In the U.N. colonialism cut sharply across friendships, alliances and cold-war loyalties when Indonesia demanded debate on its proposal to eject the Dutch from W. New Guinea.

In its graceful glass and marble palace by New York’s East River, the ninth U.N. General Assembly opened last week with outward smoothness and inner doubts. Only one Big Four Foreign Minister, John Foster Dulles of the U.S., was on hand, and many delegates muttered that the U.N. was being…