Our man at the U.N.:
Hottelet, Richard C.
because Agatha herself is both the victim and the self-conscious about her knees every time she sits down be- "criminal" -first the one, then the other- and we sympathize ...
...The economy was first-of-the-month scoldings to an effective bilateral relation- askew...
...They do succeed in stifling tilateral relations with the rest of the world...
...In a proaches political perfection and which the United States and more general way, the author distorts the give and take of Europe are still struggling to fulfill after centuries of evolution, human life...
...Moynihan reflected, is not clear that Moynihan in his time forced the Soviets to do "If you want an audience, start a fight...
...One can only grown too quickly and now feels rangy and awkward...
...The HAPPENED THEY SHOULD BE TOLD THAT AMERICANS TAKE THE HONOR OF THEIR DEMOCRACY RICHARD C. HOTTELET, a previous contributor, is United Nations MOST SERIOUSLY...
...O NE CENTRAL weakness in Moynihan's approach is his insistence on an ideological underpinning of U.S...
...In his longer, more judicious correspondent for CBS News...
...To ideologize classified as those "with whom the United States just doesn't liberty is to diminish the force of this elemental human urge...
...the Western Sahara, the Ogaden, Timor, Angola, Uganda, 11 May 1979: 275 Indochina, not to mention Lebanon and Israel or the Law of the that the State Department should not be an ideological instituSea, for such classic reasons as fear and greed-to permit tion...
...anything, except to withdraw a minor resolution or two...
...Redgrave's performance into relief and or passion or some other genuine complexity of character had makes us feel its exquisiteness is the counterpoint performance ever entered the world she created, that world, with all its by Dustin Hoffman...
...To disagree with him does not mean to As regards the cookie and the whip to keep the recalcitrant in ignore that there are grave dangers and that a nation must live line, surely one of the sappiest notions ever advanced envis- by immutable principles...
...The effect is one of embattled, unfailing Fuming at another in a string of resolutions which sought to righteousness...
...He noted that the SHOULD HAPPEN TO EACH ONE [of the countries which change in the UN membership after 1960 to a majority of vote for such resolutions or abstain] AND WHEN IT HAS newly independent states had altered attitude, and practice...
...The technique employed by weak regimes of the most varied stripe struggle is certainly not over, but the Soviet Union, thrown out to stay in power...
...such superficialities...
...More is needed, to be sure, like military and relations, even with these countries, "will have moments of economic power, for a nation to defend and assert its princigreat saliency...
...foreign policy...
...paper clippings...
...The ethnic patterns of justice as opposed to the whim of a tyrant or perfect is the the enemy of the good...
...SOMETHING SPECIFICALLY BAD Nations for the magazine Commentary...
...because Agatha herself is both the victim and the self-conscious about her knees every time she sits down be"criminal" -first the one, then the other- and we sympathize cause they always stick up above her lap...
...craving of the Ford administration and of the American public The professionals were not sure that he was not making an epic for at least the appearance of success...
...The subject was dropped...
...woman and a barrel-chested man on a dance floor...
...It means compromise in method...
...Moynihan was suspici- Amin as a racist murderer...
...Relations between the Congress and the ExecuAnother is how the United States suddenly shifts gears from tive were a deadlock of mutual suspicion...
...She trust that the real Agatha was someone as winning as this...
...Even platonic resolutions can effect-or create-reality...
...The best brief label I can think of for this is, paradoxically enough, the Russian "partiinost" -partisanship-in the name of freedom, of course...
...He may, in addition, have given many UN members a explanation...
...His portrayal is a struggle of good against evil, brand Puerto Rico as colonial territory, to be "liberated" by light against darkness with overtones of Armageddon and the UN, Moynihan, who had been in the US delegation to the apocalypse...
...ministration...
...By contrast the Agatha in the movie seems tie was perhaps the greatest stereotyper in all literature...
...suppression of political freedom and human rights in the Too much of A Dangerous Place (Atlantic, Little, Brown, Communist camp, not to mention the Soviets' failure to pro$12.50, 297 pp) is Moynihan quoting his articles, speeches, vide them with any real economic help, apart from a few large, memoranda, the UN record, the views of friends and news- token projects...
...The author dismisses with contempt the view of a foreign service officer Commonweal: 276...
...The great surviving totalitarian ideology of of Somalia and Egypt, watching the political rebirth of Por- the 20th Century-call it Communism or Marxism-Leninism tugal and Spain, embarrassed by China's defiance and as or scientific socialism or whatever- survives only as a cosmetbewildered as everyone else by the forces let loose in Iran next ic label for the mechanism of force and propaganda (compuldoor, can hardly think it has the West on the ropes...
...China, now taking off Mao's ideological totalitarianism against which he tilts is not an ideology but a straitjacket, is urging the West to be vigilant and strong...
...It normal rotation had put him in that post...
...yet she turns out to be could fix a character forever with a single detail or gesture, and more determined than the most single-minded murderess for years she sustained one character- Poirot- on nothing but Dame Christie could have imagined...
...speech, called for the extinction of Israel...
...plays Agatha as the sort of woman who becomes terribly COLIN L. WESTERBECK, JR...
...Each month, the US ambassador would call on the Moynihan's time at the UN, the United States had no big stick...
...Their personalities fit tiveness of the plot and the effects is acting, and this Vanessa together in a comic, human way, like the postures of a slouchy Redgrave provides...
...A pile driver is not an the synthetic dictate of an all-powerful party...
...A Vice President had weapons according to the rated performance of the previous left office one step ahead of the sheriff...
...It is hard to measure empire has been attributed in part to the General Assembly's these things, but he was surely giving expression to public endorsement year after year of the guerrilla war, sustaining the opinion...
...Moynihan smote it and its attitude of active, flamboyant defiance which satisfied the sponsors hip and thigh-the towering champion of decency...
...Dame Chris- sharply defined...
...Flexibility does not mean bending the immutable cannot honestly be a worldwide yardstick...
...The American spokesman, further, has his own salutary shock, a reminder that there are limits to the gratuitous public and what he says cannot fail to consider the needs of insult a tolerant, liberal great power is prepared to endure...
...RICHARD C. HOTTELET new majority wanted to vote itself a redistribution of the wealth and political power held by the West and thought it I IN HIS BRIEF TIME at the UN, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was could do best in association with the Soviet Union...
...sustained a longer effort...
...He saw a dwindling of the nations in the world on the principles of liberal democminority of democratic states under attack by a coalition of racy which are now found only in a minority of nations" is too totalitarian regimes and their bought or intimidated henchmen...
...His contribution was what it was neither, strictly speaking, when he took the job, was both because it was brief...
...The game requires considerable diplomatic cally agreed, leaving no doubt in his mind that he was doing skill because it involves 150-odd players and, while it nor- the right thing-however Kissinger and the career diplomats mally produces little in the way of immediate, practical con- might squirm and sigh...
...Unfortunately, the Ambassador ous and scornful of the Secretary's pursuit of detente, holding overreached himself in calling it no accident that Amin was that "the authors of detente took the position that the Soviets Chairman of the Organization of African Unity when, in fact, could be persuaded where they could no longer be forced...
...The leader of the free world, the any longer time span...
...Redgrave keeps visible just beneath the cially, Vanessa Redgrave had to imagine...
...In postulating a war of ideas which must be waged history to be seen in terms of a global anti-liberal or anti- everywhere and at all times, Moynihan fails to see that the Western conspiracy...
...She uncertain, impulsive, at loose ends...
...Liberty, variously macy, the two aspects are not separated but interwoven, dif- perceived-as it must be to be free-is the moral common ferent facets of the same exercise: trying to find out what is denominator of many more people than live in Pat Moynihan's going on and to influence it in the American interest...
...The public enthusiastipublic diplomacy...
...One question not answered-or even raised-is why neither of them elected by the people, led a makeshift adthe United States should bother with these countries at all...
...Ford and Rockefeller, period...
...Redgrave translates this into an almost physical But Hoffman's role, while it is key to the fanciful story Agatha vulnerability...
...The author's point of departure is an arbitrary- it sustains and spreads itself-as, indeed, it does...
...Where Agatha is retiring, Wally Stanton charm and magic atmosphere, would have been instantly de- is brash...
...And he did, denouncing dinner with Solzhenitzyn in Geneva...
...But Moynihan argued that words are the currency of United nations is unique...
...Further- sion and persuasion, Vyshinsky called it) by which ins keep more, liberal democracy, a western standard which ap- themselves in, the outs out and the masses in their place...
...Whether the result is surface of the public figure the personality of a girl who has the real Agatha Christie is impossible to say...
...sometimes loose, combinations of interest inside and outside Moynihan however, divides them, arguing that there are 64 the United Nations...
...The Secretary, an old associate han, adding that cabinet ministers in any number of countries from Harvard and the early Nixon White House, is portrayed have...
...Shifting coalitions inside subgroupings United States, has-at least in its elite-lost faith in its ideals...
...But if someone truly given to self-doubt What throws Ms...
...of the "majority," the Non-Aligned, the Group of 77 developMoynihan came to revive the power of those ideals-political ing countries, the Asian and African regional organizations, freedom, human rights, honesty and straightforwardness- the Arab League have clashed too often in recent years -over and throw it at the hypocritical enemy...
...either or to let the one blot out the other...
...letting off the steam of frustrafighters' morale and the drain on Portugal's resources that tion and self-doubt which had built up in the body politic...
...Its enemies and odd-distinction between United States bilateral and mul- pay it lip service and try to coopt it...
...Cheerfully at the center of big and little storms-some of his own applying a double standard, these countries often used the making...
...SPEAKING LOUDLY & CARRYING A SMALL STICK Our man at the U.N...
...WITH WHICH I SAT . . . AND LISTENED TO THE Moynihan came to the UN in the spring of 1975, having STALINIST SON OF A BITCH FROM CUBA GO ON written, toward the end of his term as Ambassador to India, a ABOUT PUERTO RICO Moynihan's conclusion was, biting critique of the United States' posture in the United "TO HELL WITH IT...
...What finally has to sustain Agatha beyond the inven- bold...
...The implication of concerted action The leader of the forces of darkness was the Soviet Union, against one political target is hard to square with events over brutal and unscrupulous...
...He was, in addition...
...analysis, which he also sent to Secretary of State Henry KisCommonweal: 274 singer, Moynihan urged that the United States not simply When Luis Echeverria, then President of Mexico, wanted to suffer insult, but "go into opposition...
...The characters in an with her in both roles...
...domestic politics...
...terior and also circulated the charge that he had worked for the One of the threads running through this book is a love-hate CIA...
...In practical diplo- and corrupting it-but never completely...
...What's wrong with working for the CIA?, asked.Moynirelationship with Kissinger...
...It is her ungainly and beautiful-a woman whose ungainliness makes behavior that Tynan, Hopcraft, Storaro, Apted and, espeher beautiful...
...all-purpose instrument...
...transforms some desert, swamp or out of the way curiosity into a strategic factor...
...foreign minister with the printout in hand...
...She plays Agatha as a woman at once both tells, is still only a foil for the role of Agatha herself...
...He A man much less hypersensitive than the author to coverage believes that he put the human rights issue on the world's in newspapers and broadcasts would have seen the potential of agenda...
...The picture of America abroad was one of confusion...
...Its main responsibility is in ideas and that these had to be fought...
...ship with them when the moment of "great saliency"-An Perhaps this was one reason that Moynihan shouted as loudly emergency, say, or the discovery of hidden wealth- as he could...
...It is time," he wrote, mobilize the Security Council against death sentences in Spain ". . . that the American spokesman come to be feared in for killing policemen, Spain recalled the shooting of Mexican international forums for the truths he might tell...
...What precisely The nation had seen a dozen years of inner turmoil, one would follow is not described further...
...That The movie's opening scene is intended to remind us of the Hoffman is too short for Ms...
...Writes Moynihan Kissinger was furious with his new ambassador for having "It was a time to create a crisis...
...of a sordid episode which would otherwise have passed quickly to burial in the General Assembly's mountain of THE POST of United States Permanent Representative to the paper...
...For a man of verve and originality, he, together Soviet terminology of imperialism, colonialism, monopoly with his assistant, Suzanne Weaver, has written a surprisingly and exploitation to attack the West while overlooking the dull book...
...What is certain is that after Watergate and Vietnam, in his performance...
...provoked revolution at home...
...simple and melodramatic...
...It is 29 embattled democracies...
...The idea students by riot police when Echeverria was Minister of Inappealed to Kissinger...
...He would, however, deal with them as obstreperous chil- The ideal might be to speak softly and carry a big stick...
...The collapse of Portugal's African I N A REAL WAY, Moynihan was correct...
...the reasoning behind it would not have when he left it nine months later...
...nations whose importance to the United States is determined United States adherence to the cause of liberty has mainentirely by the way they vote in the UN, by their "multilateral tained this country's prestige even in the face of error and dire actions...
...At the very least, what is done at Whatever else he might be, Pat Moynihan was no self-doubter, the UN touches the interests of many states and requires and to him frustration was not inner suffering but a call to careful consideration, followed by persuasive, effective public arms...
...His gloomy view of an increasingly The new Ambassador came to New York with well de- isolated United States amid "a general assault by the majority veloped views and a chip on his shoulder...
...Fearless and unswerving pursuit of justice becomes a vigorously opposing the new effort...
...Moynihan, who was having gone when he did...
...Shades of Barry Goldwater...
...He recalled "THE FURY public figure, but too much of it makes a man a monument...
...Redgrave puts her at just the real Agatha Christie's legendary shyness, and in subsequent disadvantage she needs to bring out Agatha's best qualities...
...sequence it occasionally does...
...Moynihan abruptly replaced Scali...
...Read three of four years later, it can be heavy 1971 General Assembly, cabled to congratulate John Scali for going...
...Where she is flustered or reticient, he is candid and stroyed...
...who, in his last months in power, grows increasingly pessimis- Idi Amin came to the UN and, at the climax of a long tic and cynical about the future of Western democracy...
...have much business," . . . numbering almost half the UN There is no more powerful social idea, and it is strongest when membership...
...He acknowledges that from time to time bilateral adversity...
...It permits wide and fruitful, if foolish to ignore...
...He has, from the beginning, been a member Engagingly, Moynihan quotes the London Economist of the President's cabinet, often a figure prominent in public which, when he left, thanked him for having come and for life or an active politician-or both...
...Presumably, the ambas- President assassinated, a second broken by Vietnam and a sador would give or withhold money or food or smiles or third driven out for political corruption...
...Moynihan observes, "I comas a liar, hypocrite and intriguer, albeit of prodigious talent, menced to be noticed...
...ples, but nothing is more likely to win it genuine cooperation...
...Thus Agatha becomes the one thing an Agatha Christie story are ordinarily forthright, willful and Agatha Christie story never is: a character study...
...Another honorable principles, political freedom and human dignity, that should criterion would be the rule of law based on custom, religion or guide a civilized policy...
...The opportunity soon came to repeat it on a the year in which the Mayaguez incident could be hailed as larger scale with a weightier issue-the notorious resolution proof that the United States still had teeth, Moynihan struck an labeling Zionism a form of racism...
...Nor does it reflect any preference for ages a monthly printout of the UN voting records of countries flabby opportunism or resigned pessimism...
...They complement each other...
...In dren...
...scenes Ms...
Vol. 106 • May 1979 • No. 9
