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by
Mary O'Brien, C.P.
 THE PLACE: Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School, Brooklyn. The time:
A reasonably mild January day in 1947. Afternoon classes have been canceled
for some reason. A teacher announces to her class of seniors that she
has some tickets to the UN.
I am sitting at one those desks. The General Assembly meets at its
temporary headquarters in the old World's Fair grounds -- practically
in my backyard. I can stop by, take in some of the proceedings, and
still be home earlier than usual. So I join the seven or eight girls
who are taking advantage of the offer.
The subway line they decide on is not the one I would have chosen,
but it is a perfectly reasonable route -- at least until nobody stands
up at the transfer point. I begin to grasp that we are not heading for
the General Assembly but for the Security Council at its Lake Success
headquarters. Moreover, once we emerge at the end of the line no one
has a clear idea of how to get there. We catch an eastbound bus and
appeal to the driver for assistance. He lets us off at the point on
his route nearest to the UN: at the side of the road in an empty, totally
undeveloped landscape. (Hard to imagine when I pass that way today!)
What to do next? Before long a delivery van comes by. The driver
is sympathetic. We climb into the back of the van and crouch there in
the darkness until, true to his word, the driver pulls up at the service
entrance of the Council's building.
 There is no one around, so we try the door. It opens and we find
ourselves in a long corridor, empty except for two figures approaching
from the far end. As they come closer it is clear that they are deep
in conversation. One is a man in African dress. It takes a second or
two longer to recognize the other as Eleanor Roosevelt. An electric
current passes through the high school contingent. We exchange glances,
but do not speak, and keep on going. As for those two conversing, I
don't think they even notice us.
By this time we are at the end of the corridor and approaching another
door. On opening it, we find ourselves looking over the heads of several
rows of people seated on a slightly raised platform and facing a crowd
of a hundred or so on-lookers. Those in the front row are equipped with
microphones. We tiptoe as gracefully as possible through the ranks of
the world's delegates and find seats in the audience. right: Eleanor
Roosevelt at Lake Success; UN Photo
Looking back over the years, the strangest part of that afternoon's
proceedings is that I didn't find anything strange. The innocence of
a vanished era versus the security-ridden present? Perhaps. And yet,
the world of 1947 was just as troubled as ours. The discussion we finally
got to listen to had everything to do with the rapidly developing Cold
War.
also in this issue:
The Johannesburg Summit, 2002 • The Catholic Church and the United Nations
The U.N. at a Glance • Passionists at the United Nations
Meet Fr David Cinquegrani
home page for this issue •
act with Compassion
directory of past issues
email questions or comments
Copyright
2002 - all rights reserved - Passionist Missionaries of Union City,
NJ, USA
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