The World on the East River
LASH, JOSEPH P.
The World on the East River United Nations: Hope for a Divided World. By Sir Leslie Knox Munro. Henry Holt. 185 pp. $4.00. Reviewed by Joseph P. Lash United Nations correspondent, New York...
...In this he has succeeded...
...In 1952, the world organization was at the very hub of world politics...
...Although the book is subtitled, "Hope for a Divided World," it fails to portray what the UN's role can be in such a world...
...As the representative of a small state allied to the West, Sir Leslie would have been well qualified to comment on this important development...
...Sir Leslie proposes, for example, that a UN force take over the protection of Berlin...
...The Charter vests the UN with responsibility for disarmament, but the great powers have lifted serious disarmament negotiations right out of the UN...
...President of the General Assembly and also as his country's Ambassador in Washington...
...Of judicial mien, invariably courteous, a good mixer, he proved adept at UN politics, and, as the representative of a small nation allied with the West, quickly made his way up the UN ladder...
...But he ignores here the great changes that have taken place in the UN since Korea...
...What Krishna Menon's colleagues think of him, for example, is suggested by Sir Leslie's references to the "oracular" Krishna Menon who "does not hesitate to lecture his associates" and "deliver the ultimate wisdom on every subject...
...In this he challenge's Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold's theory that no UN organ would be entrusted today with the kind of policy decision that would be needed to back up a potential fighting force...
...He argues that "the UN was behind the fighting force which successfully threw back the Northern Koreans and the Chinese...
...Reviewed by Joseph P. Lash United Nations correspondent, New York "Post" SIR LESLIE Knox Munro came to the United Nations in 1952...
...For example, he does not deal with the decline in the UN's stature and power...
...it cannot enforce such an agreement, and will not be able to do so until the great powers turn their arms over to a world authority...
...The UN can encourage, supervise and implement an East-West agreement...
...It does not help the UN to arouse false hopes about its present capabilities...
...Yet the resistance of the small nations to the tendency of the larger nations to by-pass the UN and settle matters among themselves has been surprisingly feeble...
...today it has been pushed out to the periphery...
...The biggest losers by this development are the small states, since the UN is the only forum where they have a right to be heard and taken into account...
...It is enlivened by anecdote and spiced occasionally with a portrait in pepper...
...Sir Leslie undertook to write a book that would tell "the general public" how the UN works and how it has handled some of the big crises, especially Suez and Hungary, in which Sir Leslie was himself a participant...
...It seems clear that the growing influence of the Soviet Union and the influx of Afro-Asian states, most of them committed to non-alignment, have, for the time being, pretty much destroyed the UN's capability to serve as a collective security organization...
...Sir Leslie conveys the special flavor of that self-contained, unique little world on the East River, especially as it appears to the working diplomat and old UN hand...
...These are unique vantage points from which to survey the UN and Sir Leslie has produced a pleasant, readable and informative book...
...But there are notable deficiencies in his account...
...The UN is uniquely equipped for channeling aid to the underdeveloped nations, but the great powers are bypassing it...
...Although one-fifth of President Eisenhower's State of the Union message was devoted to the foreign aid challenge, there was no reference to the UN...
...Before a change of governments at home ended his assignment as the permanent representative of New Zealand, the bushy-browed diplomat had served as head of the Trusteeship Council, President of the Security Council...
...Currently he is the Assembly's Special Representative on Hungary...
Vol. 43 • February 1960 • No. 8
