As the smoke of parliamentary battle rose above New York's East River last week, sixteen new flags became visible on the United Nations Plaza. Despite the earnest efforts of the United States, Japan's was not among them. Communist China's flag did not appear either, but East Side rumor has it that U.N. gardeners have already dug the hole to accommodate Peiping's flagpole by this time next year. When Mao Tsc Tung's regime does enter the UN, Secretary of State Dulles may very well have to find a hold of his own to crawl into. Senator Knowland, for his part, has already grabbed a made-in-Formosa shovel and begun burrowing in the direction of the White House.

Most observers agree that this country, by accepting the 16-nation membership "package" that included five Soviet satellites, has endorsed the principle of universality of UN membership. This was the principle that the League of Nations suicidally repudiated, and the founders of the UN took it as a basic assumption back in 1945. During the past ten years, the U.S. Government has been fighting a rearguard action against universality as applied to Red China. The United States' gradual defeat seems much less discouraging than the realization that it has been in the wrong all along.

According to the universality principle, admission to the UN is not conditional upon how a government is ruled or what wars it has started. It is, therefore, only a matter of time before Red China makes the grade. When it does, our delegation will be lucky to get Japan admitted also. The U.S. must try for some quid pro quo: maintaining the Chinese Nationalists as the government of Formosa or insuring that Outer Mongolia remains outer. Mr. Dulles' main consolation, as he faces the task of breaking the news to the American people, is that next year's membership struggle on the East River will come only a month after a similar decision about a residence on the Potomac.

Yet the United States can, by giving up its delaying action against Red China and accepting universality, do much to regain the prestige it has lost. Especially among the numerous small Afro-Asian nations, who now control the bulk of voting strength in the General Assembly, last week's actions of the big powers, throwing vetos at each other to keep various applicants out, evoked little sympathy. Since the veto-less Assembly has now assumed authority over all important UN decisions except membership, and since the U.S. has repudiated its stand against new members, Washington has little to lose by asking the Security Council to abolish the veto completely. If this proves impossible, Ambassador Lodge could propose that the veto be abolished on all membership matters. If the United States cannot maintain its international position before a world forum, it might as well convert the UN buildings into a hotel for American Legion conventions.