Evening star., 1958-07-13
BY WILLIAM r. FRYE
Special Writer for The star

UNI 4GD IVA ~ Ia
young Colombian corporal In the
United Nations Emergency Force
was relaxing one night recently
In a desert foxhole. strumming a
guitar and singing a nostalgia
Latin lovesong.
Across the armistice demarca-
ton line, IN Israel, q voice joined
him In the melody, singing in
perfect Spanish. Startled and de-
lighted, the corporal finished the
verse, then shouted TO the stranger
across Io-man's-land.
It was against regulations for
a UNEF soldier to fraternize with
an Israeli. (Too many men had
been striking up close friendships
with Israeli WACs. and the ofi-
GERS had to crack down. But
rules are made to be broken on
occasions like these.
The two men discovered they
not only knew the same song:
they knew each other. They had
gone to the same school. in the
suburbs Of Bogota, Colombia, as
children. The Jewish boy had
migrated with his family to Israel,
and there joined the army: the
Colombian had been drafted by
his government and sent to Egypt
for the u. N.
The incident was a new twist
to an old idea: that soldiers are
soldiers. whatever language they
may use to gripe in.
UNEF itself is q new twist to
a very old idea: that the world
community should have police
power to suppress lawbreaking.
just as local and national COM
munities do. Ever since the time
Of ancient Greece, men have been
talking about. and experimenting
with. this idea.
The new thing about UNEF is
that it depends almost wholly on
moral power, rather than physi-
cal force, to keep the peace. UNEF
soldiers get a kick out Of seeing
how "a helmet and a rifle" as
one of them recently put it to
Secretary General Dag Ham
marskjold, "can stop a tank"
What the soldier meant, Of
course, was that officers COM
manding the Israeli armored corps
across the line would not order
1t to shoot UP UNEF because of
the damage such an act would
do to Israel in the eyes Of the
world. For the same reason,
Egypt would not dare overrun
UNEF en- route to an attack on
Israel.
Effective BorFieF
Ephemeral or not, this kind of
moral barrier has in fact kept the
peace between Egypt and Israel
for over a year. The vision of
Lester B. Pearson, who first pro-
posed UNEF, has been thoroughly
vindicated by events.
UNEF could not have been
picked up bodily and shifted to
Lebanon. The job there would
have been to invade an area
where Fighting was in progress
and close of the Syrian-Lebanese
border by physical force. Entirely
different equipment. training.
supply lines, and command arr
rangements would have been
necessary.
Besides, the countries con-
tributing soldiers to UNEF put
them at the U. MS temporary
disposal for a specific purpose.
The men could not legally have
been given q new task without
the consent of those countries.
UNEF is not a u. N. army in the
pure sense Of a force under the
command of General Hammarsk-
jold" Gas President Eisenhower
sometimes inadvertently calls
him).
There is considerable latent
sentiment here for creating a
permanent U. N. army, and
Gallup Polls have shown that Sc
per cent of Americans agree. The
biggest barrier is cost. UNEF is
a $20-million-a-year drain on
the U. Ms budget, which nor
Ynally is only $55 million for all
regular purposes. A permanent
force of the same size-5, 500 men
would certainly cost at least
$40 million.
once asked Pentagon brass
how much the tab would be for
a permanent force of 1000 men,
lightly equipped. and stationed
on a base. say, in North Africa.
Their reply:. At least $25 million
year plus $65 million for the
base and from $12 million to $2G
million for minimum equipment.
Add as few as % small recon-
naissance planes and, say, % hell
copterS-the kind of thing which
even the U. N. observer group in
Lebanon needed-and then add a
similar number of jet transport
planes for deployment, and the
cost would be $123 million more,
even without considering upkeep.
This kind of money may be
peanuts beside a defense budget
like that of the United States
($40 billion) but it is way beyond
the present means of the U. N.
Even # the United States Con-
gress were willing to pick up the
check for such a force. most U. N.
people would not want it paid for
that way, because the force would
not then be genuinely interna-
tional. 1t would be regarded as
American-dominated, and the
kind of people who would be most
valuable on it in many situations
the neutralists-would not want
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