Will Russia Veto the UN?
HOTTELET, RICHARD C.
THE THREAT OF TROIKA DIPLOMACY Will Russia Veto the UN? By Richard C. Hottelet United Nations The 16th United Nations General Assembly has begun its work—quietly, anxiously, even...
...In addition, the USSR's terror tactics—beginning with the wreck of the Paris summit, through Khrushchev's shoe-pounding at the UN, to Berlin and the resumption of nuclear testing—have not been as "counter-productive" as many thought they would be...
...Nuclear testing is an integral part of the disarmament complex, but it contains a complicating element of major significance: the inclination of the so-called uncommitted countries to pursue a political and ethical double standard...
...When the survivors of World War II set about devising the United Nations, they sought to make it stable, powerful and realistic enough to contain the centrifugal nationalistic forces which had dominated the 19th and 20th centuries...
...With a "UN presence" on the scene, open Communist operations quickly stopped...
...They have suggested to the unscrupulous and the ethically uncommitted, to the weak and the exposed countries, that the Russians are powerful enough to override Western opposition and write their own rules...
...Efforts continue to cut the budget drastically, to install a deliberately ineffectual three-man (or, as an interim "concession," an even more unworkable four-man) committee in place of the Secretary General, to destroy the concept of a truly international civil service, and to move the headquarters out of the U.S...
...France, for its own reasons, is no more inclined to favor a strong UN executive than the Soviets are, and has considerable influence in Africa...
...Out of thin air and some vague resolutions, the Secretary General created a UN Congo operation which almost totally blocked Soviet penetration...
...Washington must now do its utmost on all levels to rally the non-Communist world in support of a strong United Nations...
...The Congo crisis of 1960 saw Hammarskjold's principles translated into action more completely, dramatically and successfully than he could have dreamed...
...in the question of seating Communist China, where some of the Africans threaten to support Peking if the U.S...
...Bitterly and explicitly, he declared that if the UN continued to disregard Soviet wishes it would meet the fate of the League of Nations...
...Even the most skeptical see nothing wrong with the addition of UN observers to the Western presence in Berlin, or the transfer of certain offices to the city...
...The Assembly lacks a consensus except in the most general terms and, with the death of Dag Hammarskjold, it is completely bereft of leadership...
...The world body has officially pursued it without success since the adoption of the first resolution by the first General Assembly in 1946...
...The most urgent world issue, the twin problem of Berlin and Germany, does not yet appear on the Assembly's worksheet, although everyone is acutely conscious of the stakes...
...The simple fact is that the UN and conventional diplomacy have both come to the end of their tether...
...And the action, however grim, is expected to stay within the bounds of tradition: Andrei Gromyko is not the man to pound a desk with his shoe...
...Nevertheless, Eastern and Western sources have tantalizingly suggested that the UN take part in a Berlin settlement...
...For Hammarskjold had worked out in his mind the principles of "preventive diplomacy," to be implemented by the international machinery of the UN under the strong executive leadership which the Charter had established in the Secretary General's office...
...The Kremlin hopes to destroy the Western position by outflanking it via the neutrals, by direct assault—as in the renewed Cuban charge of aggression—and by driving a wedge into the Western alliance with the Chinese representation issue...
...By Richard C. Hottelet United Nations The 16th United Nations General Assembly has begun its work—quietly, anxiously, even fearfully...
...At the very start of this session, however, the Soviet Union again made it clear that it will not accept supervision...
...They will undoubtedly continue their maneuvers to entice the neutrals with the catnip of anti-colonialism, general disarmament, peaceful coexistence and economic aid, while at the same time showing them the stick of Soviet anger...
...Peace and security," "international cooperation," "human rights" and other concepts in the Charter have a constant, intrinsic meaning for almost all peoples, whatever their national and cultural differences...
...The world has been compelled reluctantly to accept what Lenin and other Soviet leaders have proclaimed for 60 years: that the Soviet Union is a revolutionary power which repudiates not only the present international order but the principles on which it is based...
...There is much hope, though little assurance, that "quiet diplomacy" similar to the Philip Jessup-Jacob Malik conversations in 1949 may lead to a tolerable way out of this second Berlin crisis...
...Much is now at stake for the United States and for the international community...
...Understandably enough, the Soviets seek to exploit this inclination...
...Britain, too, took a dim view of Hammarskjold's initiative...
...The dramatic decisions of subsequent years had no bearing on the crucial issue...
...The principles expressed in the Charter are, in fact, those which govern the growth of a humane, world order...
...His purpose was to keep the cold war out of Africa and other troubled areas...
...Richard C. Hottelet reports on United Nations developments for the Columbia Broadcasting System...
...Russia's strength in this conflict should not be minimized...
...Moscow will never repeat the mistake...
...But the new plan rested on the premise, expressed in the veto, of unanimity among the five great powers...
...And it is this campaign which has brought the UN to its most critical juncture and places a decision of supreme importance before the now 100 member nations...
...This was perfectly logical, because no great power could be expected to let a foreign coalition judge its vital interests...
...The UN would then become an instrument of confusion and of Soviet policy, and would be better dissolved...
...One possibility he mentioned would place the entire city under UN trusteeship, with access guaranteed by an international force...
...One of its major advantages derives from the fact that, without a secretary general, no more need be done to render the organization impotent than to preserve the status quo...
...For the Kremlin, the UN Emergency Force in the Middle East was an unwelcome precedent, but not very important...
...Nor should one forget that the West is not wholly united...
...But, in the absence of any chance that an autonomous UN Berlin force could be established in the foreseeable future, most member states believe there is little to be gained from any such commitment...
...Diplomacy has unsuccessfully sought the key to disarmament for more than 40 years...
...The theme, obviously, is the struggle between the Communist empire and the West...
...As defined explicitly by Valerian Zorin, the USSR's Permanent UN Delegate, Moscow would accept a check of, say, the 500 tanks which a disarmament treaty would oblige it to give up...
...Over strong Soviet objections, the Security Council—using a proceedural device— despatched a subcommittee to Laos...
...If the postulate of great power unanimity on the fundamental issues of peace and international order seemed plausible in 1945, it has since—and most dramatically, now—been proved invalid...
...But the Communists, while rejecting these standards as bourgeois platitudes, adopted the nomenclature as convenient cover for the pursuit of power...
...At the same time, Moscow is unflaggingly attempting to paralyze the UN as an independent political factor...
...view of a world organization with the capacity to act impartially is the Charter position...
...Disarmament and nuclear testing, on the other hand, are issues which the United Nations cannot evade completely, although the attempt will be made and, in all probability, will partially succeed...
...The emphasis lies on the substance and tactics of the drama, which has here found a theater and a chorus of suitably epic dimensions...
...Khrushchev returned to the Assembly to demand Hammarskjold's removal and the emasculation of his office through the troika device...
...Nikita Khrushchev has proposed that the world organization help preserve a "free city of West Berlin" by moving its headquarters there, or even by assigning UN troops to act as guarantors of free city status...
...This issue was faced for the first time in 1950, when the world body met Communist aggression in Korea, but it was not resolved or even understood...
...The central issue remains whether the UN shall be only a permanent conference—a forum for debate and an alternative channel of diplomacy—or an agency of the world community acting, in the name of all, "to take effective collective measures...
...The UN intervention in Korea was made possible when the Soviets committed a serious miscalculation by boycotting the Security Council, where they might have stopped the operation with a veto...
...It has been brewing for at least 10 years and has been acute since 1959...
...Many of the smaller member state's, however, especially the new nations, realize that only the UN as presently constituted can provide them with a platform and some influence in world politics...
...It would be miraculous if even a realistic beginning of workable, balanced disarmament could be made at this Assembly...
...Yet, had the Secretary General lived, it would have come no later than the natural expiration of his term in 1963...
...Hungary quickly reassured it that the UN would not act, and it was willing to support Hammarskjold for a second term in 1957...
...It will be acted out in many, greatly varying scenes—separate points on the longest agenda ever, but unmistakably linked even when their purpose is no more than rhetorical...
...Moscow would rather leave it to a peace conference liberally packed with Communist nations...
...Death has removed Hammarskjold, but the struggle still centers on his office...
...The Western Allies prefer to preserve it as their joint legal responsibility with the Soviet Union...
...The majority of the UN members would just as soon not add it to their already vexing problems...
...But any attempt to see that a thousand more were not coming off assembly lines, had not been shuttled across a nearby frontier or were not standing ready in some stockpile, is furiously opposed as espionage...
...permits" Nationalist China to veto Outer Mongolia's admission, and thereby "causes" Moscow to veto Mauritania's acceptance...
...The present crisis for the UN and its members was precipitated by the death of Dag Hammarskjold...
...Most countries now reckon that defiance of the West will evoke only hurt surprise and overtures of conciliation, whereas displeasing the East will draw storms and thunderbolts...
...This attitude crops up elsewhere on the agenda as well: in the problem of colonialism, where the neutrals dismiss reminders of Eastern Europe and Tibet with annoyance as "cold war" items...
...Central to any disarmament proposal, of course, is control and inspection...
...Unlike last year, when the presence of world leaders at the opening sessions provided an air of high excitement, the mood now is one of foreboding...
...By 1959, Moscow began to show some signs of impatience, and even alarm...
...Faced with the clear possibility of war and with the threat of its own paralysis, the prospects for positive political solutions seem as small as the need for them is great...
...It is widely appreciated that a United Nations recast in the Soviet pattern would be a danger to free nations and those wanting to be free...
...He hoped to persuade the greatly increased UN membership to serve as a neutral presence which would permit independent and orderly national development...
...A few days later, Premier Khrushchev, who was on his American tour, spoke to the General Assembly...
...While much has been made of the neutrals' mild response to Soviet nuclear tests in the atmosphere, there is nothing in the least mysterious about it...
...Within a year, the Secretary General and the Soviets were in open collision...
...In addition, the veto appeared to reduce the likelihood of small nations having to "take sides" in a great power struggle...
...The unanimity principle of the League of Nations Council, which had led to deadlock and meaningless declarations, was discarded in favor of a Security Council able to take "effective collective measures" by majority vote...
...The U.S...
...The best efforts of General Assembly President Mongi Slim of Tunisia can do little to fill the power vacuum...
...Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker has urged the UN to consider the "internationalization" of Berlin...
...The Kremlin apparently thinks the time is now ripe to erase the old definitions and to impose its own...
...in essential agreement...
...Though most of his speech dealt with disarmament, he also voiced long and angry objections to the steps taken in Laos...
...They would prefer to be spared the necessity of debating the question at all...
...Failure will mean the decline and end of the international rule of law...
...Should quadrilateral diplomacy fail, however, the UN will certainly find itself the forum of last resort...
...and in the side issue of removing UN headquarters from New York because of discrimination, "pressure," etc...
...Redefining those principles in Moscow's terms, even without changing a word, would impose Soviet definitions of "peace" and "order" on international affairs...
...On September 4 of that year, the Government of Laos asked for aid against Communist aggression...
...Suez found Russia and the U.S...
Vol. 44 • October 1961 • No. 34
