Irrelevant factor
The visit of Dr Waldheim — the latest successor, in the meaningless post of Secretary General of the United Nations,of such well-meaning Scandinavians as Dr TrYgve Lie, such Zen Buddhists as U thant, and such visionary homosexuals as Dag Hammarskjold — to the capitals of the Eastern Mediterranean demonstrates once More the utter futility of international organisations that are supposed to be Political. If there was a moment for an international organisation to assert itself ill the Greco-Turkish conflict it would have been when the Turks were moving their forces over the fifty miles of sea Which separate them from Cyprus; and then in order to prevent passage of the sea lanes. The moment and the power have long passed, as they passed for the League Of Nations when passage of the Suez Canal Was allowed to Italian warships bent on conquering Abyssinia. Dr Waldheim, a decent, middle-aged, middle-class Austrian, too incapable of manners to don a cal) in Israel or doff his shoes in an Arab mosque, is the latest, sad representative of international daydreaming. It would be better by far to allow the concerned Powers to sort out the balance in Cyprus than to invite the intervention of such comic bodies as the United Nations — Whom the Turks have already dismissed as Irrelevant from their areas of control.
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