Basic HTML Version
the success of American policy in
the 1940s and 1950s.
"But now America doesn't like
it. Majority votes in the General
Assembly and UNESCO are hos–
tile. Washington now wants to be
rid of these infuriating organs of
world opinion. World opinion has
been expressing not the lofty ideal–
ism of liberated mankind as imag–
ined by Americans but the tawdry
reality of international life."
Perhaps the most significant out–
come of the UNESCO affai r is that
by leaving the Paris-based agency,
the U ni ted States could be laying a
philosophical foundation for one
day leaving the United Nat ions
itself. Such a move, if it were to
take place, would mean that the
United Nations, headquartered in
New York City, would have to
leave the United States.
American journalist George F.
Will is in the forefront of U.S.
jouroaJists urging consideration of
such a move. Shortly after the
United States announced its inten–
tion, in late 1983 , to leave
UNESCO, he wrote:
"Leaving UNESCO ... would
help Americans get used to the idea
of leaving the United Nations.
... In 1985, the United Nat ions
will be 40 years old , its nature fully
formed and well-known."
The United States did threaten
to leave in 1982 after Israel was
condemned in a U.N. resolution as
a "nonpeace-loving state" after its
military incursion into Lebanon.
(Article 4 of the U.N. Charter
states that the organization is only
open to "peace-loving states.")
In the article "The Broken
Promise of the United Nations,"
published in the October 1983
Reader's Digest,
author Ralph
Kinney Bennett wrote, "Only a
U.S. threat to tak:e its moneybag
and leave the U.N. prevented such
'peace-loving' states as the Soviet
Union, Libya and Cuba from
throwing Israel out."
That was when Charles Lichen–
stein, then America's assistant
U.N. ambassador, said that if the
United Nations decided to leave
New York City, he and many other
Americans would be down at dock–
sirle waving good-bye.
Should the United States pull
out of the United Nations and the
6
U.N. headquarters be forced to
leave New York City, many
observers believe its likely new
home would be Yienna. A gigantic
complex known officiaJJy as the
Yienna International Center houses
the United Nations' second Euro–
pean operation (after Geneva).
The facilities used by the United
Nations (known as U.N. City)
were built jointly by the Austrian
goveroment and the city govero–
ment of Yienna to attract U.N.
business. A few, generally second–
level, U.N. agencies and U.N.-spe–
cialized operations are there now.
The United Nations pays a sym–
bolic one-schilling-a-year rent.
If
the United Nations were
forced to relocate to Europe, the
Yienna facilities would probably be
selected over the older Geneva
operation (consisting of the pre–
World War 11 League of Nations
buildings). The Soviet Union
would undoubtedly prefer Vienna,
which is not only a neutral East–
West "bridge," but is geographi–
cally close to the Soviet bloc.
Should the move to Yienna take
place, it would indicate a shift in
power and influence away from the
United States. The Uni ted "$tates
has housed the headquarters of the
United Nations since its own ascen–
dancy to first superpower status
in
1945.
Should the United States tell the
United Nations to pack up, tbe
majority of Americans might
cheer-not realizing it would at the
same time graphically reflect their
own nation's relative decline.
As Hans
J .
Morgenthau wrote in
his classic text
Politics Among
Nations,
"The shift from one
favorite meeting place to another
symbolizes a shift in the preponder–
ance of power."
This highly probable shift would
also enhance the prestige of Europe
and play no small role in any future
realignment of the nations of East–
ern and Westero Europe.
U.N. Found Wantlng
Regardless of where the United
Nations maintains its headquarters,
one thing is certain as it arrives at its
40th birthday. In the Bible, the
number
40
connotes a time of obser–
vation, trial and testing.
Forty years after its founding, the
dis-United Nations, with its many
conflicts, divisions and acrimony,
has been tried and found wanting.
The original framers of the U.N.
Charter had a noble aspiration: to
organize a mechanism for interna–
tional discussion and cooperation on
problems of global significance. The
reality of world politics has made a
mockery of this lofty idealism. In a
world of sovereign, diverse nations,
the United Nations as an organiza–
tion is limited in wbat it can do.
It
can only do what its sovereign mem–
bers, employing age-old techniques
of power politics, will, at present,
allow it todo.
The United Nations is not a
world government , as sorne su–
preme idealists had dared to
hope- not even the embryo of one.
Only when nations, in a spirit of
mutual understanding, abandon
selfish aims and petty quarrels and
learo to cooperate for the good of
all, will a truly effective world gov–
ernment be possible. And more
than that is needed.
The late Hans Morgenthau,
quoted earlier, remarked that inter–
national peace will be achieved
"on ly when nations have surren–
dered to a higher authority the
means of destruction wbich modero
technology has put in their hands–
when they have given up their sov–
ereignty."
lnscribed on a marble wall at the
U.N. headquarters in New York
C ity is a portion of the ancient
prophecy of Isaiah 2:4, symbolizing
the ultimate goal of the United
Nations.
"They shall beat their swords
into plowshares, and their spears
into pruninghooks: nation shall not
lift up sword against nation, neither
shal l they learn war any more."
The first portion of this proph–
ecy- not quoted on the marble
wall- provides the answer to how
worldwide peace and prosperity
will ultimately be achieved: "And
he
[God] shall judge among the
nations, and shall rebuke many
people.... "
The world will soon see the real–
ization of its centuries-old dream of
permanent peace-not through
puny efforts of man, but through
divine intervention and the imple–
mentation on earth of the supreme
government of God. o
The
PLAIN TRUTH