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eration of such a move.
Will wrote:
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 21, 1984
In his December 17, 1984 column quoted earlier,
You pay 25 per cent of UNESCO's bills. For that, Paris' better
restaurants and boutiques thank you. They are beneficiaries of
the handsome salaries paid to the elephantine bureaucracy at
UNESCO's headquarters. But on January 1 black crepe will go up
in the boutiques, because that's when the United States withdraws
from UNESCO. Happy New Year.•••
UNESCO perfectly reflects the United Nations itself, and there
fore all the reasons for leaving UNESCO are some of, but not all
of, the reasons for leaving the United Nations.
Last year, in a December 22, 1983 column, Will wrote:
Leaving UNESCO would be a shot across the UN' s bow, a warning
that there are limits to U.S. tolerance. And leaving would help
Americans get used to the idea of leaving the United Nations•••.
In 1985, the United Nations will be 40 years old, its nature ful
ly formed and well-known. If in 1983 the United States decides,
regarding UNESCO, that enough is too much already, 1984 can be
the year for weighing the costs--financial, political, moral--of
continued participation in the United Nations.
The United States, in fact, threatened to leave in 1982 after Israel was
condemned in a UN resolution as a "non-peace-loving state" following its
military move into Lebanon. (The UN is, according to its charter, open only
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 take its moneybag and leave the UN pre
vented such "peace-loving" states as the Soviet Union, Libya and
Cuba from throwing Israel out.
That was the occasion during which America's then assistant UN Ambassador
Charles Lichenstein said that if the UN decided
to leave New
York City, he
and many other Americans would be down at dockside waving good bye.
If the UN left New York City, the most likely new home would be Vienna, Aus
tria. There, a gigantic complex of buildings, known formerly as the Vienna
International Center, houses the UN' s second European operations (after
Geneva). The facilities used by the UN (commonly known as "UN City") were
built jointly by the Austrian government and the city government of Vienna
in order to attract UN business. Presently a few, generally second-level
UN agencies and UN-related operations have relocated there, mostly from
Geneva. The UN pays a symbolic one-shilling-a-year rent.
I toured the new facilities last June. While huge, they probably could not
presently house all the UN operations. However, a separate Vienna con
ference center complex is nearing completion adjacent to the UN buildings.
This, I suppose, could be used in a pinch.
If push came to shove, the Vienna location would probably be selected over
the Geneva facilities (the old League of Nations buildings).
The Soviet