A recent front-page splash in the Main Line Times (Ardmore, Pa.) disclosed that a Women Strike for Peace Panzergruppe, which rolled into town aboard a mobile bomb shelter to solicit ban-the-bomb signatures, was subjected to provocations by a handful of picketing YAFsymp juvenile delinquents, and had to cancel its last day of soliciting. Curiously, the story consisted mainly of a list of grievances recited by a WSP leader, supplemented by a glowing history of the WSP. Thereupon a number of witnessing citizens informed the Main Line Times—which pleaded innocent in intention—that the behavior of the young pickets was quite impeccable, that it was rather the Panzergruppers, obviously upset about their failure to collect any signatures, who acted offensively. And so peace returned to Ardmore, Pa.
On July 11 the House of Representatives voted against lending any funds to the UN for so long as other nations are in default on their regular assessments. The House has also voted to halt all gifts to nations that have expropriated American property without proper compensation. A similar amendment has already passed the Senate, which has also voted to restrain the President from any gifts (except surplus food) to Communist-dominated countries. Breasting the plaintive oratory of Adlai Stevenson, and the Administration, the Congress seems clearly bent on constructing a foreign policy in which the UN will have much less than the dominant voice; and this new trend may be accelerated by the World Court, which is expected to hand down any day now its opinion on the prickly question whether UN members are required to pay their share of UN expenses in such special operations as it has launched in the Gaza Strip and the Congo. If the Court says they must pay, what reason is there to believe they will now honor this obligation when they are already behind in their regular payments? The weakness and destitution of the UN must be made blatantly obvious, and as the UN glides downhill there will be reason to hope that American foreign policy will begin to express the cause and the conscience of the American people.
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