Realism Wins

ARTICLES OF WISDOM to Wall Street, the antithesis of Soviet ideology. In 1960, Khrushchev was enraged over the then UN secretarygeneral, Mr Dag Hammarskjold’s action in sending U.N. peacekeeping troops to the Congo, then a key Soviet client state. “The general assembly of 1960 was the greatest circus in the history of the United Nations,” recalls Mr Brian Urquhart, who then was under secretary-general in charge of peacekeeping operations. Sometimes crude, profane and easily angered, Khrushchev created the most memorable scene in the history of the U.N. debate when he interrupted a delegate’s remarks by pounding a shoe on the Soviet delegation’s desk for a point of order. “Khrushchev got so abusive that the Irish president of the assembly, Mr Freddie Boland, broke the gavel in calling him to order,” said Mr Urquhart. Mr Gorbachev is likely to provide no melodramatic fireworks. Unlike Khrushchev, Mr Gorbachev has rejected the idea that capitalism and socialism are mutually exclusive. This stress on cooperation in areas of mutual interest has been spilling over for some time into the UN. The Soviet Union has in recent years relinquished its practice of vetoing many security council actions, and has negotiated consensus positions with the US, China, Britain and France. This new spirit of cooperation has led to the political settlement in Afghanistan and the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war, both of which would have been unlikely under the confrontative Soviet style of Khrushchev or