Moscow and the U.N.
HOTTELET, RICHARD C.
TURNING BACK THE CALENDAR Moscow and the U.N. By Richard C. Hottelet The United Nations is caught between an irresistible force and an immovable object. The force is the valid logic of the...
...or whether the small countries have, in fact, been impressed and intimidated by the Soviets' ruthless pursuit of their interests in the UN as against the more flexible and accommodating Western line...
...share for peacekeeping has been higher, because of voluntary contributions...
...As for the mass of the UN members, however they may yearn for a quiet way out of this impasse through postponement or some flabby ambivalence, it is hard to see how they can avoid a decision...
...Carlos Sosa Rodriguez of Venezuela, rules at the outset that the Soviet Union and its associates have lost their votes, the ruling is bound to be challenged and a procedural vote will uphold or reverse it...
...There is no room for compromise...
...The Soviet Union's contributions to those projects which it supports at all amounts this year to $3.7 million worth of nonconvertible rubles...
...memorandum, "would undermine the constitutional integrity of the United Nations and could sharply affect the attitude toward the organization of those who have always been its strongest supporters...
...The Soviet Union would merely lose its vote in the Assembly, not its seat there or its right to speak...
...His first purpose was to destroy ONUC, which was already clearly blocking Moscow's objectives in the Congo...
...But Washington has declared categorically that there will be no evasion or retreat...
...Danger to peace was imagined mainly in terms of aggression by some revival of Nazism or Japanese imperialism...
...In the Congo, the Kremlin was furious when ONUC did not play the role it thought it had written for it—that of clearing out the Belgians and making the country safe for Patrice Lumumba and the USSR...
...In an organization which lives on compromise, in a world where it is best not to be too dogmatic about human affairs, colliding interests have often been astonishingly diverted...
...Nevertheless, it is almost certain that the issue will be decided by a vote in the General Assembly...
...Khrushchev denounced the move as an illegal trick and declared that the United Nations could survive only if it adhered to the principle of unanimity...
...The legal points are by no means unimportant...
...From the time that Andrei Gromyko stalked out of the Security Council in the spring of 1946 in an effort to stop debate on the continued Soviet military presence in Azerbaijan, the Kremlin has never ceased to put its interests first...
...Had it not been boycotting the Security Council over the China representation issue at the time of the Korean invasion, the crisis that now faces the UN would have come in 1950...
...The Soviet Union and six Communist members of the United Nations have fallen seriously behind in their contributions by refusing to pay anything toward the UN's peacekeeping activities...
...The Western Nations, in being always so eager to reach even meaningless agreements with the Soviet Union, like the fatuous Agreed Principles of Disarmament, unwittingly have built up the Kremlin as a party with whom business can be done...
...Nations which shrink from taking action against the Soviet Union under Article 19, appalled at hints that Russia might walk out of the UN, now face the painful consequences of, at the very least, American displeasure if they do not act...
...memorandum recently addressed to all member nations points out that the financial deficit is important in itself, threatening the organization with bankruptcy...
...The Soviet Union could always pull back from its political offensive, but only with a loss of face that would perhaps equal the withdrawal of its missiles from Cuba...
...the enormous expansion of UN membership and the mass production of new nations which added decolonization and development to all the old problems of disarmament and peace...
...One of the corollaries of this performance was, of course, the depreciation of the General Assembly...
...His heckling of Harold Macmillan, the pounding of the shoe, his attacks on Hammarskjold, the Western powers and their "stooges" were meant to demonstrate that the Soviet Union was strong enough to disregard its opponents and their effete diplomatic manners with complete impunity...
...Twenty-nine members would suffer by default, including 19 developing countries not yet repaid for services, supplies or money advanced to the UN...
...This is the background against which the Soviet Union is now forcing a financial crisis for political, strategic reasons...
...If it has not yet occurred, it is only because most of the money is owed to governments which have not pressed their claim...
...Legality of the most recent UN peacekeeping operation in Cyprus has not been questioned in Moscow, although there too the Soviet Union has refused to join other countries in contributing badly needed funds...
...The Security Council had used a procedural device to circumvent Soviet objections and sent a UN fact-finding mission to Laos—a UN presence whose arrival brought an end to a Communist offensive...
...The Charter requires that a member deliberately in arrears shall be deprived of its vote in the Assembly...
...Lack of success in that has not kept them from trying to nibble away at the Charter principle of the Secretariat as an impartial, international civil service, from keeping the budget extremely tight, and from doing what they can to transfer functions and meetings away from New York...
...Secretary General U Thant had no success in Moscow and Paris, appealing for a change of heart...
...The collision appears inevitable when the General Assembly meets for its forthcoming 19th regular session...
...When he first spoke to the General Assembly, in September 1959, to present the Soviet proposal of general and complete disarmament, he added a bitter warning on the subject of Laos which was largely overlooked...
...While not yielding anything of substance to the relentless Soviet drive in the UN, they have usually turned the other cheek to Soviet insult and abuse, deploring them for the record but foregoing a reply in kind that would "exacerbate tension" or "revive the cold war...
...But, while many delegates privately condemn the Soviet stand, they have not combined in the kind of solid front against it which alone might persuade Moscow to alter course...
...It goes to the heart of today's problem and creates a constitutional crisis for the UN...
...In the bitterest personal invective ever heard in the UN, Khrushchev called upon him to resign—in order to decapitate the UN executive apparatus and leave the organization floundering and ineffective...
...If there is a chance of persuading the new leaders in Moscow to alter their collision course, it lies in the determination of the small countries to preserve an effective organization...
...No room is left for manipulation, postponement, interpretation or other diversion...
...The Soviet Union, with its veto, would be able, in the last analysis, to block any action of which it happened to disapprove...
...Great powers would pay only for those aspects of the UN's work which they endorse—whether peacekeeping operations or functions of the normal budget and administration...
...Failure to apply Article 19 to a great power simply because it is a great power," says the U.S...
...Suggestions that the United States and other Western countries will, as usual, seek to avoid a showdown have already been circulated...
...If the President, Dr...
...The political work of UN headquarters, with its budget of $100 million a year, is paid for to nearly one-third by the United States...
...If the last component figures strongly, the Western representatives have no one to blame but themselves...
...It must also win broad support because it is morally and politically compelling...
...If the United States, Britain and the other nations defending the Charter position were to abandon their stand, they would not only be throwing away the single instrument of peaceful change available to the entire world community, they would also be scuttling the principle on which the postwar hope of a peaceful world was based...
...The General Assembly accepted this judgment by an overwhelming vote...
...It is not enough for the Western case to be legally airtight...
...The lesson of its boycott at the time of Korea is that the UN is too effective without it...
...Specific legal objections are that UNEF was initiated by the General Assembly in 1956 under the Uniting for Peace Resolution in violation of the Charter, in order to bypass the Anglo-French veto in the Security Council, while ONUC, which was launched by the Council in 1960, was perverted from its original purpose by Dag Hammarskjold and the "colonialist powers...
...A more likely course for Moscow than leaving the Assembly would be to remain and strangle the proceedings with procedural tricks or reduce it to pandemonium with the raving, desk-slamming tactics that the Communists employed against the French National Assembly in the late 1940s...
...the Korean War...
...It is safe to say that there would be no Special Fund, no Expanded Program of Technical Assistance, no FAO World Food Program, no work by the High Commissioner for Refugees, by the Relief and Works Agency in Palestine or by UNICEF without contributions from the United States and those countries which see the financial problem in the same light...
...In the Middle East, Moscow would prefer chaos...
...Even greater is the threat to the principles on which the UN rests, the danger of constitutional bankruptcy...
...Richard C. Hottelet reports on United Nations developments for the Columbia Broadcasting System...
...Moreover, since they were really arms of the "imperialist conspiracy" in Africa and the Middle East, the "colonialists" should pay the cost...
...His target was Dag Hammarskjold, who, as Secretary General, was the coordinator and guiding force of the Congo operation...
...It is especially important that the nature of the conflict be outlined so starkly at the beginning, for it has been described principally in terms of money, and money is the classic stuff of compromise...
...One uses the word members, rather than nations, in this connection because they include the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR—a fact which merely underscores the Soviet Union's initiative...
...That would be underestimating a man whose high intelligence and great self-control were coupled with a sense of self-styled histrionics that made him a formidable adversary...
...Moscow's refusal to pay for UN action that cut across the line of Soviet ambition is, in a way, understandable...
...and the strains of UN peacekeeping—all these forced a flexible, liberal interpretation of the Charter...
...The General Assembly, the one body in which all the members, young and old, large and small, industrial and undeveloped have equal standing and an equal voice, would be downgraded to the level of an annual seminar with the authority of a house committee...
...In making these charges, Moscow skips quickly over several key points: The International Court of Justice has ruled that peacekeeping costs are regular expenses of the organization, to be apportioned among the members...
...Past performance suggests that the Soviet Union will do everything it can to make the choice thoroughly agonizing for the small nations...
...It is difficult to say whether this is connected with the anti-colonial backlash...
...the document asks...
...But there does not seem to be the slightest possibility that Moscow will walk out...
...The Soviet position in the Security Council and the other UN organs would remain completely unaffected...
...Nothing would be less appropriate than to judge Soviet UN policy as a recent development, a response to unwelcome circumstances which might change when they did...
...This did not have the desired effect...
...Failure to apply the Article could seriously jeopardize the support of United Nations operations and programs, not only for the keeping of the peace, but for economic and social development...
...They may miraculously pass through each other, too insubstantial for serious damage, and continue on their opposite paths...
...But it is far more than a matter of pique...
...The cold war, which showed the interests of Moscow and the free world to be far from identical...
...Khrushchev meant to convey raw strength and there is little doubt that he succeeded—even though he did not attain any of his immediate political objectives...
...In its most charitable construction, the Soviet purpose is to turn the UN calendar back nearly 20 years...
...Both the UN Emergency Force in the Middle East (UNEF) and the UN Congo Operation (ONUC) are, it says, unlawful and therefore their expenses may not be legitimately charged to the members...
...When the United Nations was conceived in the final phases of World War II, it was seen as the peacetime extension of the victorious anti-fascist, anti-militarist coalition...
...He apparently has been no more effective in his appeal to the so-called Conference of Nonaligned Nations in Cairo...
...In September 1960, Khrushchev returned to New York to lead the Soviet offensive in his own way...
...The force is the valid logic of the UN Charter...
...At this writing, all together owe some $74 million and each is in arrears more than the equivalent of its last two years' assessments...
...Indeed, how could any institution that had committed such a breach of faith hope long to survive as a credit-worthy and effective organization...
...And after assuming supreme power, Khrushchev pursued this aim most consistently...
...Furthermore, the great powers, in their small Security Council, would assess the full membership for all major activities in the peacekeeping area...
...Such interests may simply vanish as a government decides not to press a case...
...Khrushchev's extravagant behavior—culminating in beating his desk with his shoe—was not by any means simply a sign of ill-mannered frustration...
...So dismal are the prospects of the UN without Western support that even the more timid members may find it not unthinkable to consider letting the Soviets walk out...
...Nor is there any sign at present that Khrushchev's sudden dismissal will result in a dramatic softening of the Kremlin's policy toward the world organization...
...But the U.S...
...The overwhelming majority of the membership, 100 and more, would have to swallow a revival of taxation without representation...
...The real sufferer, however, would be the UN itself...
...The object is the intransigence of the Soviet Union and its supporters, a roadblock meant to detour the UN onto a different and possibly disastrous road...
...When the death of Dag Hammarskjold removed the Secretary General, the Soviet Union sought to perpetuate the vacuum by replacing him with a Troika...
...As for UNEF, the Soviet Union was among those who first voted to transfer the question from the deadlocked Security Council to the Assembly...
...One might expect that the smaller nations would not for one moment tolerate any such trend...
...How could an enfeebled and creditless defaulter maintain peace and security...
...A second U.S...
...Facing the possibility of a General Assembly meeting early this year over the Cyprus problem, the United States sent a memorandum to the member nations which concentrated not on the underlying issue but on the legal enforcement of the sanction in Article 19...
...If the Soviet Union were allowed to violate the Charter by threatening to treat punishment as an unfriendly act that might break up the UN, the organization would be proclaiming its impotence in the face of blackmail...
...But 102 vetoes since 1946 mark the efforts of the USSR to use the UN as an instrument of Soviet strategy...
...From the beginning, Moscow has said frankly and forcefully that this is not a financial question...
...A loophole has been built in for those who are unable to pay, but the Soviet camp has never made such a claim...
...Naive, young countries may be excused for feeling that the crisis which now looms is both surprising and unnecessary...
...The United States saw the danger early but did not rise to the challenge...
...On occasion, it has miscalculated grievously...
...Furthermore, quite specifically, there will be no change in the Johnson administration's stand on this question after November 3. The decision is where it really belongs, in the hands of the small countries which benefit most from the UN...
...Now the United States is placing much greater emphasis on the meaning of the case...
...Unanimity of the great powers was accepted as necessary and built into the Charter in the form of the veto...
...Or the contestants may be happy to split the difference...
...it embraces issues of fundamental concern—no less than the nature and effectiveness of the organization...
...In recent weeks, the United States has made it plain that it would not buy the Soviets a face saver in this crucial issue at the expense of further confusion...
...Article 19 provides, in a case of this kind, that the member "shall have no vote in the General Assembly...
...Too much is at stake for either of the contending sides simply to give in as though it were an inning in a diplomatic game...
...Yet this is the mold in which the Soviets would recast the United Nations—as a debating society, not merely incapable of action against Moscow's interests, but able to act only with Soviet approval...
...Speaking still for the Eastern European Communist camp, Moscow asserts that the assessments are illegal...
...The crux of the Soviet argument is that all UN action in the field of peace and security must originate in the Security Council, where Moscow can veto anything it does not like...
...Atmosphere is important, especially in so impressionable a company as the United Nations...
...If they fail, whether through timidity or confusion, the United Nations will enter a new and difficult phase of civilized man's effort to live in peace...
...Lawyers have worked out a variety of other possibilities—all of which culminate, one way or another, in a vote...
...Between the lines of this cool statement is the direct implication that the United States, which provides the UN with the greatest support by far of any member, would not be interested in underwriting an organization which proved untrue to its precepts...
...Frustrated by the availability of U Thant, a man whom they could not oppose, the Soviets tried to fence him in by obtaining greater influence among his advisers and stronger representation in the staff of the Secretariat...
...The years since 1946 have been spent remolding the Charter, in practice, to suit the needs of a vastly different world from the one the fathers of the Charter had foreseen...
...A rigid, legalistic structure would long ago have splintered under the pressure...
...But the crisis which now faces the United Nations is unlike other conflicts...
...He soon made it clear, also, that the establishment of this principle was the cardinal point of Soviet policy in the UN...
...whether the developing countries are so preoccupied with their own problems that they dismiss the present struggle as a cold war matter...
...For the event that Moscow might find it expedient to approve or to abstain on the first round— as it did to satisfy Archbishop Makarios in acceding to a Cyprus operation—the Kremlin wants financing also to be in the Security Council's hands...
...Charles DeGaulle's France, incidentally, seems to take much the same view...
...With authorization of funds provided only in two or three month periods, as now tends to be the case, an operation could be killed at any point along the way...
...Thus legal arguments for nonsupport are clearly only fig leaves to cover less respectable grounds...
...The Soviet Union not only does not want to pay for past peacekeeping activities, it also wants to make certain that the United Nations will never again be able to act against Soviet interests...
...And in the work of nation-building, development and marshaling of resources — which most affects the young, emerging countries—45 per cent of the funds ($104 million in 1964) are provided by the United States...
...The stabilization of the world strategic balance through vastly superior Western military and economic strength has too often been allowed to appear as partially the product of Soviet forbearance and readiness to compromise...
...Nor does Article 19 involve expelling those who are defiantly in arrears...
...In the next few weeks, one may expect an orchestration of explanations, righteous indignation, more or less concealed threats and appeals for anti-colonialist solidarity...
...In the case of ONUC, the Soviet Union voted for successive resolutions setting up the Congo force, giving the Secretary General broad discretion in its direction, endorsing its action and widening its mandate...
Vol. 47 • October 1964 • No. 22
