Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR UN PARALYSIS I agree in general with Richard Hottelet's article describing the wind-tunnel atmosphere of the UN's 20th General Assembly ("Bending the U.N. Charter," NL January...
...The organization is still millions in debt...
...Where might they go next...
...To finance it...
...So we stood still and both of us made pro-UN, Hope-of-the-World noises while we quietly wedged rocks between the cogs of its wheels...
...To save the UN...
...For the Soviets: Tibet, Hungary, Korea and a number of other potentially recalcitrant satellites...
...Before the 19th General Disassembly, the U.S...
...As for Rhodesia, Wilson has throughout made clear his determination to bring down the illegal Smith regime...
...The architects of the policy fled: Cleveland to NATO, Schwebel to fresh fields in colonial "legalism," Plimpton to Wall Street, and the Secretary of State to Asian affairs, leaving behind only the dim echoes of caterwauling on an empty stage...
...Steel asks why the Labor left does not revolt at the postponement of the Steel Bill and the lack of "pro-revolutionary" policies abroad...
...Now the wheels have ground up the rocks and we stand naked, opponents with a common goal: the pursuit of our own interests at the cost of that world consensus which at one time the UN was supposed to represent...
...They knew perfectly well our legal case was weak, our political position inadequate and our resolution-fading...
...Faced with immense problems, this government has done well...
...The new peacekeeping operations, especially if they land up in any form in the General Assembly rather than in the Security Council, will be dyed and branded by the Afro-Asian majority...
...And no one has described better than Hottelet the futility of that retreat...
...Both ourselves and the Soviets were quiter relaxed when the UN was deprived of much" of its peacekeeping potential...
...delegation to the UN had not received -nor had anyone else on God's earth-any firm indication from the Soviets that they would make a "substantial contribution" to the Secretary General's voluntary fund...
...retreated because we could notand were never about to-muster adequate votes to apply Article 19 against the Communists...
...By every economic indicator-as even the Johannesburg Sunday Times agrees-he will succeed in that objective...
...Now, and during the 19th and 20th GA's, we had little use for the dusty storms that swirling majorities in the UN might stir up around our armed camps...
...With a firm five-year mandate, they will do better yet...
...Behind all this lie some simple, practical political calculations on the U.S.' part...
...we cracked...
...He has had mixed success so far...
...But in his analysis of U.S...
...The reason is that they are aware, as he is not, of the vital social legislation being accomplished by the government...
...Brown's Incomes Policy and early warning scheme provide the framework for solution of wage-price inflation...
...It is here that the U.S...
...Worse, they implied they'd stay-voteless even...
...The U.S...
...the Soviets have not paid their arrears and we, for the first time in the UN's history, are seriously considering cutting back on our contributions to voluntary agencies...
...shares with the Soviets that groaning springless mattress of common interest that the correspondents keep telling us about...
...I don't think so...
...The UN is still the same bag of milky-minded cookie pushers and propagandists it has been for years: soggy-cold hors d'oeuvres and blindingly boring speeches are still its main product...
...And here is where the grim vaudeville of Article 19 takes on some form of sense...
...The attack on monopoly and restrictive practices, the investment incentives, Mr...
...They sat...
...Clearly not...
...The U.S...
...Do we even want the Council-with its new 15-member composition-playing Safety Patrol at the street corners of the world which the Great Powers now occupy at so much cost and so little security...
...Charter," NL January 23...
...For the West the nightmares are: South Africa, Rhodesia, Cuba, Vietnam...
...He attacks the "image," carefully built up by its opponents, of a feeble government led by a cunning, self-seeking politician...
...Peart's farm merger incentives-all these Steel does not consider worthy of mention...
...Do we want them casting about for new adventures in "peacekeeping...
...Of course in due time, they were movedeasily and simply...
...The pensions and welfare systems are being reformed and, as the economic situation improves, will be broadened...
...So why did we retreat...
...Jonathan Harris...
...Callaghan's tax reforms, Mr...
...Economic ills as deep as those of Britain must be cured not by one or two spectacular "successes" but by thoroughgoing reform...
...for almost two years sponsored a ludicrous road show of "We Shall Not Be Moved" speeches, statements and press releases, choreographed with hideous dances depicting Soviet obstinance, parsimony, and immorality...
...but he has made a good start on a massive problem...
...Surely not...
...Cambridge, Mass...
...caved in in slow, paltry, unglamorous fashion...
...The Soviets simply sat on their bearish bottoms and grunted, "Nyet, not a ruble...
...Surely not...
...We all knew they would be...
...New York City George Bronson LABOR GOVERNMENT Ronald Steel's diatribe against the Labor government (Harold Wilson's Op Art, NL, February 14), destroys a straw man...
...To preserve its ability to launch peacekeeping operations...
...The Soviets made no false promises about contributions...
...He ignores the remarkable talents and the solid accomplishments of Britain's first progressive government since 1951...
...Neither of us are eager to see the UN sticking its clumsy paws into our respective affairs throughout the world...
...Gunter's redundancy payments to encourage labor mobility, the Highlands Bill to spur Scotland's sluggish industry, Mr...
...Let us ask ourselves first, who is for what and why in the future of UN peacekeeping operations...
...policy on Article 19 and UN financing, Hottelet leaves a few gaps of fact which are filled in with dubious assumptions...
...and-for any loyal American-the sting of a cowardly, purposeless retreat...
...They didn't threaten to leave the UN...
...Crossman has led the attack on social inequity with the Rent Act, and with bills to expand and redirect the public housing plans in the interests of the young working-class people who are most in need...
...Government support has been put behind abolition of hanging and reform of the brutal and antiquated homosexuality statutes...
...And here is where I believe Hottelet has balanced his article in a false direction...
...Any such indications were the daily chimera pursued by copy-starved journalists in the delegates' lounge and that small clique of Article Nineteeniacs in the State Department (Harlan Cleveland, Stephen Schwebel, Ambassador Plimpton and the Secretary of State himself) who, with their pack of baying lawyers...
Vol. 49 • February 1966 • No. 5
