KATHLEEN AGENA
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to be associated."
*
The announcement surprised and dismayed the
delegates present-particularly since the group had been meeting
only as a result of Soviet pressure, and because they felt they had
made substantial progress in constructing an acceptable draft. A few
minutes later, the East German chairman appeared and echoed the
Soviet statement, declaring that the group technically did not exist
and that he no longer had official status.
I learned of these events only because I happened
to
be entering
the U. N. through the delegates' entrance just as the West German
ambassador, who had attended the meeting, was leaving. When I
inquired whether there had been any progress on "The Prevention
of Nuclear War" issue, the West German delegate-who, I might
add, was fuming-threw down his briefcase and proceeded to
describe what he called the" destruction" of the working grou p by
its chairman.
The story sounded so bizarre that I was incredulous, but, upon
checking with nearly a dozen other delegates from the meeting, who
related the same events very nearly word for word, I wrote an article
on the derailing of the working group that appeared in aU. N. -dis–
tributed newspaper the following morning. At a press conference
that day, the Soviet Mission denounced the article as "a pack of
lies," and a member of the Soviet delegation called my editor to
express his outrage that the story had been printed.
The point, of course, was that the Soviets were counting on the
fact that what had gone on in the "closed" meeting room would not
be made public. Thus, they cou ld continue to argue that they had
tried to save the session, but that their initiative had been blocked by
the uncooperativeness of the West. Since the press releases from the
"open" Ad Hoc Committee meeting the Friday before clearly show
the U.S. resisting the Soviet initiative, and no press releases were
issued from the closed drafting group meeting, the Soviets may still
use this tack.
Two other similar instances are noteworthy. One involves the draft–
ing of guidelines for a so-called World Disarmament Campaign,
-The Soviet was referring to the fact that the reports of the various working and
drafting groups were to have been submitted
to
the Ad Hoc Committee the night
before. But this was a technicality. Other drafting groups were meeting on Thurs–
day, attempting to complete their work. The deadline was adhered to only by those
groups that had given up on resolving the controversies before them.
