Blue and White—and Red

The second question is that of the U.N. action. The blue and white flag of peace is now waving over the American forces advancing (sometimes in reverse, it must be admitted) into Korea. Are they justified in claiming Security Council sanction for their action? From the Russian standpoint, they are not—and since the Russians can show (a) that they were not present and (b) that they did not recognise the Chinese vote, then the necessary conditions for permanent members voting in the Council were not fulfilled. The action is to that extent illegal; it is not U.N. action at all. The Americans claim that they can interpret the Charter to support their case, but it is significant that a world affairs talk over the National stations last Saturday made no attempt to refute the Russian argument about the illegality of the action. It becomes more obvious then that Lie's suggestion about the admission of Mao Tse Tung's representative should have been adopted: the Russians would then have been present. It was fantastically silly to think that a genuine attempt to solve the problem could arise without Russian members even present—it looked just too much as though no one wanted to stop to solve the thing in the true spirit of the Charter.