President Eisenhower’s statement of yesterday that it was up to the United Nations to take “urgent and early action” to pacify the Middle East was virtually tossed right back into his lap today by U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold. “Personally, I do not feel that a meeting of the Security Council would make an immediate contribution to the situation,” Mr. Hammarskjold told correspondents here.
“What can the Security Council contribute at this juncture?” the UN chief asked in answer to questions put to him as to possible Council action. Asked whether any of the big powers had come up with any firm suggestions in regard to pacifying the Middle East, he stated that there have been consultations “but I know nothing of any firm plans.”
Relterating his previous pleas for calmness and against “over-dramatizing” the Middle East tensions, Mr. Hammarskjold asserted that while the tenseness is “extremely regrettable,” he is certain that “war is not around the corner.” He based his certainty, he said, on his firm belief that there are forces in the Middle East that do not want war and pointed by way of illustration, to the speech made in the Israel Parliament-this week by Israel Premier David Ben Gurion in which, Mr. Hammarskjold said, the Israeli statesman “discards war.”
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