The U.N.'s Other Dimension

...If you don't call the doctor until it's time for the autopsy, there will be no patient...

...After World War II, it was to be a panacea to solve all the world's problems and to prevent future wars...

...That would be an expression of cowardice which 1 do not recommend...

...BEYOND RHETORIC The UN's Other Dimension by gertrude samuels United Nations re are perilously near to a new international anarchy," Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuel-lar warned last month in his first "Annual Report" to the United Nations...

...Considering the disenchantment now with the UN," I asked, "and the number of nations rebuffing it, as the Secretary General himself pointed out in his report, where is the real worthiness of the UN today...

...A former UN press officer, today he is Director of Public Information for the UN Asso-ciation-U.S.A.andheconductsmanya seminar at Turtle Bay...

...Remember, it was Abba Eban of Israel who said once that he got more done in diplomacy in two weeks of the General Assembly than he got done in the other 50 weeks of the year...

...Debate without effective action erodes the credibility of the Organization...

...Sills concluded with a statement that needs to be understood by each of the 157 members...

...It's very important to realize that something like 80-85 per cent of the effort in terms of manpower and money goes to the economic and social side, and to our humanitarian programs...

...in situations in which it should, and could, have played an important and constructive role...

...Blum of Israel did tell me: "The United Nations has no real value, not in its presenl shape...

...the less reported Iran-Iraq war, now in its third year...

...Sills told me: "Most of the Third World, when they see or think about the UN, remember someone wearing the UN insignia in their village, ministering to their health needs, or building a well, or helping to relocate refugees—doing all these positive and constructive things...

...And until...

...1 think this tendency is dangerous for the world community...

...I think that we're all living under a difficult legacy...

...At the Security Council, the Israelis sit at the same table with the PLO, which is already something...

...member governments do it, they can pass resolutions here which will be ignored—that's a simple fact of life...

...True, Ambassador YehudaZ...

...One was Brian E. Urquhart, the highly respected Under Secretary General for Special Political Affairs who has been with the UN since its inception...

...I'm not saying a lot of things don't go wrong here...

...can come here automatically...

...But we live in an era where nationalism is extremely strong and internationalism is weak...

...The composition of the UN today stands in stark contrast to 1945, when it consisted of 50-odd nations and was dominated by the industrial West...

...British-born and educated at Oxford, he served with parachute units in North Africa and Sicily during World War II, and he has gone to many hot spots on behalf of the Organization: the Congo, Cyprus, Kashmir, the Middle East...

...Reflecting on the Organization's usefulness, he observed: "Since the UN was established, there have been more than 100 shooting wars...

...It's not true of the Third World...

...drawal, his position was not very different from the Secretary General's...

...the UN was oversold," he declared...

...and the Vietnam-Kampuchea fighting...

...exports...

...The problem, of course, is that the world has changed...

...Another UN veteran I spoke to was William C. Powell, who earned his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, served with theU.S...

...Why, then, the 'American phenomenon?' What's not getting through to the public...

...And as the Secretary General seemed to caution in his scathing report, ultimately there will be no United Nations...

...For example, for the past three years we have had an enormous operation in Kampuchea, one of the hardest-hit countries, after the Pol Pot regime...

...It met some 60 times during the past year trying to further this end, yet failed in every instance...

...We have been extremely successful in reviving normal life in the economy and its social life...

...But the implementation of any actions depends on the willingness of member governments to put pressure on the parties to a crisis...

...Unless or until we approach the UN as professionals . . we won't ever know whether the UN could be made a hospitable place for the American national interest...

...These include the Soviet Union's continuing occupation of Afghanistan...

...The sharp forebodings expressed in the Secretary General's surprisingly candid report were not on the agenda, but they could not help being on many minds...

...No, the democratic nations should not withdraw," Blum said...

...Shortly afterward, on September 21, the 37th General Assembly convened in the familiar vast, elegant chamber on Turtle Bay...

...the brutal civil war in El Salvador...

...flareups in Argentina and Libya...

...They do...

...Yet when I asked whether this means he favored withGertrude Samuels reports regularly on the United Nations for this magazine...

...if we have a failure, it gets the front page...

...I heard more in the same vein from Joe Sills, who received his Master's degree in Arab Area Studies from American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and worked as UN Spokesman for the President of the 36th General Assembly, Ambassador IsmatKittani of Iraq...

...That would be defeatism...

...they don't have to wait for a special conference to be set up...

...The63-year-old civil servant responded to my question about the UN's value with an air of certainty: "There's the human factor...

...Under the Charter, the Security Council has "primary responsibility" for the maintenance of peace...

...Our work in Bangladesh, after the war of 1971, was an important operation—it salvaged the country...

...During the past fortnight, I have explored the issue in interviews with several experts who have had long tenure at the UN and can view it from a somewhat different perspective than the diplomats who have turned it into a platform for their interminable, predictable speeches...

...Already the developing countries purchase 38 per cent of U.S...

...Because they're all here...

...If we increase their purchasing power, it will come right back to the United States...

...This year, time after time, we have seen the Organization set aside or rebuffed...

...Essentially, the Secretary General made clear, he wants this assemblage to "reconstruct the Charter concept of collective action for peace and security...

...For on "The International Day of Peace" that marks the beginning of each new Assembly session, Perez de Cuellar's words were dramatically illustrated by ongoing confrontations around the globe...

...A dozen heads of state plus some 90 foreign ministers joined the permanent staffs of the 157 member governments to start debate on no fewer than 130 items...

...Navy, and assisted in the initial portion of the first General Assembly, held in London in 1946...

...Urquhart also emphasized the UN's quiet humanitarian work: "If we have success in those fields, it's extremely unlikely to make much of a news story...

...But at least, if there is a crisis, the parties...

...Ambassador to the UN, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, put the matter pointedly before a conference held by the Heritage Foundation: "We have often behaved like a bunch of amateurs in the United Nations...

...A lot of human contacts are going on here that people don't hear about, between members who can't talk anywhere else...

...Instead, they should fight to bring the UN back to its principles and its Charter...

...While the battle is being waged, is there some other largely unpublicized dimension to the World Organization that alone would almost seem to justify its preservation, not to mention cost...

...Last June 7 the U.S...

...the turmoil in Lebanon...

...Now the so-called non-aligned and Third World blocs hold the balance, and they usually join with the Soviet Union and its satellites to form an "automatic majority...

...This," heexplained, "is why the Secretary General suggested we try to distinguish parliamentary debate, which is acrimonious and rhetorical, from problem-solving, where you really have to get down to issues with agreat deal of privacy and restraint, to discover what options you have...

...Take the UN Development Program, which is the largest in the world, literally affecting the lives of millions of people...

...They find this place very useful for multilateral diplomacy...

...That's the history of this organization...

...Moreover, no one in the minority, not even the Organization's principal whipping boy, Israel, proposes quitting in despair...

...The Organization's potential, he said, "lies in trying to utilize the UN far earlier in a conflict...

...But as Dag Ham-marskjold said, people blame the storm on the ship instead of on the weather...

...The Under Secretary noted that the most diplomatically isolated nations?Israel and South Africa—have confidence in the "international part" of the UN, too...

...I think individual Israelis meet with Arabs—and even with members of the PLO, but not their government representatives...

...But the democracies, although outnumbered 2-1, cannot wholly escape blame for their own ineptitude in this arena...

...This so-called disenchantment," Powell replied, "is peculiarly an American phenomenon...