VIEWS OF THE WEEK
The UN's Last Deserter
MURRAY KEMPTON writes from New York:
Those persons—and they are almost all Americans—who still cherish some hope for the United Nations have the consolation of the bulletin board near the staff cafeteria. The bridge tournament goes on, with the Soviet pair a reassuring last; the jazz society is working Kenny's Pub on York Avenue. The judo class displays photographs of Scandinavian girls tossing Korean girls over the shoulder; young ladies, come here in the service of peace and be- fore long they are studying how to break the wrists of muggers in subways. No society this lively can ever die.
But the United Nations itself is ailing and for reasons deeper even than those which trouble its Secretary-General. President Johnson seems to have made certain the UN's permanent disability. The United States no longer takes the UN seriously enough to treat it with common courtesy; and, when we abandon the United Nations it is abandoned everywhere. We are the last high-minded nation and the only one which has a great body of its enlightened public with real devotion to the UN. It is America's myth as de Gaulle is France's, negritude Africa's, and the universal proletariat Russia's.
Yet it is impossible to remember a solitary reference to the United Nations in the torrent of words which Mr. Johnson has poured forth since January. For the past month, we have done every- thing we can to discourage any UN intervention in Santo Domingo. Ambassador Stevenson barely bothers 'to argue that we have not, for the first time in our history, violated the United Nations charter. The charter has been dis- honoured by nearly every other substantial nation, India in Goa, the Soviets everywhere in their neighbourhood, Britain and France at Suez. The defection of the United States simply means that the poor thing has no one left to trust.
The Security Council has struggled with us for three weeks now. Ambassador Stevenson has been at his most comfortable when he was arguing that the Dominican adventure is a peace-keeping operation by the Organisation of American States which 'has acted promptly, effectively and vigorously and indeed with a sense of historical movement.' For the Security Council to take up the issue 'could tend to bring the highly con- tentious atmosphere of world politics back into [the] situation.'
Now, if the United States had thought the OAS was acting vigorously and effectively, Mr.
Johnson would hardly have felt the need to send his troops to the Dominican Republic. What is more, it has almost always been the United States view that the United Nations has an authority above any regional compact. Last fall, when the Organisation of African Unity was demanding jurisdiction over the Congo, Stevenson argued most effectively that this was a matter for the United Nations. If peace-keeping is a function which can be pre-empted by regional organisa- tions, just what can the American position be if there is a civil war in Rhodesia and the Black African states send in a force to pacify the white settlers? The notion must already have occurred tc Jordan that the Arab League is a regional organisation which might take a mind to pacify it; Jordan alone on the Security Council has been voting with the Soviets for outright con- demnation of the American intervention.
Without the United States, of course, there is no great power lift to care about the United Nations. although the French are wonderfully enjoying the experience of feeling righteous. Ambassador Federenko cries out the indignation of the Soviets, but he can suggest no Security Council action beyond verbal condemnation of the United States.
After three weeks, all resolutions for remedy had failed; and the United States resolution,which represented if not the remedy the reality, was withdrawn from the sense it could never gather the votes it needed. The matter would trail on then with no possible conclusion; the UN could only watch while Mr. Johnson's ambassadors con- tended with the fledgling Trujillos who held them for the moment at their mercy. Ambassador Stevenson seemed contented enough, although he did say that he found rather trying 'these interminable meetings.' All the meetings are likely to seem interminable now that the United States has also decided that they are useless. The only joy of life left to the United Nations is in the bridge club and the judo classes.
Previous page
