The UN: In or Out?
Conrad, John P. & Haag, Ernest van den
THE U.N.: IN OR OUT? Ernest van den Haag and John P. Conrad/Plenum /$19.95 John R. Dunlap Since roughly 1975, when the General Assembly passed its resolution equating Zionism with racism, the...
...To be sure, Conrad occasionally 1 provides examples to bolster his case for the U.N...
...Earlier in the debate, Conrad footnotes Hazzard's book for his own purposes, referring to Hazzard's first sixty-nine pages, which detail an agreement between Trygve Lie (the first U.N...
...You almost resent that the authors have made the U.N...
...and most of its agencies...
...A virtuosic blending of pointed capsule biographies, longer set pieces dealing with important historical events ...and nostalgic camera-eye reminiscences...
...Smallpox has all but disappeared owing to the work of the World Health Organization...
...In one convoluted instance, Conrad dismisses van den Haag as an "unreconstructable A Debate Between Ernest van den Haag and John P. Conrad "This book is an invaluable debate—pro and con—of the very grave issues involving America's continued participation in the United Nations...
...so engrossing...
...Please add $1.50 postage and handling...
...Greek and Turkish Cypriots are not currently at one another's throats, thanks largely to "the good offices of the U.N...
...the Iron Curtain is "unnecessary...
...The U.N...
...By John Deedy "His book covers all the bases, hears all the voices, and provides a credible answer to the question the church is always asked: 'Quo Vadis?' " —Dr...
...date Plenum Publishing Corporation signature 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013-1578 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1987 49 Benthamite" after van den Haag quotes approvingly Jeremy Bentham's famous dismissal of "natural rights" as "simple nonsense...
...War as a possibility is inherent in national sovereignty, which no nation is going to relinquish in a world lacking any common vision of the good...
...government to install an FBI office at U.N...
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...Perfectly wonderful...
...Rev...
...Now, van den Haag may perhaps be forgiven if he doesn't feel moved by the strength of Conrad's prolixity to argue at any length...
...Secretary General) and the U.S...
...can sometimes be a convenient stage for dramatizing Western resolve (such as there is) against the anti-Western hostility to which van den Haag rightly objects—and not merely a gas-valve for releasing the Western idealism to which Conrad tediously subscribes...
...fices of the U.N...
...Perhaps van den Haag's endorsement of Hazzard's book is intended to show that his own charges against the U.N...
...Although each contender is allowed exactly twenty-three opportunities to hold forth, Conrad takes up the lion's share of the book: a total of 210 pages against van den Haag's ninety-four...
...van den Haag dismisses "natural rights" as a fiction...
...22.50, now at your bookstore, or send check or money order to Crown Publishers Inc., 225 Park Avenue South, NY, NY 10003...
...William F. Buckley, Jr...
...Now, however, the issue is treated only in absolute terms, as the title of this book suggests: The UN: In or Out...
...Hazzard, although an infinitely better writer than Conrad, understands even less than he the complexities of national interests...
...headquarters for monitoring the political desirability of American nationals working at the U.N...
...One reason for the imbalance is that Conrad consumes most of two hefty chapters on the history and functions of the U.N., the first of which he gets all to himself, with the odd title "The Undebatable Facts and Events" a chapter studded, by the way, with very debatable remarks: "At a time when the urgency of international cooperation to rehabilitate shattered continents was obvious, the United Nations was the appropriate vehicle to bring it about...
...could be improved...
...The U.N., in short, is useless—and harmful "in morally misleading people and in confusing issues," particularly through monstrosities like UNESCO and the Law of the Sea Treaty...
...Though not always harmless, the U.N...
...But Conrad should take his own advice...
...Arthur J. Goldberg, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations "The U.N.: In or Out...
...1986 ANNUAL REPORT RKOVTELEVISION Broadcast to over 12 million viewers RKO RADIO Broadcast to over 8 million listeners RKOV PICTURES Produced 6 feature films RKOVBOTTLERS Produced over 30 million cases of Pepsi and Dr...
...John R. Dunlap teaches English at Santa Clara University...
...For one thing, the U.N.'s purported ideals can be used by genuine human rights organizations like the Puebla Institute and Helsinki Watch to show up the hypocrisy of the world's tyrants, most of whom today are Leninists...
...Terry Teachout American Spectator "Often lyrical and always interesting...
...But as often as not, Conrad puts his foot in it...
...We should, in other words, get the hell out—being careful, of course, "not to upset too much the deluded idealists such as Professor Conrad...
...What he can't achieve by argument Conrad attempts through endless exposition, cliche (he is addicted to the expression "the good of'Plenum, 1983...
...19.95/Cloth/ISBN 0-306-42524-6 American CATHOLICISM AND NOW WHERE...
...could be improved, or even whether the U.N...
...President, University of Notre Dame $18.95/Cloth/ISBN 0-306-42706-0 Please send THE U.N.: In Or Out...
...van den Haag shrugs off the accusation and invites Conrad to "descend from the clouds...
...Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C...
...as a center of espionage...
...Furthermore, according to van den Haag, those U.N...
...Another reason is Conrad's long-windedness...
...at $19.95 each _American Catholicism name at $18.95 each Book orders must be paid fully in advance...
...have already been detailed by a certified "liberal internationalist" of Conrad's stripe...
...address All major credit cards are accepted...
...Lionel Abel The Wall Street Journal Illustrated with photographs...
...headquarters are moved from New York to Oslo or Geneva (or maybe Antarctica, where the KGB would feel more at home), then we may as well stay in...
...But if you bother to read the book van den Haag recommends (in place of expanding on his own case), you will find Hazzard's energetic argument to be exactly counter to his contention that the U.N...
...If he had known of van den Haag's lengthy essay "Against Natural Rights" in the Winter 1983 issue of the Heritage Foundation's Policy Review, he might not have attached a "Benthamite utilitarianism" to van den Haag's moral views—which are expressly opposed to utilitarianism...
...And even so, the key trouble would persist...
...NY and NJ residents, add sales tax...
...Conrad then accuses van den Haag of being "flippant" and "simplistic" and taken with a "querulous negativism...
...For another, U.S...
...Reviewed by Jeremy Rabkin in the May 1984 TAS...
...Harvey Cox Professor, Harvard University "A portrait of the Church in the United States drawn from today's headlines and accompanied by the seasoned analysis of a veteran observer...
...In fact, Shirley Hazzard's Defeat of an Ideal is a glib, hugely tendentious panegyric to one-worldism...
...If Conrad is long on exposition and short on argument, van den Haag is precise (albeit repetitious) on argument but short on exposition...
...Van den Haag could have been consistent as well as clever (and still appropriately deadpan in the face of Conrad's windy enthusiasm) if he had urged readers to peruse, for example, Daniel Patrick Moynihan's A Dangerous Place...
...Should the U.S...
...It is must reading because the authors illuminate both sides of this controversy...
...is surely not useless, even in its present condition...
...is misconceived in principle...
...Among his few references, for example, he warmly endorses Shirley Hazzard's Defeat of an Ideal (1973), urging readers to dip into that book...
...simple assertion ("If we were not wasting so much money on munitions, if we were not preparing so avidly for war, we could prepare more easily and more effectively for peace"), and all of the above inflated with steamy exhortation: "The world is too small, and our own need for interdependence is too great...
...Much of his argument rests on Jean Bodin's definition of sovereignty, potestas legibus absoluta: the nature of sovereignty ("power unabridged by laws") makes the U.N...
...membership in the U.N...
...And the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has done much good since 1949—principally, by default, ministering to victims of Communist states...
...To van den Haag, apparently, the importance of Hazzard's book is what follows those first sixty-nine pages: a bitter critique of the careerism, corruption, paper-shuffling, and bureaucratic wrangling which, by 1973, characterized the U.N...
...Earlier, Conrad teases him with the advice that van den Haag should read more from conservative journals in order to ponder "the sanctimonious preachiness of American conservatives who have nothing more to offer than the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith...
...unworkable in the pursuit of its stated purpose of preventing wars...
...budget is reduced to 10 percent (from a current 25 percent and from an original 40 percent), and if U.N...
...Most conservatives, out of disgust, have lost interest in bashing the U.N., while liberals merely avert their eyes in silent embarrassment...
...Twenty years ago, it would have turned on how the U.S...
...van den Haag lapses into smug silence, refusing even to recapitulate his earlier points...
...rr he pattern can be entertaining, but 1 it would be more satisfying were van den Haag not so content with his briefs against the U.N...
...Ernest van den Haag and John P. Conrad/Plenum /$19.95 John R. Dunlap Since roughly 1975, when the General Assembly passed its resolution equating Zionism with racism, the United Nations has seemed to exhaust itself as an ideological symbol...
...Not so Ernest van den Haag and John P. Conrad...
...should conduct itself at the U.N., or how the U.N...
...city state/zip account no...
...His baby-talk aside (Marxist atrocities in Ethiopia are "mistakes...
...snaps, crackles and pops...
...Conrad waxes indignant...
...If, among Conrad's many recommendations for improving the U.N., American support of the U.N...
...After an earlier skirmish on another symbolic issue (The Death Penalty: A Debate') they are at it again, and the focus of their new debate is instructive...
...The book is a transcontinental exchange of essays between Davis, California (where Conrad, a semi-retired criminologist, lives) and Manhattan (where van den Haag, who should never retire, still teaches at Fordham University...
...Communism is a "distortion of the socialist ideal"), Conrad frequently misconstrues objections raised by van den Haag and then takes up a few pages attacking a straw man...
...We have to share in the building of peace...
...withdraw from the United Nations...
...It is with heavy heart, therefore, that I declare John P. Conrad the winner of this debate, sort of...
...Thus the pattern of the debate emerges: Conrad schmoozes about "natural rights" and how they are served by the U.N...
...The office was closed in 1953, but Hazzard's voluminous treatment of the affair is marked by what Sir Arnold Lunn once called "selective indignation," balanced by no more than token referenceto the routine Soviet practice of using the U.N...
...agencies which are truly useful—Conrad touts all the agencies as more important than the General Assembly and the Security Council—perform no service that could not be performed more efficiently by, for example, the International Red Cross...
...does not preclude a line-item rejection by the United States of obvious follies like UNESCO...
...Pepper products PERFORMANCE BY PROFESSIONALS RKOV GENERAL A GENCORP COMPANY 1440 BROADWAY • NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10018 50 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1987...
...but through most of this debate he seems downright lackadaisical, self-defeatingly so...
Vol. 20 • October 1987 • No. 10
