they are making new threats against one another. Already they are calling for new war.
This means that you will die.

“Destroy them before they can cause the final destruction of the Celestial Empire and Mother Russia! Save your countries from them! Kill them before they can kill you!

“You have the power and you can do it.

“The cowardly leaders of Moscow are hiding in underground caves near Kiev. The cowardly leaders of Peking are hiding in underground caves near Chungking.

“Find them! Search them out!
Destroy them! Kill them before they can kill you!

“People of China, people of Russia, take back your countries into your own hands. Take back the power these monsters have used to kill your wives, husbands, sons and daughters, mothers, fathers, relatives, friends. Look at your wounds. Look at your dead. Look at yourselves, poor hunted animals whom these men would utterly destroy.

“Find them, kill them, destroy them! We, the world, will help you. You will be free. You will be safe. You and your families and friends will not die any more. You will have peace, with each other and with all the world. We will greet you with open arms when you have done this, and there will be peace and no more war.

“They are hiding near Kiev.

“They are hiding near Chungking.

“Find them, kill them, destroy them!

“Kill them before they can kill you!

“People of Russia, people of China, do it
now!

“Now!”

Which was not, he reflected again wryly as his somber face faded away and the flags of the United Nations, minus the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic, floated past in silent review before the screens went blank, exactly the sophisticated, prim and proper language one might use in a parliamentary debate. But when one was dealing with more than a billion captive, terrified, frantically desperate people there was no time for subtlety, smooth words or gentleness. It was a time to be rough, tough, blunt and crude, as stripped down to naked essentials as the situation itself.