Sentence:  Secretary-General Hammarskjo ^ ld decided that it would <WSD>be</WSD> preferable if the U. N. troops sent into the Congo were to come from African , or at least nonwhite , nations - certainly not from the U. S. , Russia , Great Britain or France . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)