$3.00
UN:
TODAYmJ TOMORROW
BY
Eleanor Roosevelt
AND
William DeWitt
This much-needed book, written in
lively, immediate terms, gives a compre-
hensive account of the United Nations.
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, active in the
UN from its early days until her recent
retirement, presents, in collaboration
with an experienced journalist, William
DeWitt, an explanation of its work and
functions, and an appraisal of its future.
The book outlines the concrete work
done by the UN in various areas to main-
tain peace such as the efforts toward
settlement of the Palestine question and
gives special attention to the role of the
United Nations in the Korean war. It
includes anecdotes about some of the UN
delegates. It also describes the work, and
quiet heroism, of the men whose names
rarely make headlines members of UN
investigating missions and of the UN
Field Service who are posted in various
danger spots throughout the world.
The authors take the reader on a
guided tour through the UN headquar-
ters in New York. From the men and
women employed in the Office of the
Secretary General to the window-clean-
ing squad on year-round duty, they
explain how each person connected with
this vast organization does his job. They
give a graphic description of the house-
keeping problems involved in operating
(Continued on back flap)
No. 9800
MAt DEC 10 1975
16 1979
3 1148 00549 1998
OCT 2 2 1993
G
OM^
*
341*1 R?Su
Roosevelt
UN: today and tomorrow*
65-49096
UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
JUN 1965
.,_ .__.,!_
Eleanor Roosevelt
ana William DeWitt
UN
TODAY AND
TOMORROW
HARPER & BROTHERS, Puttiers, New York
UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Copyright, 1953, by Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
and William A. DeWiU
Printed in the United States of America
All rights in this book are reserved.
No part of the book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written per-
mission except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews. For
information address Harper & Brothers
49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N. Y.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress catalog card number: 53-8752
Contents
Introduction: The UN and Human Rights vii
CHAPTER 1 Politics and Shooting 1
The Korean story new aims and attitudes in warfare
earlier crises adventures of the UN Field Service the
voting question chief UN bodies
CHAPTER 2 UN-ville 28
International treaty town varied jobs of Secretariat
members housekeeping library, post office, bank,
shops social life and personal problems
CHAPTER 3 The UN Nobody Knows 72
The Specialized Agencies fighting disease raising
more food fundamental education labor interna-
tional exchange and investment mail weather tele-
communications aviation
CHAPTER 4 The Private Citizen's Part 141
United Nations emphasis on the individual what he
can do to aid the international effort, what's done for
him achievements of Non-Governmental Organizations
Note on the Future t 147
What's possible and what's probable in the future
what past and present work guarantees what the basic
idea of the UN forecasts for the human race _ A
KANSAS CITY (&/SQ.) PUBLIC LIBRAS?
VI CONTENTS
Supplements:
101 Questions and Answers about the UN 151
UN Charter and Statute of the International Court of
Justice 169
Declaration of Human Rights 217
Organizational Chart of UN 224
Members of the UN 227
Abbreviations in the UN 229
Index 231
INTRODUCTION
The UN and Human Rights
THE PURPOSE of this book is to tell the day-to-day story of the United
Nations in a way that wfll give it down-to-earth, personal meaning
for anyone who reads it Not the details of parliamentary procedure
in the General Assembly, or the delicate subtleties of international
law, or all the many-worded names of the hundreds of committees
and the long chronology of their meetings, resolutions and reports.
But the human story of the UN's work and the people who do it,
the methods and objectives, some of the failures and some of the
successes.
No one can doubt that the nations which took part in the pre-
liminary conference at Dumbarton Oaks, and later at San Francisco
collaborated on the UN charter, ware all honestly looking for meth-
ods by which they could refashion the world into a design for
peaceful living. None of the leaders or the nations they represented
were under the delusion that acceptance of the Charter would
automatically banish conflict, but they did believe that peace was
impossible without observance o its principles, And they hoped
under the Charter to construct international machinery that would
foster co-operation among nations in the varied fields of human ac-
tivity and thereby through bettor mutual understanding increase
the desire of all peoples to live without war.
At the first UN meeting in London, during January and Feb-
ruary of 1946, this machinery was set up and put in motion. Follow-
ing the Charter plan, its main parts were the General Assembly, the
Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship
vii
Vlll INTRODUCTION
Council, the International Court of Justice and the Secretariat,
with subsidiary parts to be added as needed in accordance with the
terms of the Charter.
Although the Charter merely says that each member "shall not
have more than five representatives in the General Assembly/* five
alternates in addition were provided for as a continuing rule; how-
ever not all members take advantage of this rule. The delegation
as a whole casts one vote. A simple, or two-thirds majority, would
determine a recommendation, depending on its importance, and no
member is entitled to a veto. (The Assembly has no power to do
more than recommend courses of action to its members.)
In the vitally important Security Council, however, which is en-
trusted with the primary responsibility of maintaining peace in
the world, five of the eleven members ( China, France, the U.S.S.R.,
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the
United States of America) were given a great advantage. They were
designated in the Charter as permanent members and, except on
questions of procedure, the required majority of seven for passage
of any measure had to include the unanimous affirmatives of all
permanent members present and voting. This was the equivalent of
veto power for any one of the five nations named. (Abstention, of
course, does not constitute a veto.)
In writing this veto power into the Charter the intention had been
merely to protect the Great Powers from interference in what they
could reasonably define as their domestic affairs by any majority
combination of smaller members. But the Soviet member of the
Council used it so often and in so many ways other than was
originally intended that the General Assembly at last was driven
to find methods of getting around the resultant impasses. One
method was authorized in a resolution giving the Assembly the
right to take up any question no longer under consideration in the
Security Council.
Statesmen who had watched the beginning, the fumbling middle
and the final failure of the League of Nations felt it essential for the
UN to possess an international police force capable of enforcing its
INTRODUCTION k
decisions. The argument was that individual countries, long accus-
tomed to respect for their familiar internal laws, still needed con-
stabularies to see that obedience continued; how much greater.,
therefore, the necessity for an adequate security system in this inter-
national union, whose regulations were unfamiliar and not invariably
acceptable to all countries they affected, and whose members were
unused to submitting to any authority higher than themselves. If
reason failed to persuade (which must be occasionally expected
for a long time till member countries learned to concede the moral
authority of international decisions as meekly as Americans had
learned to concede the legal authority of the United States Supreme
Court), then collective force should be available to bring any
recalcitrant into line.
Articles 43-47 of the Charter provided for such a police force in
rather general terms. But controversy between the United States
and Soviet Russia over control of atomic energy and other aspects
of disarmament prevented actual establishment of any UN military
organization on a permanent basis. This failure has weakened the
UN's prestige and made many of its tasks more difficult than they
might have been.
Both pacific and military measures to stop aggression are duties
of the Security Council. It shares with the Trusteeship Council ob-
ligations to see to the welfare of Trust Territories in the category
called "strategic areas." These are wards of UN member nations
which regard them as essential to the latters* defense (the Marianas,
Marshalls and Caroline Islands are the United States "strategic
area" Pacific Trust Territory). Other Trust Territories, without this
special classification, come under the single jurisdiction of the
Trusteeship Council, which was a particular interest of the govern-
ment heads who originated the UN idea. The Council has ap-
proached the task of administering non-self-governing peoples with
a humanitarian regard for their political, economic and cultural in-
terests very different from the old colonial days.
The Economic and Social Council was set up and has operated
pretty much as the Charter contemplated, except, possibly, that its
X INTRODUCTION
work has been expanded and diversified more than was expected,
partly in compensation for reverses in other sections of the UN
program.
\ The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ
of the UN and functions in accordance with a statute embodied in
the Charter which was based upon the statute of the Permanent
Court of International Justice, the world court it superseded^
The Secretariat, which is housekeeper and administrator for all of
the UN, is headed by the Secretary-General and its personnel are
selected by him.
The achievements of the many agencies and organizations asso-
ciated with the Economic and Social Council have been numerous
and substantial. Touching as they do on a variety of fascinating
areas of Me, a number of these achievements will be recounted
later in this book.
The Economic and Social Council felt from the beginning that a
first essential for any of its work was widespread understanding of
the Charter's emphasis on the value of human rights and freedoms
and their rightful possession by all people, regardless of race or
creed, color or national origin. Recognition of these rights seemed
to the Council one of the indispensable cornerstones on which a
peaceful world could be built. Therefore, in the spring of 1946, the
Council called together a Commission on Human Rights to decide
how this could be achieved for all peoples.
Its first job, the Council decided, should be to write a Charter
of Human Rights, so that its aims would be clearly set forth and
understandable to all the member nations.
Organizing as a group of eighteen members appointed by gov-
ernments which were selected for being geographically representa-
tive, the Commission went to work composing the Charter. But its
members decided in the beginning to work at the same time on a
declaration which would form the first part of the Chartei^This
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (see p. 217) was intended
to set standards and voice the aspirations of people throughout
the world, but not to be legally binding.
INTRODUCTION XI
Two other parts were planned for the Charter as a whole. One
was to be a covenant or covenants written in the form of treaties
for ratification by all the nations accepting them, each in accord-
ance with its own constitutional processes. If changes of domestic
laws were required to attain the standards of the treaties, they
would have to be made.
The third part of the Charter was to be a plan of implementation,
its aim being to provide methods of calling to account signatories
that failed to live up to their agreements.
not legally binding, it was easiest to
agree upon, and the final draft was presented through the Economic
an3 Social Council to the General Assembly meeting in Paris in
1948. After nearly two months of discussion the Assembly approved
the Declaration, with forty-eight affirmative votes, two nations
absent (Honduras and Yemen) and eight abstaining (the Soviets
and their satellites, and South Africa and Saudi Arabia).
The reason given by the Communist members for abstention
was that the Declaration failed to go beyond the eighteenth century
in recognizing rights, that it gave insufficient importance to the new
rights of the twentieth century, the economic and social rights, and
therefore was valueless.
South Africa, on the other hand, felt that the document went
much too far. The delegates said they hoped to give fundamental
rights and freedoms to their people, but not such modern ones.
Saudi Arabia abstained because of the article on freedom of
conscience and religion, in which it is said that an individual has
"the right to change his religion or belief." In an impressive speech
before the General Assembly the Foreign Minister from Pakistan,
Sir Zafrulla Khan, had justified Moslem adherence to the Declara-
tion, despite this clause, on the ground, as I remember it, that the
Koran said he who can believe, shall believe; he who cannot be-
lieve, shall disbelieve; the only sin is to be a hypocrite. On the
strength of this speech Pakistan, largest of the Moslem states,
brought along to the affirmative side all the Arab Moslem states
except Yemen, which was absent, and Saudi Arabia. The delegate
XII INTRODUCTION
from Saudi Arabia explained that has King would not accept the
interpretation of the Koran put forward by Sir Zafrulla Khan. It did
seem a little flexible to other Moslems, but the cause was a good
one.
The practical effect of such a Declaration, with no legally bind-
ing power, might seem disputable. But, for one thing, the forty-
eight accepting states combined their affirmation of the Declaration
with a resolution that bound them to acquaint their peoples with
its contents so far as they could and to try to attain the standards it
set up. For another, new governments arising, such as India and
Indonesia, incorporated some of the Declaration's clauses into their
constitutions. Here in the United States some courts referred to
the document in legal decisions and in one or two cases there was
a thought it might carry authority, since it was an extension of
the UN Charter, which had been accepted as a treaty by the United
States and therefore was the supreme law of the land. This view
was not borne out by higher courts.
I think the Declaration's impact on people throughout the world
has been of very considerable magnitude much greater than most
Americans suspect. Like the effect of the Magna Carta, the Droit
de 1'Homme and the Bill of Rights in our own Constitution, it isn't
easy to measure, particularly because it's exerted on an international
scale, but it's there. As an expression of fundamental UN philosophy
it has enormous psychological influence and some of the psycho-
logical influence reverts to the benefit and prestige of the UN.
The UN has translated the Declaration into forty-seven different
languages and has set December 10 as Human Rights Day, to be
celebrated by all UN member nations.
Work on the covenant part of the Charter has been going on
steadily since 1948, but fashioning a feasible treaty form for human
rights has proved very difficult. Finally, it was decided to separate
the task into two halves a covenant for civil and political rights
and another one for economic and social rights. The first pair are
more f amiliar, more easily phrased in traditional legal phraseology
and much of their content is already on the statute books of such
INTRODUCTION xiii
countries as our own. Therefore the Commission foresees less
trouble gaining their acceptance than if they were combined in one
document with economic and social rights, which are much more
controversial.
A nondiscrimination clause, though it's part of our Constitution,
would rouse antagonism in the United States, but this could be met
by inserting the standard federal-state clause which is part of many
other American treaties. It binds only the federal government to
observe the treaty and only where Federal law is operative, leaving
to the states the decision in their jurisdiction. Countries that are
not federations of sovereign states, as we are in theory, rather
bitterly oppose this clause in our treaties on the ground that it's an
evasion of responsibility: they obligate their whole peoples, while
we make reservations. Nevertheless, I myself would prefer to risk
their displeasure, if adding the clause will make for a step forward,
rather than give up all hope of gaining acceptance by our Senate.
One article in the last draft of the civil and political rights cov-
enant that I saw dealt with self-determination of peoples. It failed to
explain under what circumstances people should have the right of
self-determination. Moreover, in maintaining the right of people
to control their own natural resources it made no provision for
compensating foreign investors or contractors on the loss of income
when such resources are nationalized. Obviously, these omissions
alone would prevent United States ratification.
Since the present Administration in Washington announced in
advance of their completion that it would not present either of the
covenants for ratification to the Senate (nor those on genocide and
the political rights of women), there is now less point in speaking
about them to Americans, who will not be affected for some time
to come, no matter how they are written.
But it might be worth while to consider a question that is some-
times asked: why do we need a treaty? The basic answer is that law
is a better framework in which to develop rights and freedoms
than waiting for a change in heart by believers in the theory of a
master race or the Lord-endowed privilege of one skin color to rule
XIV INTRODUCTION
over others. Without a law some who don't need a change in heart
hesitate to act on their own beliefs because of social pressures. With
a law, they need only obey to do what they consider right.
The third part of the Charter, implementation, presents hard,
practical problems. Nongovernmental organizations feel that peti-
tions should be received from sources of their own land, as well as
from individuals. But there is no machinery to handle the great
number of complaints sure to come. Already thousands of them are
on file in the UN Human Rights Division, waiting for action. Some
governments have suggested setting up a Committee on Human
Rights composed of members of high standing and many national-
ities, from whom panels could be drawn to hear individual cases,
with complaints permitted at first only by one state against another.
There is a good chance, of course, in such a setup that friendly states
would forget to complain against each other, while unfriendly ones
would go out of their way to fill the docket. But even this limited
and dubious beginning might be better than nothing.
Aside from the adverse attitude of the American Government,
there is a good deal of informed and sympathetic opinion in favor
of shelving the covenants for the present, while the Declaration
is given time to do all the informational ground-breaking it can in
preparation for consideration of the actual treaties. My own feeling
is that we can't gain ground by standing still.
Human rights and freedoms are essential to the economic de-
velopment of many areas of the world, as field workers of the
Specialized Agencies will attest. Then with health, education and
better opportunities to work, new areas can be opened as the addi-
tional markets we need for our products. Recognition of human
rights and freedoms is thus essential to the preservation of our own
standard of living. If s also a vital issue that affects our world
leadership among democratic nations.
I hope this book will serve to strengthen the belief of our people
in the value of the UN and the absolute necessity of giving it our
full support.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
CHAPTER 1
Politics and Shooting
DRIVING to UN Headquarters in the spring of 1953, a passenger ad-
mired the beauty of its buildings aloud to her cab driver. He agreed.
Then she asked him if he had been inside and he shook his head.
"The guided tours are on seven days a week," she persisted. "You
could go on a week end, or whenever you have a day off/*
"No. I wouldn't go/* he said, without belligerence. "Not that I
have anything against them. But I won't go till they stop the war in
Korea."
There are a thousand monumental problems facing the UN
daily political, economic, social, technical, administrative questions
of the utmost difficulty. But there isn't a harder or more important
type of question than the one raised by that cab driver. It recurs
again and again in one form or another.
It's easy enough to point out the failure of his logic. But his atti-
tude, which the end of the fighting won't affect, is also the attitude
of millions of others, and as an obstacle to understanding it has the
rugged height, weight and imperviousness to argument of the Andes
Mountain range.
One trouble is that he's right, in a sense. The UN was set up to
keep peace in the world, and it clearly hasn't. The 140,000 American
casualties in Korea are tragic and unanswerable proof of that. And
no amount of future international harmony will ever bring back
the 25,000 dead
But the blood and the waste of Korea do not, despite the UN's
1
2 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
inability to avoid combat in this case, relieve us o the responsibility
and the need for understanding what happened and how, if only
as a first step toward preventing future disasters.
The UN was set 'up to keep peace, it's true. But only as a
mechanism its members could use if they wished to iron out
their differences without resorting to armed force. It has no power
to keep nations from starting wars if they so choose. It has no
power to stop wars, once started, except by military victory of
member forces under its unified command, or by negotiation. What
the UN tried in the case of Korea was something unique in the
annals of modern warfare a combination of patient, protracted
negotiation and at the same time military action that was powerful
enough to stand off the aggressors and demonstrate to them plainly
that they could not win, but limited to re-establishment and defense
of the South Korean border that existed before the invasion.
Three years of desperate and bloody fighting greatly confused
the issues. By June of 1953, when the Communist command agreed
to UN truce proposals, only to have South Korean President Syng-
man Rhee turn on his allies and protectors with "unilateral*' actions
designed to wreck early peace prospects by this time most of the
background of Korea had been forgotten and in the public mind
the name signified only an endlessly drawn-out, lethal and prodi-
giously costly mess from which we ought to withdraw with what
grace we could, but anyhow fast. What we were doing there in the
beginning, what the fighting was all about, what anyone hoped to
gain, were not only questions that had no clear answers, but ques-
tions that weren't even any longer often asked.
Korea as an organized nation antedates the United States by
about three thousand years. Without some notion of at least the
latter stages of that thirty-century history, it's hard to think of
President Rhee's actions during the truce negotiations as anything
but irresponsible, if not deranged. But in the light of the inhuman
handling of his country as a pawn in the nineteenth-century-and-
after designs of Russia, China and, for the thirty-five years before
the end of World War II, by Japan, they take on a motivation that's
POLITICS AND SHOOTING 6
perfectly clear and open to sympathy, even if their intelligence stays
equally open to question.
From the twelfth century B.C. on, Korea had close ties with China,
culturally and govemmentally. Japan made her first major try at
invasion in 1592, with an army of 300,000 men. Coming to the
rescue with 60,000 men, China fought off the invaders for six years
till the death of the Japanese Regent in 1598 called them home. In
1866, 1867 and 1871 United States and French expeditions killed
a great many Koreans in retaliation for the deaths of French mis-
sionaries and American adventurers at Korean hands, but made no
attempt to establish a permanent hold on the peninsula. The second
major Japanese conquest effort came in 1894 and this time the
Chinese lost out in the fighting. But within a few years Russian
intrigue undermined the Japanese position, and it took a smashing
victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (the United States
President was mediator for the peace, incidentally) to put the Island
Empire firmly in the saddle. Japan formally annexed Korea in 1910.
Anyone looking at the wrecked cities and ravaged countryside
today might we! ask: "Why? What did they want?"
The answer is: forests of great value in the north; a wealth of
mineral deposits waiting to be developed gold, silver, zinc, copper,
lead, iron, tungsten, graphite, kaolin and hard coal; and a highly
important strategic location. It was this last that the Japanese said
forced than into the 1904 conflict with Russia. Japan called the
peninsula a "dagger pointed at her heart"
Japanese rule over Korea was barbarously repressive, with torture
and execution the answer to protest, and planted the seeds of
an independence movement that grew steadily and passionately
through the years till the final Allied victory in the Pacific in 1945
made the generation-long dream of release come true.
"Half-true* would be more accurate. Soviet forces occupied the
northern portion of the peninsula at the end of the war, while the
United States Army occupied the southern part, below the 38th
Parallel. A provisional government composed of five representatives
each from the two areas, together with the Joint Commission of the
4 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
Occupying Powers, was supposed to work out a plan for independ-
ence after a four-power trusteeship (the United States, Soviet Rus-
sia, the United Kingdom and China) lasting five years. But the
Joint Commission never came close to agreeing on anything, the
two halves of the land remained divided and in the latter part of
1947 the United States submitted the problem to the UN.
Moscow promptly objected that, like other questions connected
with the peace treaties, this was out of the UN's jurisdiction. But
the General Assembly went ahead and set up a Temporary Com-
mission on Korea whose job it was to arrange free elections for a
national assembly, which, in turn, would set up a national govern-
ment. The Soviet bloc at the UN refused to have any part of this
action, on the ground that absence of elected Korean representatives
made it a violation of the UN Charter, and guards along the 38th
Parallel prevented the Commission from going north of there to
do its work.
Nevertheless, the election was announced for May 10, 1948, with
UN field groups observing, and, although the Soviet Government in
the north hastily, on May 1, adopted a constitution claiming juris-
diction over all Korea, it went off on schedule and was declared by
the UN observers to be a free and valid expression of will by the
two-thirds of the Korean population living south of the 38th Parallel.
The Government of the Republic of Korea came into being, with
Syngman Rhee as President, and on December 12, 1948, the UN
General Assembly gave it official blessing, asking that the occupying
powers withdraw their forces and setting up a new Commission on
Korea to lend good offices toward unification of the whole peninsula.
In 1949 this Commission reported to the General Assembly that
it had observed the withdrawal of United States forces in accord-
ance with the UN request, but had been "unable to verify" the
withdrawal of Soviet occupation troops for the good reason that it
had been denied permission to cross the 38th Parallel. It confessed
total failure in unification efforts, for the same reason, and men-
tioned bitter propaganda and hostile activities on both sides. In
early 1950 the Commission learned of incidents along the border
POLITICS AHD SHOOTING 5
and of guerrilla activity within the Republic to the south. As a
result, it appointed military observers and they were in position, on
June 25, to report expeditiously when the full-scale invasion began.
The United States that same day announced our opinion of the
invasion as a breach of the peace and an act of aggression, request-
ing an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council. For once
the Soviet veto failed to stop action, the Russian permanent member
being absent, and under United States urging the Security Council
in a quick series of meetings undertook to resist the attack with UN
member forces under a unified command headed by the United
States, which was also to appoint the commander. President Truman
designated General Douglas A. MacArthur to lead the UN forces,
and the fight was on.
All the rest is well remembered the retreats and advances of
the troops, with their concomitant misery and heroism, losses and
victories; the overt addition of Chinese Communist armies to the
aggressors; the political uproar in the United States when General
MacArthur was relieved and took his case before Congress with
the dramatic "old soldier" speech; the arguments of later returning
generals over the question whether or not there was enough ammu-
nition and whether or not we should have mounted an all-out
offensive; the sudden hope in mid-1951 when the Russians them-
selves suggested discussing a cease-fire, and the dwindling of it
after actual talks began and got nowhere; the rekindling in mid-
1953 when the Communists at last stopped stalling and accepted
the UN truce proposals formulated by the Indians, and the eleventh-
hour dashing of that by the South Koreans* unauthorized release of
prisoners of war; then the beginning of recovery from shock as the
Communists took it with less umbrage than we had expected; and,
finally, the cease-fire itself.
Clearly, Korea has been a hard test for the UN, both as a concept
for furthering world peace and as a mechanism for implementing
the concept. There were tests before, but they rarely got to open
fighting never on the scale of Korea and they were both briefer
and less complex in their possible consequences. This was the
6 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBROW
sternest of trials for will power, patience, endurance, the spirit of
co-operation and the willingness to negotiate and compromise.
There is a great deal to be learned from it now, and there will be
more as time goes on, for the issues over which the fighting began
were not settled either by firing the cannon or by ceasing to fire
the cannon. They remain where they were, no matter what that
taxi driver does about the guided tours*
For fire-eaters one of the most painful lessons to be memorized is
adapting ourselves, as Secretary-General Hammarskjold puts it, to
war "which ends without total victory for any party but only for
a principle/* Americans tend to pride themselves on the somewhat
debatable point that we've emerged victorious from all conflicts
except Korea; hence the recurrent demand from some quarters
during the fighting that we plunge forward, no matter what the
cost, to the Yalu River and, if resistance by the enemy continued,
go on to bring the whole of continental China to its knees.
The victory for a principle (the principle, of course, being unified
international protection against aggression), Mr. Hammarskjold
said, "is a full vindication of those brave men who have sacrificed
their lives. . . ." This is a novel attitude that the parents, loved ones
and friends of the dead may find it difficult to accept. Traditionally,
there have been heroes in both victories and lost causes. That
there may be heroes in a deliberate stalemate is a new idea,
acclimatization to which undoubtedly will require time.
Finally, Mr. Hammarskjold insisted, the victory for a principle
"will have to be followed by a peace without vengeance. The
United Nations Charter provides for all manners of action to repel
aggression but it makes no provision for the ultimate punishment
of the aggressor, once the fruits of an attempted aggression have
been taken from him. The United Nations . . . does not foresee the
use of force to secure the fruits of victory in terms of land and
power."
This, again, breaks with ancient, punitive tradition that de-
manded an eye for an eye, with perhaps a nose thrown in for good
measure. The tradition is immensely strong, but if it seems infran-
POLITICS AOT> SHOOTING 7
gible we can recall powerful other traditions that have yielded to
the pressure of reality in our times. ""They started it, didn't they?"
may well go the way of Calvin CooMdge's celebrated "They hired
the money, didn't they? 7 * If we were able to accept the fact of life
that it's sometimes impossible and even undesirable to force repay-
ment of dollars loaned, we have a chance of learning that it's im-
possible to obtain restitution for lives and treasure lost in a "victory
for principle'* and in the long run bad judgment to try.
Another painful truth we are learning is that it's not only the
aggressor we need to watch, but also the weaker nation we're trying
to protect. An underdog, to survive, gets the habit of snatching at
any and every advantage, without much more regard to the effect
on friend than on foe. When Syngman Bhee released the prisoners
of war, he admitted his purpose was to forestall a trace and keep
the UN forces fighting till the Communists were driven out of
Northern Korea and the whole peninsula was united under his
Government In effect, he accused the UN of breaking faith by not
pursuing that military objective on its own.
The truth, of course, is that the plainly stated military objective
of the UN, as translated into action chiefly by United States arms,
equipment and manpower, was to re-establish and protect the pre-
aggression border on the 38th Parallel. Unification of the two
divided sections of Korea was stated with equal plainness to be a
political objective, still aimed at, but which the UN proposed to
achieve only by peaceful means,
Of UN intervention to the end of June, 1953, Korean Ambassador
You Chan Yang said it had done nothing for the Republic, except,
he inferred, bring on destruction. ""We are still in terrible fear that
the Communists will occupy our country sooner or later." So, the
UN might answer, are other countries, and: **WeVe done everything
we thought we could in Korea, but there is a larger question we
have to keep in mind: the danger of a third world war. What you
want us to do now might well bring it on.** As for the destruction,
the UN Unification and Rehabilitation Commission is still on the
ground, waiting to do its part in repairing damage.
8 UN: TODAY AND TOMORBOW
The Korean conflict brought practical changes in the working
of the UN, as well as new ideas about warfare for public consump-
tion. Chief among these was a shift of functional emphasis from
the Security Council to the General Assembly.
When the Charter was signed in San Francisco, June 26, 1945,
a fundamental premise of the UN structure assumed that the five
Great Powers allied in World War II would continue to agree on
major questions at least. Therefore, although the main body, the
General Assembly, gave one equal vote to each of the member
nations and required at most a two-thirds majority of those present
and voting for action on "important questions/' the Security Council
got the veto. Composed of eleven members, six of them elected by
the Assembly for two-year terms, the Security Council had the
primary responsibility for maintaining international peace. Since
the Great Powers (China, France, the U.S.S.R., the United King-
dom and the United States) after World War II would be the
source of the world's main military strength and had by far the
biggest stake in keeping the peace, they were made permanent
members of the Council and it was agreed that the Council could
take no action against which any one of them voted. The aim of
this decision, of course, was to prevent any combination of smaller
countries from forcing irresponsible action, the burden and conse-
quences of which would fall most heavily upon the Great Powers.
Unfortunately, the premise turned out to be false. After the war's
end, Soviet Russia, instead of going along with the other four Great
Powers on matters of importance, almost invariably opposed them,
and its own ideas were about equally resisted by the rest. The
Security Council became a study in futility and frustration, with
East and West at irreconcilable odds on practically everything
from disarmament to the old, old problem of Trieste. It was only
the accident of Russia's temporary absence from the Council that
permitted such prompt UN resistance in Korea.
On the return of the Soviet member August 1, the now familiar
veto deadlock again made its appearance. Soviet resolutions accus-
ing the United States of bombing defenseless civilians were rejected
POLITICS AND SHOOTING 9
eight to one. A United States resolution condemning the North
Koreans fell under the Russian single-vote veto. But, since the veto
counted only in substantive matters and procedural questions could
be decided by a majority of seven Council members, it was possible
to forward some of the points being debated to the General Assem-
bly, where the two-thirds majority rule applied and no single nation
or small bloc of nations could hamstring positive action.
The intervention of Chinese Communist forces was one of these
points. A cease-fire group of the Assembly sent proposals to the
People's Republic of China suggesting steps toward a truce, which
would be followed by a conference to settle Far Eastern problems,
including the question of Formosa and representation of Communist
China in the UN. In replying, the Chinese demanded as a basis of
agreement the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Korea and
leaving the settlement of Korean domestic affairs to the Korean
people themselves. They insisted that the "rightful place" of the
People's Republic of China in the UN be established as from
the beginning of the conference, and that the subject matter of the
negotiations must include withdrawal of United States armed forces
from Formosa. The idea, of course, was to mmimize the Chinese
share in the Korean invasion by pinning the label of aggressor in
Formosa on the United States, and also to emphasize its claim of
being discriminated against by denial of representation in the UN,
while the vestigial Chinese Nationalist Government, confined to
authority only over the island of Formosa, retained its seat and its
veto as a Great Power in the Security Council. To the Chinese and
Russian Communists, Formosa was an integral part of China and
American interference an act of aggression.
Generally speaking, of course, the United States position was
upheld in the Assembly and additional measures, including embar-
goes, were taken against the aggressors.
As early as September, 1950, weaknesses of Security Council
organization in an emergency had become so apparent that the
United States submitted to the General Assembly a "United Action
for Peace'* plan, which formalized the shift in emphasis from the
10 UN: TODAY AND TOMORBOW
Security Council to the Assembly in case of threats to peace or acts
of aggression. Its chief provision was for emergency special sessions
of the Assembly on twenty-four hours' notice at the request of seven
members of the Security Council or a majority of UN member
states, if the Security Council, through disagreement among its per-
manent members, failed to act in a threat to or breach of peace.
The minority objected that the United States plan, by depriving the
Security Council of a portion of its powers, in effect changed the
Charter, and it also resisted convening the Assembly on only twenty-
four hours' notice and by the vote of only seven Security Council
members. But on November 3, 1950, the American proposals won,
fifty-two to five, and the UN's ability to act in a crisis was thereby
considerably increased.
Ultimate settlement of Korea's problems probably must await a
general political settlement in the Far East, or at the minimum,
establishment of some workable modus Vivendi, which may or may
not come out of the conferences to follow the truce. What can be
said now of the UN's part in the affair is nothing very new. The
fledgling organization, still learning the ABC's of a One World
culture, met its greatest crisis without falling apart which is not
nearly so negative as it may sound. In so doing it provided history's
first dramatic example of a permanently organized international
body resisting aggression with military force, and resisting it suc-
cessfully. It not only stood off a powerful initial attack and won
back ground yielded in the beginning, but maintained its purpose
and its principles undiminished through long months and years of
painful military attrition and exasperating shifts, procrastination
and provocation in the negotiations for a truce. And it became inter-
nally stronger during the trial.
These items surely belong on the credit side of the ledger and
offer hope for greater accomplishments in the future as the eight-
year-old organization grows up and becomes wiser and more articu-
late more able, for one thing, to persuade citizens of its member
countries that it's their role to help make it succeed, not to sit back
POLITICS AND SHOOTING 11
and demand miracles in a vacuum. Our taxi driver friend is one
example.
There were crises before Korea, Professors Amry Vandenbosch
and Willard N. Hogan have made interesting brief studies of the
seventeen disputes or dangerous situations that were referred to
the Security Council, the General Assembly, or both, up to Septem-
ber of 1951, judging what success or lack of it the UN had in deal-
ing with each case. In their opinion the UN had had half a dozen
reasonably well-defined successes, four problems in which it made
some progress or improvement occurred for other reasons, and
seven in which it failed or could not act.
This is a somewhat arbitrary accounting, with which the profes-
sors might not altogether agree. For instance, in January of 1946
the Government of Iran asked to have alleged interference by the
Soviet Union in its internal affairs brought before the Security
Council. The Security Council referred the question back to Iran
and Russia for further negotiation, asking to be kept informed. In
March Iran again complained, stating that Soviet troops being
maintained in Iranian territory contrary to treaty provisions were
a danger to international peace and security. The Security Council
discussed the matter and decided to delay action a few weeks, but
keep the complaint on its agenda. Soviet troops then withdrew and
further discussion was adjourned. Despite a lack of formal action
by the Security Council, this case has a flavor of accomplishment
and goes down in the count as a success.
On the other hand, the case of Franco Spain is placed in the zero
column. At the San Francisco and Potsdam conferences it had been
decided to deny membership in the UN to the Spanish dictatorship,
which had given aid and comfort to Hitler and Mussolini. In early
1946 this decision was endorsed by the General Assembly. A month
or two later Poland charged in the Security Council that Franco's
activities had caused international friction and were a danger to
international peace and security. Russia wanted to take concrete
measures to overthrow the Spanish regime, but the others wouldn't
12 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
go that far. In December the General Assembly barred Spain from
membership in international agencies and conferences connected
with the UN (a ban that was lifted in 1950), asked member coun-
tries to recall their ambassadors from Madrid and instructed the
Security Council to think of a course of action if Spain failed to
establish a new and acceptable government. All this might be called
action, but Franco remains in command of Spain (receiving finan-
cial aid, as a matter of fact, from the United States), and therefore
the aim of the original discussion has not been achieved and the
case goes down as a failure so far as effective UN action is con-
cerned, whatever we may think of the wisdom of the Assembly's
recommendations.
In the Corfu Channel affair, brought before the Security Council
in January of 1947 by the British, Albania was accused of laying
a minefield without notification that damaged two British warships
and killed British sailors. Albania sat in on the Security Council
meeting and heard the British resolution against her lose by virtue
of a Soviet veto. But the Council, on a procedural vote not affected
by the veto, then recommended that both parties submit the case
to the Court of International Justice. Great Britain followed this
advice and, despite Albanian protests over the Court's jurisdiction,
eventually won a judgment of 843,947. This instance falls into
the middle group of accounting, in which problems are resolved or
changed for reasons other than Assembly or Security Council action.
In February of 1946 the governments of Syria and Lebanon made
a complaint to the Security Council that was almost identical with
the one presented by Iran the month before, only this time it was
French and British troops, rather than Russian, that were alleged
to be trespassing. The result was the same, too, the troops being
withdrawn without any formal request or direction from the Coun-
cil. Accomplishment.
A clearer-cut success for the Security Council was Indonesia, one
of the earliest and not one of the easiest problems it had to face.
The Ukrainian S.S.R. submitted it first on January 12, 1946, charg-
ing that British and Japanese military actions against Indonesians
POLITICS ANI> SHOOTING 13
threatened international peace and security. Nothing happened
then, but the following year, after the Netherlands had agreed, in
March, to independence for the Republic of Indonesia, Australia
and India called the Council's attention to fighting between the
Dutch and the Indonesians. A Council Good Offices Committee
went to Java in October and arranged a trace, which was signed
January 17, 1948. But trouble started again and continued all
through 1948, the Netherlands in December denouncing the truce
agreement and starting military operations in earnest. On January
28, 1949, the Security Council called on both sides to stop shooting
and on the Netherlands to release the Indonesian President and
other political figures being held prisoner. At UN instigation Dutch
and Indonesian representatives then held meetings from April to
August and, with the help of the UN Commission for Indonesia (the
Good Offices Committee with expanded authority), agreed on
most of the disputed points. That November at The Hague a com-
plete transfer of sovereignty over Indonesia was promised to the
Republic of the United States of Indonesia by December 30 and
the Netherlands-Indonesian Union was established, a co-operative
federation of equal members to handle foreign affairs and defense,
and financial, economic and cultural matters. On September 28,
1950, the General Assembly took in the Republic of Indonesia as
the sixtieth member of the UN.
The celebrated Berlin blockade, with its fourteen-months-long
air-ferrying of coal, food and other domestic necessities into the
German capital, was brought before the Security Council by France,
the United States and the United Kingdom on September 29, 1948,
but the Soviet veto prevented action and it wasn't until the end
of May, 1949 (the blockade started April 1, 1948), that direct agree-
ment reached by representatives of the four occupying powers
restored transportation to a common sense level. This was, of course,
a failure for the Security Council.
The Communist coup Seiat of February 25, 1948, in Czecho-
slovakia came before the Council in March of that year by way of
a Chilean request to consider a plea from Dr. Jan Papanek, up till
14 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
the overthrow of President Benes the permanent representative o
Czechoslovakia to the UN, for an investigation of the change in the
Czechoslovaldan Government. Russia naturally denounced the alle-
gations of Soviet interference and threats to use force as completely
false and intended to divide the Great Powers and weaken the UN.
Newly Communist Czechoslovakia declined a Council invitation to
talk the matter over on the ground that the Charter did not cover
discussion of a country's internal affairs. The Soviet veto expectably
blocked further action and the Council remained, in the apt tech-
nical phrase, "seized of the question." Total failure.
After Cardinal Mindszenty, Roman Catholic Primate of Hungary,
had been sentenced on February 8, 1949, to life imprisonment for
treason, the General Assembly adopted a resolution (April 30, 1949)
expressing grave concern over the accusations leveled against Hun-
gary and Bulgaria and drawing their attention to clauses in the
peace treaties they had signed ensuring respect for human rights
and fundamental freedoms. Later, after a carefully considered but
practically unhelpful decision by the International Court of Justice
against Bulgaria, Hungary and also Rumania (which was brought
into the dispute after the first two countries), the Assembly passed
a resolution condemning the three nations, none of which was or is
a member of the UN. Cardinal Mindszenty, more than four years
later, was still confined. In this case, action but no practical achieve-
ment. "
In Greece, the UN helped to restore a measure of order after
trouble with guerrillas supplied by hostile neighboring countries.
In a dispute between India and South Africa over alleged discrimi-
natory treatment of Indians in the latter country, no progress was
made. And so it goes.
For many of the questions brought before the Assembly and the
Council it's necessary to send groups of observers or negotiators,
or a combination of both, to the scene of trouble. For these Investi-
gations and Inquiries'* the UN Field Service provides administration
and a variety of other services. Mission and Field Service members
POLITICS AND SHOOTING 15
often lead adventurous Byes, full of emergencies and troubles and
need for local adaptation. They get "jungle-happy" on long stints an
the wilds, they get neuroses from the continual hostility of natives
in some of the places they stay, they get shot at, and sometimes they
get killed.
Palestine, a relative success among the Security Council and
Assembly efforts to resolve international quandaries, has been one
of their most complex and difficult problems, with every explosive
element of modem life political, economic, religious, cultural and
environmental dramatically represented and violently conflicting
with parallel elements in neighboring countries. The field work of
UN observers reflected the situation. It was here that assassins
machine-gunned UN Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte to death
and won him, the legend of being the first man on earth to lose
his life violently in the cause of internationally espoused labor for
peace.
(To keep the record straight, this doubtful honor really belongs
to Thomas Wasson, United States Consul in Jerusalem and member
of the Security Council Truce Commission, who was killed four
months earlier,, on May 22, 1948, by snipers* bullets. And four other
UN representatives similarly preceded Bernadotte to the grave
the Frenchman Labamere by hand grenade, the Norwegian Ole
Bakke by sniper and the Frenchmen Jeannel and Quera shot by a
mob as they landed a scout plane.)
The background of the Palestine problem is well enough known:
the long desire of the Jewish people for a homeland, the World
War I White Paper in which the British held out hope for its reali-
zation, the British Mandate after that war which never could work
out a solution, the resistance of Arabs who lived in the territory and
countries surrounding it, the conflicting religious and ownership
claims to the Holy City of Jerusalem, the proclamation of the new
State of Israel after termination of the Mandate (May 15, 1948),
and the ensuing confused hostilities between Arabs and Israelis.
Before the British Mandate ended, the General Assembly tried its
hand at formulating a plan, finally deciding on a scheme of parti-
16 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
tion into Arab and Jewish States combined in an economic union
to be called Palestine, with controversial Jerusalem as a separate
unit under the UN trusteeship system. This plan won equal and
enthusiastic disapproval from both sides. The Jews ignored it and
set up their own State of Israel which the United States and other
countries recognized, whereupon the Arabs came in with their rifles.
UN efforts had to be redirected toward halting the bloodshed.
On June 11 the Security Council succeeded in achieving a four-
week truce and Belgium, France and the United States as members
of the UN Truce Commission sent military observers, along with
fifty volunteers mostly from the security guard at Lake Success, to
keep watch on both sides. The story of this Field Service operation
may not be typical of all the others, particularly since it was early in
the UN's experience of such things, but it has points of interest
A Field Service administrator ( actually, there was no Field Service
then; he was a staff member of the division of the Secretariat's
Conference and General Services Department that later became
Field Service) arrived in Cairo June 12, the day after the truce
began, to take care of the twenty-one military observers originally
scheduled to be supplied by France, Belgium and the United States.
His first problem was to find field equipment, such as tents and
stoves, and transportation. He was lucky to get his hands on four
C-47 transports, not only because they could move his charges, but
also because the plane crews bore out transport pilots' wide reputa-
tion as able scroungers: they uncovered any number of necessary
items that were hidden from ordinary view. But for ground trans-
port in the beginning he had to depend on the jeeps and trucks of
the belligerents, and the military observers sometimes got the idea
that they were seeing only what the side whose vehicles they were
riding in wanted them to see. If the radio equipment available had
seen better days, it was long before, and the mission rarely knew
when its messages were getting through to Mediator Bernadotte,
who was on the island of Rhodes.
The mission moved to Haifa on June 25, to be closer to the area
of operations. Radio communication improved then and the British
POLITICS AND SHOOTING 17
Middle East Office demonstrated Anglo-UN solidarity by lavishly
raiding its own supplies, to the consternation of the accounting de-
partment, which took three years to straighten out the debits and
credits, probably never discovering where to charge some of the
items.
Among members of the mission the consensus was that both sides
observed this first truce with reasonable scrupulousness. Partly, the
absence of shooting stemmed from activities of the observers them-
selves. A Secretariat member named John Reedman, for instance,
once learned of Arab and Israeli groups approaching each other
with maleficent intentions. He promptly grabbed a Jeep and a large
white flag and patrolled a highway between the two groups, driving
the jeep with one hand back and forth, with the other waving the
flag also shouting "Stop.*' Oddly enough, it worked. Both would-be
combatant groups quieted down and went away without firing a shot
Other observers tried the same stunt, with varying success, during
the first truce, but a few educational bullet wounds taught them all
caution in later times.
One cause of trouble was that Arab farmers around Haifa who
had planted crops in the early spring insisted on returning to
harvest them. The Israelis understandably took potshots at them.
And observers in the Haifa area had another extraordinary local
situation. There was a forest through the center of which ran the
imaginary Arab-Israel boundary line. Three or four times between
early June and the end of the truce in July patriotic arsonists set it
afire. When fire-fighters appeared bullets went pinging through the
flames and military observers ducked without dignity behind any
handy tree.
The truce expired on July 9 and the Arabs refused to renew it.
Fighting broke out again and in the absence of directions from the
Security Council the observers made a kind of tactical retreat to
Beirut. The administrator retired to Rhodes to devise new plans for
the future. Information began to trickle in to him, its main theme
being that he would have three hundred rather than a couple of
18 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
dozen military observers under Ms wing. Eventually they reached
a count of six hundred.
To get independent mobility for this larger corps of observers,
150 British jeeps were purchased, but Israel refused entry to the
British ship chartered to bring them in, and a motley crew of steers-
men, including full Army colonels and any number of Navy com-
manders, were impressed to drive them across the desert. A similar
oversight occurred with aircraft, which were chartered from the
British, with British pilots to fly them. These, too, were barred from
Israel, and pilots of other nationalities had to be found and the
planes' registry changed before they could be used.
Meanwhile, though fighting with the Arabs continued and new
hostilities broke out with the Egyptians in the Negev that fall, the
administrative problems of the mission eased down, with larger
office space and more experienced help, to the point where buying
mechanical parts for the 150 jeeps constituted one of the most
serious worries.
Any number of resolutions, representations and suggestions were
made by the Security Council and the Assembly. Disturbances flared
and subsided, flared and subsided again, till at last, between Feb-
ruary and July, 1949, a series of armistices were signed by Israel
with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. On May 11, 1949, Israel
was accepted as a member of the UN, and it would be pleasant to
cite the date as a happy ending. Unfortunately, the Truce Super-
vision Organization and the Conciliation Commission were still
mentioned in the Field Service budget for 1953, and guards along
the Israel borders still get their pictures in the papers, with nervous
fingers on their triggers.
Reception for UN missions depends on the country. In Korea
there has been a warm welcome, in India toleration, in Palestine
reluctant toleration, in Somaliland and Eritrea (where the chief
business is settling land disputes going back to Mussolini) graceful
acceptance by the Italians, in the Balkans welcome by the Greeks
and the reverse by the rest. The official list of UN missions personnel
dead is twenty-three thirteen accidents, one suicide, one death by
POLITICS AND SHOOTING 19
natural causes and eight killed. Members that escape accident, sick-
ness and injury usually at least suffer from the strain of their work
and surroundings their weight falls off, their tempers disintegrate
and their general efficiency goes below par* Hence, even those who
volunteer to stay on rarely are kept more than a year on one tour
of duty.
Aside from its primary concern with peace and international
security, the General Assembly, as the "centerpiece" of the UN
organization, may consider and act on anything and everything
within the scope of UN powers, including visas for Soviet wives of
foreign nationals. One vital question, which troubled the writers of
the Charter, still troubles the Assembly and everyone else with a
stake in the UN, and probably will continue to be bothersome for a
long time to come, is the question of voting.
The so-called veto, which is a negative vote by a permanent
member of the Security Council that blocks any decision other than
those on matters of procedure, has been the subject of much dis-
cussion and hard thinking ever since the UN was born. As far back
as 1946, the Assembly requested the permanent members to do
everything they could to avoid having their special voting privilege
impede the Council in reaching prompt decisions. The next year
the Assembly put the problem up to its Interim Committee (the
so-called "Little Assembly" that sat when the General Assembly was
not in session) for other suggestions. As a result of the Interim Com-
mittee's studies the Assembly in 1949 passed a resolution defining
thirty-five kinds of Council decisions as procedural and therefore
not subject to the veto. In addition, the Assembly asked the perma-
nent members to determine among themselves the types of decisions
on which they would be willing to withhold a decisive negative vote
after seven affirmatives already had been cast. Finally, it asked for
consultation among the permanent members before important deci-
sions so as to assure unanimity whenever possible, and perhaps now
and then gain an abstention if the opposing member considered the
matter of not too vital importance. The point here, of course, is that,
20 UN: TODAY AND TOMORKOW
while the Charter requires for any Council decision unanimity of
the permanent members present and voting, it does not require all
of them either to be present or to vote. If the opposing member is
absent or abstains, the measure may pass.
The voting problem includes the highly debatable question of
government representation. China under General Chiang Kai-shek
had the status of a Great Power and was so admitted to the UN as
a charter member, with one of the five veto votes in the Council.
But Chiang no longer has any authority over continental China,
only over his Formosan refuge, and the Communist regime at
Peiping repeatedly demands to be given the "rightful place" Chiang's
representatives still hold in the Assembly and the Security Council.
There are a number of legal points involved, on the basis of which
Secretary-General Trygvie Lie, on March 8, 1950, wrote a memo-
randum to the Security Council stating his opinion that, if the new
government were shown by inquiry to exercise effective internal
authority and to be habitually obeyed by the bulk of the Chinese
population, it would be appropriate for the UN to grant it the right
of representation. In 1951, however, a proposal to consider the ques-
tion in the Council was rejected on a five-to-five vote ( seven affirm-
ative votes only were needed, since this was a procedural matter),
with the United Kingdom on this occasion casting its ballot on the
Soviet side.
The adversaries of Communism are understandably cool to the
idea of adding another presumptive veto to their troubles, but their
moral position isn't altogether comfortable, since the Peiping regime
gives no external evidence of lacking internal authority and the
suicidal mass attacks in Korea signified anything but a failure of
obedience. One compromise suggestion put forth is that the perma-
nent membership of China in the Security Council be abolished,
while delegates from both Peiping and Formosa are seated with
ordinary voting rights in the General Assembly.
Interest in the veto and Chinese representation has tended to
minimize public contemplation of other aspects of the voting ques-
tion that could in the long run turn out to be far more important.
POLITICS AND SHOOTING 21
Besides the other reasons the Charter writers had in mind for pro-
viding the veto power, there was the aim of compensating for
disparities in General Assembly voting arrangements. It lias been
calculated that a thirty-one-vote majority in the Assembly could be
counted from nations representing only 5.5 per cent of the total
population of the UN's sixty members. The two-thirds majority
needed for major decisions could be had by votes representing only
11 per cent of the total population. Moreover, the twenty-one
smallest member nations, with 2.3 per cent of the population, could
stop any measure that required a two-thirds majority.
In the face of the theatrical conflict between Communist-con-
trolled countries and much of the rest of the world we tend to lose
sight of other considerations, such as the fact made evident during
the Korean conflict that a number of great nations which normally
have gone along with our point of view in opposing Russia may
sometimes entertain reservations and certainly are more open-
minded about the Kremlin than we once deluded ourselves into
believing. In Asia there appeared a political outlook that wasn't,
perhaps, equidistant between Washington and Moscow, but cer-
tainly responded to visual stimuli occurring well eastward of the
Potomac. Clearly, the world isn't yet reduced to a two-power system.
In our own hemisphere there is the possibility of a General
Assembly veto not intended by the Charter writers and little con-
sidered by U.S. citizens occupied with worrying over the Com-
munists. If s an arithmetical fact that the Latin- American countries
in the UN, acting together, come within a single vote of being able
to block any important measure. They have twenty votes among
them now; all they need for an effective veto is to pick up one extra
from among the other forty nations. As an immediate cause for worry
this Latin- American potentiality has little to recommend it, since die
countries to our south are well equipped with differences among
themselves and so far have not been ostentatiously eager to upset
any major plans of ours. But it's there, nonetheless.
Voting procedures in the Assembly and Security Council are ad-
mittedly a paramount weakness of the UN. Many remedies have
22 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBROW
been suggested, but none that would suit all interested parties and
none that seems attractive enough, to win the necessary votes for a
change of the Charter.
In the other two main branches of the UN under the General
Assembly, the Trusteeship Council and the Economic and Social
Council, voting is not the issue that it is in either the Security Council
or the Assembly itself, since decisions are reached by a simple
majority of the members present and voting.
The Trusteeship Council is one of the UN's two chief methods of
watching over and helping the hundreds of millions of people in the
world who do not own governments of their own. It is a revised
and improved version of the old League of Nations system of
mandates, with many obligations for Administering Authorities to
help the peoples under their control, economically, educationally
and in the development of self-government and other free institu-
tions.
To become a Trust Territory an area must have the country re-
sponsible for it present the draft of a Trust Agreement for approval
by the General Assembly. The agreements vary, but most contain
these basic elements: a definition of the territory, name of the pro-
posed Administering Authority, a description of its rights and obliga-
tions, and its promise to submit any dispute with another UN mem-
ber over interpretation or application of the agreement to the Inter-
national Court of Justice.
Trust Territories classified as "strategic areas" fall under the pri-
mary jurisdiction of the Security Council, but the Trusteeship Coun-
cil attends to most of their needs not connected with the security of
their Administering Authorities or other aspects of international
peace.
Administering Authorities are required annually to report on the
Trust Territories to the Trusteeship Council. The standard ques-
tionnaire prepared by the Council contains 247 detailed queries, and
its members or suborgans dig still more deeply into special situations.
Natives of the Trust Territories, or any other individuals or organ-
POLITICS AXD SHOOTING 23
izations for that matter, have the right to comment or complain to
the Trusteeship Council, and close to a thousand of these petitions
have received its consideration.
Every three years, approximately, each Trust Territory is visited
by a mission from the Council to provide a firsthand view of the
situation and permit questioning on subjects that might have escaped
the reports.
With information so gathered the Trusteeship Council argues over
the quality of administration in the Territories, of which there are a
dozen, with six Administering Authorities (some countries admin-
ister more than one Territory), and argues further over recommenda-
tions for improvement. When the arguments are resolved, the recom-
mendations are sent to the General Assembly and, if approved, are
given in its name to the Administering Authorities. One recommen-
dation of the Assembly that especially pleased the Trusteeship
Council was that the UN flag should be flown alongside the flags o
the Administering Authorities in all Trust Territories.
Non-Self-Governing Territories that do not belong to the Trustee-
ship System include more than three score areas such as Hawaii,
Jamaica, Alaska, Bermuda, French West Africa, Tunisia, Barbados,
the Belgian Congo, Hong Kong, Singapore and many others. The
countries administering them report annually, not to the Trusteeship
Council, but to the Secretary-General. Most have had charge of the
Territories for a long time and the main change that came with
the UN relationship was assumption of a definite obligation to place
the interests of the Territories' inhabitants ahead of everything else.
This concern with the rights of all people to human freedom,
economic advancement and eventual self-government is the chief
trend since World War II in the development of governmental^
dependent areas. Acquisition of colonies for home gain is no longer
the form of big-nation rivalry it once was, and, while human enslave-
ment goes on in one way or another, the years since the UN's begin-
ning have seen the freeing from foreign rule of no less than 800,000,-
000 men, women and children. This is a figure worth remembering
when less fortunate things happen.
24 UN: TOBAY AND TOMOBKOW
Partly because events beyond control have reduced its purely
political effectiveness and weakened its direct power to maintain
peace among all nations, the UN has turned perhaps more than
was originally intended toward helping the world economically ,
socially and culturally. The third of its main councils, the Economic
and Social, is primarily responsible for these phases of its work.
ECOSOC, as it plainly had to be nicknamed, owns an almost
interminable list of responsibilities, too varied for quick and easy
classification. Just to start with, it found economic questions more
answerable on a regional basis and therefore set up three Economic
Commissions to deal with them, in Europe, in Asia and the Far East,
and in Latin America, Then it broke its job down further into func-
tional commissions and subcommissions such as the Commission on
Human Rights, the ones on Narcotic Drugs and Transport and Com-
munications, the Fiscal Commission, the Statistical Commission,
Social Commission, Commission on the Status of Women and the
Population Commission.
Standing committees deal with Technical Assistance, Negotiations
with Specialized Agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations, the
Agenda and the interim consideration of the Program of Meetings,
which must be a traffic problem.
Among a group of "special bodies'* attached to ECOSOC is the
UN International Children's Fund (UNICEF). And there is, of
course, a variety of ad hoc committees to do any odd jobs that come
along.
In the economic field ECOSOC is most directly concerned with
the improvement of international trade, with statistical development
all over the world (many figures on national incomes, for instance,
are far short of accurate), with conservation of resources and with
transport and communications, but it also has a busy hand in the
various programs of Technical Assistance for underdeveloped coun-
tries. It works through one standing committee with eight of the
Specialized Agencies, such as the Food and Agriculture Organiza-
tion, World Health Organization and UNESCO, on their individual
and co-ordinated plans, and through another with the Technical
POLITICS AND SHOOTING 25
Assistance Administration itself, which, along with helping the
Specialized Agencies, has its own favorite programs, including the
UN advisory social welfare services and training in public adminis-
tration.
In the social, humanitarian and cultural fields ECOSOC deals with
human rights, freedom of information, trade union rights, forced
labor, slavery, protection of minorities, genocide, the status of
women, missing persons, prisoners of war, family, youth and child
welfare, living conditions in underdeveloped areas, housing and
town planning, refugees, displaced and stateless persons, narcotic
drugs, migration, scientific research and cartography.
Besides the three councils, the General Assembly has six main
committees to help it function (First Committee: Political and
Security; Second Committee: Economic and Financial; Third Com-
mittee: Social, Humanitarian and Cultural; Fourth Committee:
Trusteeship, including Non-Self -Governing Territories; Fifth Com-
mittee: Administrative and Budgetary; Sixth Committee: Legal).
It also has four categories of lesser committees.
Some of the General Assembly's miscellaneous jobs are: electing
the nonpermanent members of the Security Council, the members
of the Economic and Social Council and the elective members of the
Trusteeship Council; appointing the Secretary-General, on recom-
mendation of the Security Council; in independently voting concert
with the Security Council electing judges of the International Court
of Justice; receiving reports from the Secretary-General, the Security
Council and other organs; requesting advisory opinions from the
International Court of Justice.
This last body, its fifteen members seated at The Hague, makes
final judgment (there's nowhere to appeal) in cases involving UN
member nations and also nonmembers under conditions determined
by the Assembly on recommendation by the Security Council. Its
cases may concern disputes or contending claims only between
states, between no lesser disputants. But the Charter provides for its
giving legal advisory opinions to various organs of the UN ( only the
26 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBROW
General Assembly and the Security Council may apply for them
direct). Decisions of tie Court are enforced, practically speaking,
only by its prestige, but this so far has always worked. If it should
fail, that is, if one party to a cause should refuse to abide by Its
decision, the other party could apply to the Security Council, which
is authorized to make recommendations or decide on measures to
take.
To such disapproving citizens as the taxi driver who wouldn't
enter a UN Headquarters building till the UN stopped the Korean
War, a standard answer is that the international organization is
merely a mechanism that works if we make it, but grinds to a stop
if we turn away. In effect, this answer says that member nations
and their citizens are responsible for its errors and omissions, not
the UN, since the latter is simply a kind of funnel for the will and
actions of the former. The International Court of Justice took a
quite different legal attitude from this on one notable occasion.
The point on which the Court was asked its opinion was whether
or not the UN was legally competent to bring a claim against a
government responsible for injury done to one of its agents. The UN
agent in the case was Count Bernadotte, murdered in the Israeli
area of Palestine in the fall of 1948. In nonlegal terms the question
at issue was whether the UN was an entity capable of functioning
on its own in tie international sphere or merely a combination of
nations that individually bore the responsibility for its actions. The
opinion handed down said of the UN:
In the opinion of the Court, the Organization was intended to exer-
cise and enjoy, and is in fact exercising and enjoying, functions and
rights which can only be explained on tie basis of a large measure of
international personality and the capacity to operate upon an inter-
national plane. It is at present the supreme type of international organiza-
tion, and it could not cany out the intentions of its founders if it was
devoid of international personality. It must be acknowledged that its
Members, by entrusting certain functions to it, with the attendant duties
and responsibilities, have clothed it with the competence required to
enable those functions to be effectively discharged.
POLITICS AND SHOOTING 27
"Personality** is a word that we are more accustomed to hearing in
connection with psychiatry than with international processes. Per-
haps, nevertheless, there is an analogy. The early Freudian approach
to establishment of mental health most heavily emphasized the
need of understanding personality. The patient lay on a couch and
rehashed his intimate life from the womb onward, presumably
achieving recovery through understanding of its events. The old
view of the way to attain international health was through inter-
national understanding: hazily, it was assumed that if every country
and its inhabitants knew and understood every other country and its
inhabitants, the millennium somehow, without any other stimulation,
would appear.
Psychiatrists, of course, still regard understanding (their own
f the patient plus his of himself) as the essential first step. But
modem members of the profession say action based on the under-
standing is equally necessary dynamic effort to replace old bad
habits and attitudes and procedures with new good habits and atti-
tudes and procedures. Similarly, international understanding is a
basic need, but by itself it's not the panacea you might think, listen-
ing to some well-intentioned but old-school workers in the inter-
national vineyard. Here, too, dynamic effort is needed for the cure.
And if s precisely this that the UN as an entity, or "international
personality," daily makes both on the high legislative-judicial-
administrative level of the Assembly, councils, committees and
Court Just outlined, and on the possibly greater human-interest
level of other UN divisions, agencies and people yet to be dis-
cussed.
CHAPTER 2
UN-ville
A BBITISH official told of a tanning exhibition he'd seen outside
Rangoon the week before. A young girl spoke reminiscently of
Bangkok. The chance word "Nairobi" from a corner rose above the
cocktail chatter. Two distinguished-looking men were discussing
Sao Paulo, or some development organization with headquarters
there. "No, I think it was Karachi, in 1949." ". . . on his way to
La Paz . . .* 'We'd just left Beirut . . !* Bangalore. Kuwait
Bizerte. Back to familiar Rome, Paris, Lisbon, Athens. Then swing-
ing wide again to Kuala Lumpur, Reykjavik, Kamchatka, Pango-
Pango, Bokar and Konar . . .
This is the sort of name-dropping that goes on among UN people.
An American transport pilot who thought he had traveled during
World War II would be confused; an ordinary American citizen
feels as if an atlas had dropped on his head.
It is, of course, a natural thing. Sixty nations send their representa-
tives to United Nations, N.Y. UN experts do a great deal of travel-
ing in their work. Even native Americans who stay chained to their
UN desks get so used to communicating with remote associates
that place-names rub off on them. The result for outsiders is a kind
of geographical nightmare. But it's part of life for an inhabitant of
UN-ville.
This is one of the strangest communities in history. To begin
with, it's a town within a city not just a special area within a city,
like a Chinatown or a financial section or a zoned residential dis-
trict, but a distinct and treaty-bounded eighteen acres, with separate
28
UN-VILLE 29
laws, a government of its own (aside from its international func-
tions), its own post office, ire department, police force, communica-
tions, newspapers, periodicals and book publishing plant, a
high-geared land of "chamber of commerce," retail stores that reflect
its unique personality, its own credit union, community planning
commission, co-operative, clinic, legal service, library, radio, TV
and film, production outfits, restaurants, playground and many
other things. Its official name, "United Nations, N.Y./* is recognized
by post offices everywhere. It has its own flag or emblem, which
flies on a level with the flags of all nations. It has a tourist trade
that many individual nations would envy. And it has a permanent,
lightly knit population of 3,300 whose outlook on life is as singular
as the shape its name-dropping takes, as notable as the impression
its buildings make on the New York skyline.
No doubt the League of Nations caused a certain amount of com-
motion moving into Geneva. But the Swiss, as neutrals of long stand-
ing, were accustomed to having international conclaves on their
hands and probably took the whole enterprise pretty much in
stride. League officials, too, for the most part were on familiar
ground.
What happened in New York was more drastic. Until Mr. Rocke-
feller donated the eighteen acres of abattoir-covered land on the
bank of the East River, the UN had a vagrant time of it, checking in
temporarily at colleges and ex-war plants wherever it could find a
room. Then the bulldozers got busy and almost before the Ethiopian
delegate could say *Addis Ababa" there was a breath-taking new
thirty-eight-story skyscraper for the Secretariat. Soon afterward
there was a low-slung Conference Building creeping northward
from its base. And finally, in time for the troubled sessions beginning
in late 1952, a new and spectacular General Assembly Building,
connected with the Conference Building at the north end.
New Yorkers had mixed feelings about the new community. Be-
fore its sudden eruption on Manhattan, Americans had been used
to the idea, if they ever thought of it at all, that foreign embassies
were technically part of the countries which they represented, bits
80 UN: TOBAY AND TOMQRKOW
of foreign territory within the United States. But they were never
so conspicuous as this. Moreover, they were merely bits of single
alien countries. This was an $8,500,000-sized chunk of international
territory, owned by sixty nations, and though we were one of them
in fact a prime mover in the plan it still seemed strange. Thought-
less Americans complained of "the encroachment of foreigners."
For many of the people of UN-ville, the feeling of strangeness
was undoubtedly more acute. The three main buildings on the
East River are their "downtown," their place of business, and they
have to find living quarters where they can in the city or its suburbs.
This, of course, means that they are exposed to things familiar
enough to us but often confusing or even frightening to them
subway turnstiles, rush-hour crowds, taxi drivers' conversation,
noise, tabloid newspapers, door-to-door salesmen. As an extreme
example, Indian women found it wiser to wear their native saris
on the streets of New York, though Western dress was more prac-
tical in the dust and traffic, because even the diluted anti-Negro
prejudice of the North could be misdirected and embarrassing.
American customs in tipping, in social conversation ( our prone-
ness to ask the direct personal question, for instance), in retail
stores (where courtesy is a rule sometimes overlooked), and in a
host of other categories are often baffling. But widespread Amer-
ican ignorance of the basic aims and functions of the UN can be a
still greater cause of frustration and dismay.
Language difficulties contribute and there is a natural tendency
for people working at a common task to live where they can see
each otter after hours (as successful Madison Avenue advertising
men build their houses in Westport, Connecticut): at any rate,
permanent UN staff members from other countries haven't been
really absorbed in the life of the city. Many live close together in
Parkway Village, a housing development on the outskirts, and there
is a new residential community springing up in Connecticut: that will
be almost entirely inhabited by UN people. Foreign employees
living in scattered apartments and houses tend to gather socially.
There are New York restaurants that attract certain groups: for
UN-VUXE 31
example, a Fourteenth Street Russian cabaret at which Scandina-
vians are regular guests; a mid-town Spanish place that provides
entertainment the Latin Americans like.
But the center of things is the group of buildings on the East
River.
It might not have been here at all but for the gift o knd by Mr.
Rockefeller. The United States was the UN's majority choice for
the headquarters site, but other cities, especially San Francisco and
Philadelphia, were much in the running until his offer. This was an
extraordinarily generous thing. It deserves to be remembered, how-
ever, that New York City, too, has been generous. To round out
the eighteen-acre tract, the City acquired land and deeded it to
the UN, Moreover, it deeded streets and waterfront rights and
worked out a joint program of improvements with the UN, the City's
part of which cost more than $26,000,000.
One difficult and expensive item of New York's contribution was
digging a tunnel for a four-lane roadway under the part of First
Avenue which runs north and south past the UN site. Once a main
artery, First Avenue on the surface here now is limited to local
traffic for the convenience of the UN.
For construction of the buildings, Congress made a thirty-year,
interest-free loan of $65,000,000 to the UN. An International Board
of Design, headed by American architect Wallace K. Harrison,
composed the differences of its fifteen different nationalities on the
fifty-third try and agreed on plans. This seemed a good augury,
since, twenty-five years earlier, it had taken League of Nations
architects 577 sets of drawings before they arrived at agreement.
The concrete and stone and glass with which the Design Board
made substance of its ideas are now a distinctive but increasingly
familiar part of the New York scene, an outstanding tourist attrac-
tion and, of course, the tightly knit business center of UN denizens.
Most of the employees go to work through the Secretariat Build-
ing entrance, near Forty-second Street, but visitors enter at the
north end of the General Assembly Building, near Forty-fifth,
32 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBROW
through any one of seven nickel-bronze doors, the gift of Canada.
The great lobby, seventy-five feet high, with its clean-lined hanging
galleries, its subdued, almost cathedral-like lighting, makes an im-
mediate, dramatic impression. Visitors feel as if they've stepped
into a new and different world. And one hopes they have.
Calling tie General Assembly a "town hall of the world" is not
a new notion, but it is a valid one, though no town before in Amer-
ica ever boasted a political auditorium of quite such majesty. It's
roughly circular in shape, 165 feet long, 115 feet wide and 75 feet
from the delegates' floor to the great dome above. Flanking the
speakers' rostrum, behind which is the President's podium, gold-
leaf-covered vertical strips of fluted wood form screens like stage
wings rising from the floor to the dome and covering the walls.
Between them, behind the President's podium, a huge United
Nations emblem hangs on the wall, surrounded by 68 circular
golden shields on which will be placed the coats of arms of member
nations. There are 636 seats for delegates on the floor (each mission
is entitled to five delegates and five alternates), 270 seats for ob-
servers, 234 seats for the press, two tiers of booths for information
media around the sides of the hall and accommodation for about
800 visitors. Any significant session easily could fill two or three
times that number of guest seats.
It's here, of course, that representatives of the sixty member na-
tions conduct their dramatic debates over war and peace, and
other matters that may lead to war or peace.
Since their deliberations are so important to mankind, many
people feel that there should be a close religious association. Much
of Mrs. Roosevelt's mail contains this or a similar statement: "The
UN will never get peace for us till every meeting begins with a
prayer." The truth is that General Assembly meetings, at the
President's request, do always begin with a moment of meditation,
which delegates may use to pray in accordance with any of their
varying religions. Obviously, it would be impossible to compose a
spoken prayer that would be suitable to all the delegates.
Moreover, for more private worship there is in the General As-
UX~VELLE 83
sembly Building a Meditation Room, where many of the delegates,
Moslem, Christian, Jewish and other faiths, retire for contemplation
and prayer. A triumph of simplicity and nonsectarianism, it's a
small room, bare of ornament, draped with a fiber-glass fabric from
floor to ceiling. Since corners have objectionable connotations in
some faiths, they are rounded by the draperies in the Meditation
Room. In place of an altar there stands, upended, toward the front
of the room a beautifully polished, 250-year-old section of log be-
lieved to have come from the Belgian Congo. There are a dozen or
so simple chairs, which may be turned in any direction the wor-
shiper chooses.
Flowers for the Meditation Room are brought daily by the Lay-
man's Movement for a Christian World, which also supplies a
visitor's signature book.
Beneath the General Assembly auditorium, on two lower levels,
are a large conference room, seven radio studios, four committee
rooms, recording rooms and a master control room for the com-
munications system that serves all the Headquarters buildings.
On the first level below the auditorium is a public lobby. This
serves as UN-ville's Main Street shopping center. It has a bookshop
where all sorts of publications dealing with the UN and its varied
activities are sold, along with post cards relating to the UN. It has
a gift shop run by the United Nations Co-operative that sells art and
handicraft products from many of the member nations. It has a
post office from which letters postmarked "United Nations, N.Y.**
may be mailed. (This really is only a branch of the main UN Post
Office, which is under the Secretariat Building.) It has lounges and
telephones and checkrooms, and a question-and-answer comer
where visitors may and do make the most astounding inquiries. The
guided tours start from this lobby.
These guided tours, incidentally, have turned out to be something
of a surprise to their sponsor, the American Association for the
United Nations. Begun in the fall of 1952 under the direction of
Carl Cannon, who learned the business at another sight-seeing
attraction for out-of-towners, Radio City, they became far more
34 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
popular than anyone anticipated. At least half a million customers
were a mid-year conservative estimate to pay their dollar apiece
during 1953 for a look through the General Assembly Building,
plus a running commentary on UN functions and answers to ques-
tions by the attractive, multilingual girl guides. Tours were to be
doubled in number during the summer absence of delegates, when
vacationists come to New York. The chief headache for tour officials
came to be complaints from people who had to wait for places on a
tour. The officials soon learned that men and women who would
stand in line patiently, without a murmur, to get into a baseball
game or a movie expected instantaneous attention from a govern-
mental show.
From the lobby under the General Assembly Building a visitor
(if he's armed with a pass) walks through a long wide corridor to
the Conference Building. Like an iceberg, this structure shows only
fifty-five feet above the surface, but is bulkier on the three levels
below. Here are the chambers of the Security Council, the Trustee-
ship Council and the Economic and Social Council next to the
General Assembly the main organs of the UN, All three are the same
in size 72 feet wide, 135 feet long and 24 feet high. Partly for the
sake of symbolism, these chambers were decorated by artists from
the traditionally peace-loving Scandinavian countries: the Security
Council by Norwegian Arnstein Arneberg; the Economic and Social
Council by Swedish Sven Markelius, and the Trusteeship Council
by Danish Finn Juhl.
Under the Council chambers are three large conference halls for
the main committees of the General Assembly. These have exits
leading to an inviting riverside terrace.
On the upper floors of the building are offices for Secretariat per-
sonnel concerned with arranging the conferences. There are also
delegates* lounges at either end of the building, a delegates' restau-
rant, two private dining rooms and a cafeteria for Secretariat
workers.
Far below surface is a huge refrigerating plant that air-conditions
all the Headquarters buildings. This operation at the UN calls for
IM-VILLE 35
more flexibility than you might expect, because the inhabitants of
UN-ville immigrated from such a wide variety of climates. The en-
gineers have to offer a twelve-degree range of temperatures from
which individual offices may make their choices.
Down in the depths, too, are the maintenance workshops of a
complete fire-fighting unit, a large printing establishment and docu-
ment reproduction section, and a garage designed to park 1,500 UN
cars.
From the south end of the Conference Building an escalator rises
to the main floor of the skyscraper Secretariat Building. This, of
course, is the office building of the UN, where some 3,800 men and
women work the year around, partly so that in the other two build-
ings diplomatic members of the sixty national missions may meet and
argue in comfort and with all the mechanical aid that modem
science and well-trained technicians can bring them. Partly, too, so
that other necessary business of the UN, such as giving information
to the public, keeping records and maintaining communication with
far-flung representatives of the organization, may be conducted.
"But why are so many employees needed?' 7 is a question asked the
girl guides by tour members. The answer is the same one given by
any experienced Army man when a civilian protests at the ratio of
quartermaster and other rear-area personnel to men in combat. The
one man with a rifle needs X men to feed him, supply Mm, care for
him in case of sickness or injury, provide him transport, etc., etc.
The six hundred delegates on the floor of the General Assembly re-
quire similar backing. So do the field workers of the Specialized
Agencies, and the special missions sent abroad by the UN to check
up on trusteeships, or to try to stop conflicts by negotiation on the
spot
An idler looking up at the narrow side of the Secretariat Building
from Forty-second Street spoke cynically to his companion.
**You know why they built it that way?" he asked. "Like a match-
box sitting on one end? They did it so, when they get ready, they
can strike a match down the side and the whole thingH go up in
smoke/*
36 UN: TODAY AISTD TOMOBBOW
If s true that the building does have something of the look of an
oversized matchbox on end, but if by "they" the idler meant UN
people, lie had a wrong idea of their attitude. One supposedly hard-
boiled ex-newspaperman gave a hint of their real attitude.
*Tm afraid/' he said in a low, half -apologetic tone, looking around
to make sure he wasn't overheard, "we're all a little dedicated/'
The fountain at the entrance to the Secretariat Building, besides
being cool and lovely to look at in New York's hot summers, is a
good memory-jogger for dedication. It was a fifty-thousand-dollar
gift from the children of the United States and its territories of
Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. On the bed of
the shallow pool are wavy alternate bands of black and white
pebbles. The black stones were gathered by women and chil-
dren on the island beaches of Rhodes, and memorialize the UN's
role in the pacification of Greece. The gift as a whole commemorates
UNICEF's aid to children the world over.
The lobby of the Secretariat Building has little to see but open
spaces, banks of elevators and an information booth, to the right of
the entrance, where visitors on business are announced and receive
their passes to go up into the office areas.
In the elevators a good thing to remember is that regulations
forbid smoking. Such regulations exist in many other buildings, but
at the UN they are strictly enforced. If you enter an elevator carry-
ing a lighted cigarette you are promptly asked to step out and put
it in a receptacle (the floors are too clean for you to consider).
This may seem like laboring a trivial point, but it happens to
relate to the whole UN philosophy. Assistant Secretary-General
Benjamin V. Cohen, in charge of the Public Information Depart-
ment, always warns guests with him to put out their cigarettes
before entering elevators. But, like other UN officials, he's so used
to the strict prohibition that he has to think a moment before ex-
plaining the emphasis. Probably the chief reason for the rule is that
tobacco offends some staff members on religious grounds. To an
outsider, however, the punctiliousness with which the rule is re-
spected goes a little beyond such explanation. It seems more like a
UN-VILLE 37
grass-roots demonstration of the UN regard for law and order, on
every level of importance.
The elevators run up through thirty-eight floors of offices not much
different from others you see in New York, except for the variety of
nationalities, the greater frequency of fezzes and other costume
variations from the American norm. Steel partitions separate the
offices, which contain workmanlike simple desks, tables and chairs
for the most part, and not nearly the pile of books, pamphlets and
documents you might expect in a place that manufactures the printed
word on the mass-production scale of the UN. Tins last is because
publications are not permitted to lie around in offices when not in
use, but are gathered in strategic storage rooms for cal where
needed.
Higher officials do go in for leather divans and rugs and other
amenities. They also get the best views of the East River, which
happens to be an endlessly fascinating waterway, well worth the
struggle up the UN hierarchy. On the thirty-eighth floor, where the
Secretary-General has his own offices and a small apartment (living
room, bedroom, bath, kitchenette; decoration unspectacularly
Swedish-modern), the prospect is particularly magnificent. (To some
irreverent staff members, at one time during the Korean fighting,
an invitation to the top floor was known as "reaching the 38th
Parallel")
Under the Secretary-General there are eight departments sharing
the UN's detail work, plus the Technical Assistance Administration
and Board. Some visitors have had the idea that the Secretariat
Building held offices for the various missions, with the Russians on
one floor, the Norwegians on the next and so on (others think it's
the place where the UN keeps its eight hundred secretaries and
stenographers). Actually, delegations from the sixty member coun-
tries do not have offices at UN Headquarters at all; they're scattered
about the city in private office buildings. Even the eight Secretariat
departments aren't too neatly packaged. Administrative and Finan-
38 UN: TODAY AND TOMORKOW
cial Services, for example, is on the sixth, seventeenth, thirty-sixth
and thirty-seventh floors.
In a general way occupations of UN-ville inhabitants are classi-
fied by these eight departments. And the relative amount o work
required of each department for the community as a whole is pretty
well indicated by the office space it occupies.
Biggest of the departments, occupying 74,509 square feet of space,
is the department called Conference and General Services. A brief
run-down of its functions will show as quickly as anything could
why the Secretariat needs 3,300 employees.
To begin with, it makes all the arrangements and provides all the
services for UN meetings and conferences. This means seeing to it,
first, that they are properly scheduled not to interfere with other
activities. Then it means furnishing translation, interpretation and
reproduction of the proceedings, and editing and publishing the
journals and official records. It means making transportation arrange-
ments and finding hotel accommodations in connection with the
meetings. On a day-to-day basis, not necessarily connected with
meetings, it involves purchasing for the Headquarters as a whole,
handling mail, cables, telephone and telegraph services, and super-
vising the files. And, as if this weren't enough, managing the UN
buildings and grounds.
Next to Conference and General Services in square footage is the
Department of Public Information, with 36,410. The tide gives a
clear enough idea of this department's objective, but probably not
of the complexity of its work. The UN is literally the biggest source
of news in the world today. It has hundreds of privately employed
Journalists regularly covering its activities (the figure goes over a
thousand during Assembly sessions). But there are countless other
outlets constancy demanding stories and pictures and material for
radio broadcasts. So the Department of Public Information (DPI,
of course) has half a dozen floors in the building devoted to pre-
paring films, photographs, feature stories, surveys, radio broadcasts.
It provides facilities, including liaison, for the press. And it main-
tains information centers in various parts of the world.
tfN-VTLLE 89
The DepartmeBt of Economic Affairs, 32,474 square feet, is a
hotbed of statistics, providing economic information particularly to
the Economic and Social Council, but also to Specialized Agencies
and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations.
The Department of Social Affairs has 26,608 square feet of space
and a wide range of touchy duties. It prepares meetings, work pro-
grams, studies and technical assignments for the Economic and
Social Council on problems of human rights, the status of women,
health, education, narcotic drugs, cultural activities and refu-
gees. It also provides staff for the General Assembly's Third
Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural). It issues publica-
tions and helps to write agreements (or conventions, to use the
proper term). And it keeps in touch with Specialized Agencies and
other organizations concerned with health, education, labor, science,
culture and refugees.
The Technical Assistance Administration, though not designated
as a department, has 24 5 974 square feet and supervises the UN pro-
gram of Technical Assistance for economic development, organizing
missions of experts for countries that request them, awarding fel-
lowships and scholarships, and organizing training schools and dem-
onstration centers. It's also responsible for the operation and
administration of programs on advisory social welfare functions.
Administrative and Financial Services, 22,692 square feet, has
charge of UN personnel, budgetary and fiscal programs, and "main-
tains relationships" with the Specialized Agencies on such questions.
It also has the not always easy task of collecting payments due from
member governments, (Beyond a certain point of indebtedness,
member governments are liable to lose voting rights. The story is
that on one occasion an Oriental member got within ten cents of
the deadline.)
The Department of Trusteeship and Information from Non-Self -
Governing Territories, 17,183 square feet, serves the Trusteeship
Council and other organs of the UN by drafting trusteeship agree-
ments, by examining reports from Administering Authorities in the
Trusteeships, by receiving and studying petitions from the people of
40 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Non-Self-Goveming Territories, and by making periodic survey visits
to the Territories.
The Department of Political and Security Council Affairs, 12,658
square feet, does research and prepares material for the Security
Council and its subordinate branches and also for the General
Assembly's political committees. The subject matter Is anything
pertaining to maintenance of peace, including the security aspects
of trusteeship agreements for strategic areas. Also in the depart-
ment's bailiwick Is the question of disarmament. It offers advice on
peaceful ways to settle disputes and services missions of investiga-
tion or conciliation created by the General Assembly or the Security
Council.
The Legal Department has only 8,093 square feet, and the Secre-
tary-General's offices, 10,659.
If these departments seem to overlap other organs of the UN in
function, such as the councils and committees, it's merely because
they are the workhorses for the other organs. They do the research
and formulate the material on which the other bodies take action.
They do field work and make the practical arrangements under
which the other organs operate. And, of course, It's their job to keep
the whole UN, as a mechanism, well oiled and smoothly functioning.
Obviously, the higher-level work of most of the departments must
be carried on by experts In economics, politics, sociology, health
and other specialized fields, who deal in technicalities that wouldn't
interest most readers. But a great deal of the lower-echelon activity
Is fascinating.
Conference and General Services includes some of the more
widely interesting activities. Take what most people would call its
print shop the actual title is Internal Reproduction Plant.
Under the direction of Dan DeWalt, veteran of the hectic San
Francisco days when the just written Charter had to be reproduced
under some of the most trying circumstances ever to confront a
printer, this plant (located under the Conference Building) regu-
larly makes a million impressions a day of UN documents and
XJN-VUXE 41
proceedings, of books and pamphlets. Any necessary typesetting is
done outside, but five offset machines here turn out the finished
records of meetings. Vari-Typers and microfilm cameras are used,
too. And batteries of mimeograph machines make copies of pro-
ceedings (chuted down from the General Assembly or Council
chambers ) with phenomenal speed.
The plant has Its own artists and cartographers, and the latter
have to be the very top men in their trade, because UN maps must
be "diplomatically correct/* In view of the radical and frequent
fluctuations of boundary lines in recent times, even a Rand McNaUy
man might be forgiven for minor errors, but not a UN cartographer.
He has sixty sensitive nations ready to pounce if his pen wavers in
the slightest degree.
Printing and mimeographing are done in five languages English,
French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese. The first four are simple
enough, but Chinese Is a special problem, since there is a shortage
of Chinese typewriters and, even if there weren't, the nature of its
writing defies really rapid mechanical reproduction. There Is no
alphabet. Printed words are pictographs, with an individual char-
acter for each word. A Chinese newspaper has to keep on hand a
minimum of 4,500 of these characters. But many of the words used
in UN proceedings would not appear in the fonts of a newspaper
and certainly not on an ordinary typewriter. Hence, for UN meet-
ings a Chinese calligrapher has to sit in and make a transcript in
what, for want of a better word, must be called long hand. As a
matter of fact, his speed is greater than any that could be attained
on a Chinese typewriter about 220 characters per minute. The
transcript is photographed downstairs in the print shop and repro-
duced.
The UN Internal Reproduction Plant takes a good deal of pride
in the smooth, economical efficiency of Its operations. Although it's
nonunion (you'll look in vain on UN publications for the familiar
little oblong union mark), the 267 employees, who are paid at
least union scale, like their jobs well enough to stay with them.
After a year and a half with IRP a man is still considered
42 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Probably there is some of the feeling of dedication that runs through
the rest of the UN staff, and certainly there is a variety of problems
that challenge abilities and keep up interest.
A substantial part of the UN's printing is done outside of IBP,
half a million dollars' worth of it outside the United States entirely.
When the General Assembly meets away from Headquarters, as it
sometimes does in Paris, for example the IRP sets up shop right
with it. At the last meeting in Paris six IRP supervisors went along
to direct the locally hired French printers. Machines were rented
in London and Paris and the job went off smoothly enough to
permit four of the supervisors to return to the United States after
thirty days. DeWalt was impressed with the French printers* eager-
ness to learn American methods of cutting corners and speeding
the work.
His most vivid impressions of UN printing, however, remain the
frantic thirty-sk hours in San Francisco when his makeshift staff
(some members were students enlisted from the University of
California across the bay in Berkeley) worked three times around
the clock kept going by Red Cross volunteers who brought coffee
and sandwiches, took temperatures and gave first aid. For getting
around to the various printing plants (several Chinese newspapers
lent facilities) that were used for the rush job of getting out the
Charter overnight in five languages, the Army and Navy provided
transportation. Someone found an elderly lady in Berkeley who was
adept at the fine art of stitching bindings for the presentation copies
(she turned out to be wonderfully skillful, but also infuriatingly
deliberate).
There were, of course, changes in the original text, then revisions
of the changes, then revisions of the revisions, and each time the
printers had to reset type. The Chinese newspapers, which had had
to cast new characters for the job in the beginning, had to recast
them. Typists and mimeograph machines kept up with the changes,
just in case all the printing plants blew up at once, and a Chinese
calligrapher developed such a swollen wrist from his work (which
UN-VUJCJE 43
is done backliaiid with a sharply bent wrist) that he was helpless
for some time afterward.
The final version (okayed at the printing plants by ranking dele-
gates who spoke the five official languages) was printed in dupKcate
and sent to the Conference for signature in separate police-escorted
cars for insurance. Mr. DeWalt carried the second copy himself and
by that time was unshaven and disheveled enough to be tamed
away by the Conference guards. But the first one got through and
is now history.
Ceremoniously signed by delegates of all the nations, this copy
was to be placed in a leaden casket with a parachute attached and
flown to Washington.
A minor footnote: the Charter is written in American-style Eng-
lish, though all other UN documents are in Oxford English, with
such spelling as "favour" for our "favor J*
Starting at Hunter College with one discarded Navy mimeograph
machine, the Internal Reproduction Plant at UN Headquarters
alone now manages to run through a thousand tons of paper a year.
Before its machines start humming, however, editors must accom-
plish an extraordinary feat of blue-penciling.
Ahead of the editors, translators an office full of them for each
of the five official languages put the speeches or resolutions or
whatever the material is into the four others besides the original
one in which it was presented. Then the five versions go to the
editorial section where they are compared, paragraph by paragraph,
sentence by sentence and word by word, including footnotes. The
five versions must correspond with utter exactitude, down to the
last comma.
Unfortunately, literal translations don't always give the precise
meaning of originals, and it's exactitude of meaning that is the
objective. A classic example ( over which there was sharp argument*
in the UN ) is the English word "man.*' In the general sense, when
not used to distinguish a man from a woman, it means to us both
men and women. But the literal Spanish translation "hombre** means
man, alone, f/os derechos del hombre are the rights of men and
44 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
they exclude women a point to which Latin women objected vig-
orously. They won, too, and got a different translation in the Span-
ish text, the equivalent of '"human rights."
At any UN conference or meeting you're likely to hear argument
over translation, or at least note the care with which delegates
check to be sure translations are correct.
For aid to the editors in particularly difficult cases there is a
special small board o last resort called Terminology. It's composed
of half a dozen language experts who revise translations on which
the editors cannot come to agreement. Terminology also compiles
glossaries of technical terms translated into all five official languages.
Atomic energy is one of about a hundred subjects covered in the
glossaries. For Chinese words the linguists often had to invent
atomic pictographs, which must have been a test of imagination.
Translation is one task, and an exacting one. But interpretation,
which some people confuse with it, is quite different. While, in the
nature of things, it cannot require quite the precision that written
transfer of language does, in some ways it's an even more demand-
ing occupation. It's also, for visitors, one of the most interesting
activities under the direction of Conference and General Services.
-** The headset at each seat in the Conference, Council and General
Assembly meeting places, as most people know by now, has a dial
with six numbers on it. Turning to Number 1 on the dial, the lis-
tener hears the speaker straight, in whatever language he's speak-
ing. At Number 2, he hears the speech in English; at 3, French;
4 Russian; 5, Spanish; 6, Chinese.
What he hears in a language other than that being used by the
speaker is not direct translation, but a running transfer of the ideas
and information being presented. The aim is immediate clarity, and
to achieve this a good interpreter needs not only a thorough knowl-
edge of both languages involved but the wit and intelligence to
transfer the content of one to the other idiomatically and with the
force and flavor of the original. Instantaneously also just to make
it harder.
In the UN Table of Organization there are places for sixty-four
13N-VILLE 45
interpreters, but at last report twelve vacancies existed, for the
reason that competent men and women in this field are harder to
nd than top-light nuclear physicists. A well-informed estimate
figures the total number able to do the UN work as 120 for the
whole world. The UN feels itself lucky to have fifty-two of them.
But nowadays when a brash young person phones to ask, "What do
I do to learn to be an interpreter?* 7 the courteous brush-off is
touched with concern and the thought that something ought to be
done to train new operatives.
Although the language requirements are a little stringent for most
persons who regard themselves as linguists, they aren't too bad. An
interpreter must know three languages well enough to reproduce
either of two in the third. The requirement does not include work
with Chinese. For this language a corresponding knowledge of
English only is demanded. But of dozens of applicants who can
juggle three languages accurately in ordinary business or social cir-
cumstances, it's rare to find one who comes close to UN needs in
speed, tact, alertness and understanding. As one of the veteran
interpreters pointed out, their motto is "Think/' but there's no time
to think. Reactions have to be practically automatic and at the same
time, correct.
Interpreters ordinarily work four-hour shifts, but if an important
meeting goes on all night, they work all night Effort is made to
assign those with special interests, such as economics, refugee prob-
lems, finance, to meetings where their knowledge may be useful.
Of the present staff, eight are women.
A good interpreter loses himself in the job. Even if the ideas
expressed are diametrically opposed to those he holds in private life,
he transposes them to the other language with as much enthusiasm
as the speaker himself. (As one result, radio listeners have been
known to telephone and complain that interpreters of Russian
speeches were Communists and ought to be fired. ) Interpreters are
visible behind windows in all the chambers (they find it helpful to
see the speakers) and they're often caught copying the very gestures
of the orators they're interpreting. At Lake Success, during a speech
46 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
by the dynamic late Mayor La Guardia, they were so engrossed
that all five reached for nonexistent glasses of water when the
Mayor quenched his thirst
On one occasion an interpreter so far lost himself in his work
that he forgot everything except his alter ego, the speaker, who
happened to be particularly prolix and failing in the organization of
Ms thought Momentarily missing the drift of his remarks, the in-
terpreter spoke sharply into his microphone, for all to hear: "I don't
understand you/* Since no one else did either, the lapse was greeted
with sympathetic laughter.
Chinese makes for varied difficulties. On one occasion it wasn't the
language itself but the accent applied to English that caused trouble.
A Chinese dignitary insisted on addressing a meeting in English.
His delivery was so hard to understand, however, that the inter-
preters found the double task of figuring out what he meant and
translating it simultaneously into the other languages altogether be-
yond their powers. As a quick solution they got a woman interpreter
to translate the Chinese English into English English and from there
they happily took it into French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese
itself, where it should have started. They were, of course, a few
seconds behind in their interpreting, but all would have been well
if the orator hadn't been so proud of his speech that he asked for a
recording. The woman's voice that appeared on it deeply hurt his
feelings and required a high degree of professional diplomacy,
fortunately available, to explain.
Another time, in Paris, the Russian Vishinsky was making a speech
at a closed meeting. Usually when the public is excluded recording
is omitted, but Vishinsky particularly asked for it, and the tech-
nicians set up the apparatus. Unaccountably, however, they at-
tached wires backward or slipped up in some other way. What
should have been recorded from the Number 1 slot on the dial, the
speech as he made it, came out of Number 6 instead. On the play-
back later, it was an unnerving experience for Mr. Vishinsky to hear
himself speaking in Chinese. Shamefacedly the interpreters offered
to run the discourse back through English (as would have been
UN-VDLLE 47
necessary from the Chinese) into the original Russian, but he told
them not to bother conceivably afraid it might all end up in
Ubangi.
The kind of interpretation heard through the headsets from the in-
terpreters' soundproof booths is known as "simultaneous." It's the
rale in most UN meetings. Only in the Security Council and the
Disarmament Commission, where misinterpretation is liable to in-
volve special dangers, is a second system, called "consecutive in-
terpretation/' also used. During a speech simultaneous inter-
preters present it in the usual way, in English, French, Spanish,
Russian and Chinese. But after it's finished the consecutive inter-
preters, whose primary qualification for the Job is evidently total
recall, rise and repeat what the speaker said, in French and English,
miraculously reproducing gestures, emphasis and sometimes even
intonation.
These carefully worked out methods of communicating what is
said on the floor of the General Assembly, the council chambers and
committee rooms in all the five official languages include wiring not
only to seats in the various meeting places, but also to the offices of
high UN officials in the Secretariat Building, who can tune in via a
gadget called the MX on whatever discussion they wish, whenever
they wish, in any of the languages they wish.
Accurate translation and interpretation are a conspicuous necessity
for effective international effort The UN's techniques are interesting
from the "gadget 7 * point of view, but also significant as indications
of the way modem technology can help clear the way to under-
standing. Of course, the five official languages are not by any means
native to all the delegates, most of whom are forced to carry on
business in tongues that are foreign to them. But within practical
limitations the UN does quite a linguistic job. American visitors are
even struck by the trivial fact that direction signs throughout the
Headquarters buildings are in two languages, French and English
(TPulT and "Tirez" on the doors) and will be more so when the
"officializing" of Spanish to a first-place position requires adding a
third language.
48 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
On the more prosaic level of mail, telephones and telegraph.
Conference and General Services does a large-scale communications
business large enough to necessitate the full-time services of a
telephone company liaison officer in that category. UN-ville, as you
might expect, is one of the world's most dedicated users of Alexander
Graham Bell's invention, particularly long distance.
The UN switchboard is open twenty-four hours a day, 365 days
in the year. Its 3,260 telephone installations require the services of
twenty operators, including supervisors. Conference and General
Services makes its own engineering plans for telephone operations,
tells the telephone company what it wants, and gets it. One item is
the special jacks that can be plugged in by press and radio repre-
sentatives for direct communication from the council chambers and
General Assembly hall to news rooms outside.
Connected with the switchboard is an information bureau. If you
want to know the date of the next Committee Four meeting or the
name of the head delegate from Mexico, you will be switched to
information and one of the six girls on duty there will give you an
answer in no time. Ingenious rotary lists of facts help speed their
work. But if your question goes beyond the strictly factual, if it's at
all controversial or dependent on opinion, you're given over to the
UN agency or organ most closely concerned. As a farfetched ex-
ample, if you call irately to ask why Soviet Russia isn't thrown out
of the UN, you may get a sobering, well-documented explanation
from an official of the Security Council itself.
Mail comes into UN-ville at the rate of about four thousand letters
a day. It's opened and looked at by three men who have knowledge
of half a dozen languages, who route it to the proper offices for
response. (General letters from the public are answered by a cor-
respondence section set up for the purpose. )
Distribution of the letters and periodicals and small packages that
come in is made via dumb-waiters that run up shafts through the
thirty-eight stories of the Secretariat Building probably the tallest
dumb-waiters in the world and then by messenger to the in-
dividual offices. Additional magazines and newspapers arrive by
UN-VHXE 49
underground pneumatic tube from the Library, which receives a
staggering volume of publications from all over the world. (The
Library is a small, six-story building, not included in the Design
Board's plans for UN Headquarters but purchased already built
from the City. It's about fifty yards from the Secretariat Building,
toward First Avenue. )
Outgoing correspondence handled by the mail room amounts to
about five thousand letters a day. A considerable portion of the im-
portant letters goes by diplomatic pouch; there are thirty pouch
centers in regular use as destinations. By emphasizing the fact that
this method of communication avoids the censorship imposed in
various places on cable and radio transmissions, or at least the lack
of privacy, the mail room has succeeded in reducing the flow of
cablegrams to an economical level of about 170 outgoing and incom-
ing messages a day. In addition, there is a direct circuit to Geneva
open for about one hour daily. From there messages are distributed
to other points in Europe. But for the most part, ordinary commercial
channels are used for wire and radio communication.
Conference and General Services also is responsible for all filing
of UN correspondence and documents. The archives alone, for in-
active documents and letters, take up 11,000 cubic feet of space.
Of 1,422 staff members employed by Conference and General
Services, 363 are occupied in Buildings Management Service. This
division of the department oversees the housekeeping procedures,
takes care of the grounds, runs the fire department and the corps of
guards, repairs the furniture, operates an architectural drafting room
(with three draftsmen) to design changes in office space, lighting,
air-conditioning arrangements and such interior matters, and does
all kinds of other odd jobs. Under its authority there's even a "take
your own picture" machine, like those at amusement parks, for the
use of traveling UN staff members who need passport pictures and
aE the others who need pictures for their UN passes.
The carpenter shop keeps six men busy maintaining furniture and
making more or less unpurchasable, unstandardized objects such as
50 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
temporary booths for the guards. There are also plumbing, sheet
metal and air-conditioning repair shops.
The fire department, with its station in the third basement of the
Conference Building, is a particular pet of Conference and General
Service. It has ultramodern equipment and a thoroughly trained
force of fifteen men, on duty at all times in shifts of three. (The UN
guards, too, are trained in fire-fighting, and maintenance men as
well, but the firemen would be in command if a fire broke out.)
Since the UN buildings were constructed with practically every
conceivable safeguard against burning, the most serious blazes so
far have come from cigarettes carelessly tossed in wastebaskets,
and have stopped there, with no damage to anything except dis-
carded papers. Nevertheless, the firemen keep on the alert, ready for
any emergency, their best hope for excitement being the interior
designers, who often oppose the use of fire-resistant materials in
their schemes of decoration. If a real conflagration ever occurred, all
the resources of the New York City Fire Department would be
available.
The UN guards, 140 of them, are another trim and well-trained
group without much outlet for their indicated talents. Only three
are armed, plain-clothes men who accompany personnel carrying
money (people connected with the guided tours or cafeteria, for
example). Just as no real fire has ever happened, however, no real
robbery attempt has come along to test the capacity of the guards.
No violence of any sort, at the present Headquarters, and guards
spend most of their time giving courteous directions. But officials go
on knocking wood and urging the force to keep on the alert. Both
firemen and guards make a minor career of preventing fires and
accidents, such as slipping and f ailing. Their job is promoting safety,
rather than checking the damage o crime or negligence.
(Outside the Headquarters buildings proper, in the unoccupied
area to the north, the UN has built a playground which City young-
sters having no connection with the UN are permitted to use. The
guard assigned to keep peace here has a job on his hands that
would give pause to the career peacemakers in the General As-
TOC-VILLE 51
sembly and Security Council to the south. Being a New York father
himself, he manages, )
If a crime should be committed within the Headquarters district,
and the culprit apprehended by the barehanded guards, he would
be turned over to City police, unless it happened to be a Federal
offense, in which case, presumably, the FBI or Postal detectives, or
whatever the proper authorities were for the transgression, would
be given charge. Under the terms of the agreement with the United
States which governs UN operations on American soil, the Head-
quarters district is inviolable to Federal, state or local officers, except
by UN consent. However, unless UN regulations conflict (in which
unlikely cases they would have precedence over national or local
ordinances), domestic statutes must be observed, and a purse-
snatcher has as good a chance of winding up in the Tombs from the
General Assembly Building lobby as he does from Times Square.
Incidentally, the U.S.-UN agreement for the Headquarters district
carefully specifies that services like electricity, water, gas, post,
telephone, telegraph, transportation, drainage, collection of refuse,
fire protection and snow removal must be supplied to the UN on
equitable terms, with its needs treated as equal to those of "essential
agencies of the Government of the United States." Since the Govern-
ment of the United States is required to "take steps accordingly to
ensure that the work of the United Nations is not prejudiced/* it
seems clear that having the gas or phone cut off is not one of the
Secretary-General's major worries.
The 5,400 windows which let so much symbolic light into the
Secretariat Building (and by a special process of manufacture filter
out heat) are not only a distinguishing mark that never fails to catch
the eye of visitors, but also quite a cleaning chore. Like a number of
other housekeeping tasks and building services, the cleaning is done
under contract on a fixed fee basis with a private American firm,
which supplies nine men to polish the year around. There are 1,200
additional windows in the other Headquarters buildings and green
glass spandrels between the windows of the Secretariat Building
that have to be cleaned, too. The men keep busy.
52 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Inside cleaning is another contract job, with 54 mops going
during the day and 140 at night. The one and a half miles of elevator
shaftways throughout Headquarters that provide 250 miles o
elevator transportation per day are under the jurisdiction of girl
operators who also are supplied by outside contract. Radio elec-
tricians, sidewalk, road and grounds keepers and exterminators all
work on this basis, too. The exterminators, by the way, inherited a
rodent-and-roach problem from Mr. Rockefeller's previous bovine
tenants that they would willingly return.
Contract workers likewise clean the filters and inject anticorrosive
into other parts of the air-conditioning system. The lawns (like put-
ting greens), gardens and 440 trees that beautify the grounds are
still under guarantee by the gardening outfit that set them up, but
probably will be cared for under contract later.
Similarly, the dining room and cafeteria are operated by em-
ployees of a hotel chain. The cafeteria, on which the UN spent
$300,000 for equipment, serves 85,000 customers a month; the dining
room, 21,000 for lunch only. Conference and General Services says
what food is to be served and names the price range.
Employing the contract system is regarded as cheaper and more
efficient than hiring people directly to do such work, involving, as
that would, the expense of paying for supervision and the finding of
extra office space for the supervisors. The thirty-eight-story Secre-
tariat Building, originally planned for forty-two stories, already is
somewhat strained at the seams and visiting officials would have a
time finding temporary parking space for their papers if it weren't
for the fact that permanent occupants of offices do so much traveling.
For parking cars the department has a subterranean garage that
was intended to take care of 1,500 cars for delegates, UN employees
and people coming to Headquarters on business. Shortage of room
elsewhere in the building has cut into its capacity, however, the
storage space that was meant for Chevrolets being occupied by sup-
plies. The service station in the garage is not a department function;
it's run by the UN Co-operative.
To save employee time and elevator use going to the cafeteria,
UN-VHJLE 53
there are portable wagons that trundle through the Secretariat
Building, mornings and afternoons, carrying coffee, rolls and other
tidbits. This is a logical and pleasant service, bringing the refresh-
ment to the customer. But in the lounges, if you want a drink, you
go to the bar yourself and bring it back to your table. This wastes
no official working time or elevator space.
The item labeled "Purchasing and Transportation" among Con-
ference and General Services duties covers such a multitude of
things that an officer of the department gets irascible if he's asked
general questions about it, and you can't altogether blame him.
American businessmen, however, and particularly New York busi-
nessmen, beam when the subject comes up. In the light of items like
$254,000 for the telephone company; $614,000 for public utilities;
$200,000 for office fixtures; $130,000 for pencils, pens, inks and
envelopes; or $300,000 for mimeograph materials such as paper,
stencils and chemicals, you can't blame them either.
A New York Times study of the 1958 UN budget gave an over-all
figure of $4,000,000 for "common services," which included the con-
tract maintenance work of cleaning, electrical work and elevator
operation. In addition. Conference and General Services foresaw a
bill of more than $2,000,000 for travel by delegates and Secretariat
personnel on special missions, half of which would go to American
transportation companies.
(These Times figures, incidentally, were only part of an article
showing how much in dollars and cents the United States got out of
the UN establishment in New York. Although citizens have been
known to complain about the $15,500,000 the U.S. Treasury pays as
our share of the regular UN budget, the measurable cash money
spent by the UN, its staff and its delegations in this country is at
least $37,000,000. Moreover, replacement of slaughterhouses with
the magnificent UN Headquarters buildings has doubled or tripled
real estate values in the City area, and increased tax revenue.)
Another of the Secretary-General's departments that has more
than technical interest is Public Information, second in size to Con-
54 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBROW
ference and General Services with 291 staff members. In effect, it's
UN-ville ? s Chamber of Commerce.
The UN, as has been said before, is the greatest single source of
news in the world today. This is demonstrably true by any standard
you choose for measurement quantity, importance, universality of
interest.
Normally, there are about three hundred privately employed re-
porters accredited to the UN, with fifty or sixty daily newspapers
represented. At what have lately been the infrequent meetings of
the Security Council (though delegates are required to stand by at
all times in case one should be called) eight or nine hundred cor-
respondents make their appearance. At the 1951 General Assembly
in Paris, two thousand foregathered.
Radio coverage of UN activities is, if anything, even more im-
pressive, with news and feature material on the air twenty-two hours
a day, in twenty-five or twenty-six different languages. Stations in
the United States alone that carry programs about the UN number
fourteen hundred and not a cent is paid for time. Short-wave trans-
mitters are rented for news broadcasting to other parts of the world,
and it's a UN boast that these news programs axe never "jammed/*
Since most member states rebroadcast its programs, the UN,
DPI claims, has probably the biggest loyal radio audience in the
world at the lowest cost. Special broadcasts at times are estimated
to have more than 500,000,000 listeners. For the enthusiasm of the
audience officials cite such cases as Claudia Cruz, "Sweetheart of the
Philippines," who broadcasts UN news on every station in every
Philippine network and whose followers include thousands of Fili-
pinos who gather at communal listening posts in the remote jungles
or on the towering mountains, wherever a radio receiver can be
found.
Assistant Secretary-General Benjamin V. Cohen, head of Public
Information, says the UN was the first major user of television, with
a program called *TJN Casebook/* Certainly, the new medium has
given dramatic presentation to the UN picture. And expanded plans
for use of films on TV will demonstrate the UN's activities to more
and more millions as television develops.
UN-VTLLE 55
There are also films to be shown on screens not o the television
variety there are filmstrips and other visual materials, and there are
news services and news feature services and books and pamphlets.
Much of the department's work in spreading information to the
public is stage-managing. For headline news its function is to pro-
vide the best facilities possible for working newspapermen and the
radio press at all conferences. Newsreels and TV get the same atten-
tion. Beyond that, Press Services facilitates any interviews writers
may wish for feature stories, magazine articles or books, arranges
press conferences and helps to furnish background material.
But Public Information's own production of copy and photographs
and other material is of formidable proportions. To begin with, it
covers in the most objective style it can manage all the activities of
the UN at Headquarters. The press releases stemming from this
comprehensive coverage total between three and four thousand a
year and are aimed at the needs of: (1) the press and radio corre-
spondents covering the UN; (2) all the other media services of the
Department of Public Information; and (3) Information Centers
scattered about the world (seventeen of them overseas).
For these releases and the texts of important documents and
resolutions and the like, a teletype service is available, on a sub-
scription basis, to press associations, newspaper, radio and delega-
tion offices.
Because many smaller newspapers, particularly weeklies, here
and abroad, cannot afford commercial coverage of the UN and
still are eager for authentic information, the Department has a
printed and illustrated news feature service in several languages
which is sent, by request only, to several thousand papers in forty
different countries.
A Daily Report and Weekly Summary are sent to Information
Centers and UN missions in various parts of the world. There is
also limited radio service to the same recipients.
Besides, the department is responsible for the semimonthly United
Nations Bulletin, the monthly United Nations Reporter and the
annual Yearbook of the United Nations and Everyman's United
Nations.
56 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
The "market" for information from the department is clearly
enormous. If the budget permitted, many times the present amount
of production could be easily absorbed but the budget does not
permit. Therefore, outside help has been asked and a great deal
given. The UN cannot afiEord much, for instance, in the way of
making films. But it can give independent movie producers collabo-
ration on material and in the process of production, and does just
that Similarly, commercial picture syndicates and national in-
formation services help in the expensive distribution of photographs.
The two thousand Non-Governmental Organizations associated
with the UN (the International Chamber of Commerce, Interna-
tional Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Y.M.C.A., etc.) are a
particularly valuable means of disseminating information. Many have
accredited observers at UN Headquarters who send reports directly
to their organizations. At one time they all received basic documen-
tation and other information directly from the department, but now,
for reasons of economy, the Information Centers have been made
responsible for keeping them up-to-date.
These Non-Governmental Organizations have a high absorption
point for speeches, and not only by their own members. The De-
partment of Public Information gets close to a thousand requests a
year for speakers. Somewhat more than half of these are granted
by Secretariat officials or other UN dignitaries, and the rest are
referred to the Voluntary Correspondent Speakers' Units or other
outside sources of lectures on the UN.
Assistant Secretary-General Cohen and Mrs. Dorothy Lewis, head
of the radio division, are such indefatigable and able platform per-
formers, however, that they could probably manage by themselves,
if necessary. As information experts, they are in particular demand,
and it's part of their function to go along with as many requests as is
physically possible.
Administrative and Financial Services, besides drawing up budgets
and handling the UN's expenses (including collecting the where-
UN-VHXE 57
withal to pay them), deals with the question of personnel. There
are about 3,300 regular employees of the UN in New York, 600 or
700 at Geneva and others scattered around the world on political,
economic and cultural missions, and in Information Centers. About
800 of the New York 8,300 are stenographers and typists, another
800 clerks. Nearly aH of these 1,600 are hired locally, on the normal
basis of skill and experience.
In the more specialized jobs the economists ? statisticians, lawyers,
etc. other considerations may enter. An effort is made to distribute
the work equitably among member nations when they want it for
their nationals which not all of them do. Soviet Russia, for ex-
ample, though suspected by some Americans of using the UN as
a base for information-gathering activities, has been reluctant indeed
to supply needed technical help, explaining that too many of its
best technicians had been killed in World War II. Of something
like 120 or 130 jobs the UN wanted Russians to fill in the Secretariat,
only 20 were filled.
The international aspects of staffing are Personnel's chief problem,
and not necessarily from the angle of deciding on quotas for the
various member nations. A particular headache is that in choosing
among applicants from far countries reliance must be placed on the
judgment of third persons.
A special task of Personnel is staffing the various missions (there
were eight in the field at last count) serving the General Assembly,
the Security Council and the Trusteeship Council overseas. Except
for specialists added from outside for specific problems and manual
and clerical help hired locally, these missions are made up of
permanent UN staff members.
The Headquarters guards, firemen and 150 to 160 manual workers
(carpenters, locksmiths, plumbers, sheet metal workers, furniture
repair men and the like) are processed through Personnel. But not
the elevator operators, the cleaning people, exterminators, mainte-
nance and radio electricians, sidewalk and road keepers all of whom
work under contract arrangements and are hired by their own out-
side bosses.
58 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
UN salaries are not munificent. They range from the beginning
gross of a messenger, $2,230 (after deductions, a net $1,900), to
the Secretary-General's $33,000 with added allowance of $20,000.
(Deductions, incidentally, are for the benefit of American em-
ployees, who are the only nationals working for the UN not exempt
from income tax; money coming out of the deduction fund goes to
pay their taxes, thus equalizing rates of compensation among all
personnel.) Very few salaries get to the $10,000 level, and probably
most medium-grade staff members receive less than they would in
comparable private American employment.
Vacations are another matter, however. Everyone is entitled to
six weeks* leave with pay, and these annual holidays may be ac-
cumulated up to a total of sixty working days. To most Americans,
accustomed though they are to fairly generous vacation privileges,
this sounds lavish. But, aside from the fact that the UN likes to
set an example in working conditions, there are a couple of very prac-
tical justifications.
For one thing, some staff members live on the other side of the
globe and, though travel time is not counted in vacations, the trip
for two weeks would be hardly worth the effort. If you protest that
they could take their vacations closer to UN-ville, the answer is
that the UN wants them to go home, because as working members
of the organization they advertise its aims and increase its prestige
more than anything else could in their own birthplaces. This is one
reason why the UN pays for their transportation.
For the second thing, six-weeks vacations are not so costly to the
UN as they might be to private industry, because there are no
budget provisions to take up the added work load made by such
employee absences. It's simply divided as best the office heads can
do among nonvacationing employees.
In addition to salary, UN employees receive a $200 annual allow-
ance for each child under eighteen (under twenty-one if the boy
or girl is still in school full time, or is totally disabled). And for
social security there is a United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund,
plus a system of health protection, sick leave and maternity leave,
UN-VUXE 59
and "reasonable compensation in the event of illness, accident or
death attributable to the performance of official duties on behalf
of the United Nations/'
The wave of loyalty investigations and fear for national security
stirred up within the United States in recent years has affected
American personnel in the UN. One prominent staff member com-
mitted suicide in what was believed to be despair over the attitude
of Congress and a large section of the American people. Others re-
signed or lost their jobs as a result of suspicion that they had been
connected with various organizations labeled as subversive. The
feeling of uncertainty among the remainder that developed as a
consequence found pointed expression in a not very funny Joke.
A high American official, according to this story, entered the
Secretariat Building and was stopped by a new guard who didn't
recognize him.
"Do you work here?" the guard asked.
*1 don't know," replied the high official. TE did last week, but I
just got back from London, and haven't found out yet!"
There have been ticklish questions at issue between the UN and
the United States Government over the loyalty screening of Amer-
ican personnel. These may take a good deal of time to answer to
the satisfaction of both parties, since they relate to delicate balances
of jurisdiction, authority and "face/* The Secretary-General and
other UN leaders are inclined to have confidence in their own judg-
ment for selecting staff members (with appropriate background
help from the proper governmental agencies that are willing to
supply it). But they also earnestly want the American people to
have a better understanding of the nature of the loyally that's
required of UN staff members. This is clearly outlined in the oath
or declaration which each staff member is obliged to make. Its text:
I solemnly swear (undertake, affirm, promise) to exercise in all
loyalty, discretion and conscience the functions entrusted to me as an,
international civil servant of the United Nations, to discharge these
functions and regulate my conduct with the interests of the United
Nations only in view, and not to seek or accept instructions in regard to
the performance of my duties from any government or other authority
external to the Organization.
60 UN: TODAY AND TOMOKROW
This oath (or affirmation if the employee's religion forbids oaths)
is taken before the Secretary-General, or an authorized deputy. It's
only one of thousands of ceremonies and duties that are the lot
of the Secretariat's head man.
The Secretary-General (Trygve Lie for so long that he began to
seem irreplaceable; now Dag Hammarskjold who doesn't mind
if it's pronounced "Hammershield") is a top political figure in the
UN, with a right stipulated in the Charter to bring any matter he
considers a threat to peace before the Security Council and a duty
to notify the General Assembly when the Security Council ceases
to consider such matters. This gives him more power than may be
apparent.
The Secretary-General, partly because of the relative permanence
of his position (unlike the President of the General Assembly who
changes each year, he has no set term of office provided in the
Charter) and partly because of his widely ramified authority over
the whole UN organization, tends to become its chief personality,
its embodiment and its spokesman to the world.
He also has the more mundane and not less burdensome task of
being the Secretariat's chief administrator. Under him are the
already described eight regular departments of the Secretariat and
the Technical Assistance Administration and Board. One of the
four sections of his Executive Office deals with the Specialized
Agencies, such as UNESCO, the World Health Organization and
the International Labour Organisation, and the co-ordination of
their activities. The other three are the Office of the Executive As-
sistant to the Secretary-General, the General Assembly Affairs and
Administrative Section, and the Protocol and Liaison Section.
Under the Executive Assistant, among other things, is UN-ville*s
Library.
This is a six-story structure standing about fifty yards west of the
Secretariat Building. It was intended originally for the New York
City Housing Authority, but the UN bought it while still under
construction for $1,400,000.
XJX-VHAE 61
One of the first things an outsider notices with pleasure about the
UN Library is that he may smoke in it He's allowed to move around
in the stacks at will, directed to the proper sections by co-operative
and knowing librarians. The small tables provide good working
space.
Beginning at Hunter College in 1946 with a small reference col-
lection, the Library now has about 150,000 volumes. It receives
about 2,000 periodicals and adds about 1,350 items a year to its
pamphlet file. It has a collection of 50,000 government documents,
including all those of the U.S. State Department, and receives about
80,000 new official gazettes and documents each year. It has copies
of the laws and statutes of UN member nations, and copies of al
UN and Specialized Agency documents. It has a collection of 40,-
000 maps. Its main reference room has 10,000 volumes, including
dictionaries and encyclopedias in many languages, and microfilm
editions of the New Jork Times, the Russian Izmstia and the
London Times. Its Woodrow Wilson Memorial Library contains
about 19,000 volumes of documents and publications by and about
the League of Nations. (None of the 400,000 books from the League
of Nations Library, now known as the UN Geneva Library, is in
New York; they all remain in Switzerland. )
In addition, the UN Library has a continuing arrangement with
the New York Public Library to borrow any of its books, including
reference material and volumes from special collections. Books are
picked up and delivered daily by UN chauffeurs.
The UN Library has four branches within the Secretariat Build-
ing serving the Political and Security Council Affairs, Trusteeship,
Legal, and Economic and Social Affairs departments.
It loans more than 50,000 books, documents and periodicals a
year, routes 117,000 documents and periodicals from departmental
libraries to offices and individuals, and borrows from other libraries
about 6,500 books annually.
Documents, almost always as gifts, are received from fifty-two
member countries, seventy Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories
62 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
and twenty nonmember nations. Many private organizations and
institutions also send material, two-thirds of it gratuitously.
There are, you will have noticed, no whodunits mentioned, no
historical novels, no how-to-be-happy tracts, no volumes of poetry.
This is still the business district of UN-ville and the business is the
sober one of world improvement, not escape.
The same restriction of subject matter applies to the retail book-
shop on UN-ville's Main Street, the lobby on the first lower level of
the General Assembly Building. This is chiefly an outlet for UN
publications, which number close to three hundred a year, not
counting translations or periodicals, though it also sells books per-
taining to the UN which are published commercially. (The UN
is one of the largest book publishers on earth, with manufacturing
facilities scattered all over the world and more than a hundred sales
agents, such as Columbia University Press in this country, peddling
its products everywhere that people read. )
An average of thirteen hundred customers patronize the Book-
shop daily, and it's open every day in the week, including all holi-
days except Christmas. Many drop in just for UN post cards, but
a great many others are interested in reading about the UN as well
as seeing it. Your United Nations, a souvenir guidebook that is
photographically excellent and packs in a generous assortment of
pertinent facts about the organization, quickly sold fifty thousand
copies and was reprinted in a new edition of forty thousand. This is
a sample of the general interest.
Business and professional people, no matter what their political
attitude is toward the UN, find its specialized publications con-
cretely valuable and are taking a steadily increasing interest in the
titles that appear on the Bookshop's shelves. Studies on international
tax agreements, on world economic trends, on tariff agreements, on
agricultural production, on foreign investments, on public health,
on any number of other technical matters are within the capacity
of the UN when no other organization has the facilities to make
them. The published results find avid buyers among practical people
TJN-VILLE 68
in sixty-three countries, including the United States, and though
most prices are low, UN books are expected to do a $300,000
business in 1954.
The Bookshop itself is an appendage of the Public Information
Department, through its Sales and Circulation Division.
If the Bookshop on UN-vile's Main Street confines itself to
serious-minded merchandise, the near-by Gift Shop compensates
with a colorful and by comparison frivolous assortment of goods for
sale. Thin, silk Indian scarves, Scandinavian pewter pitchers, bric-a-
brac and ceramics and jewelry from a wide variety of sources, and
any number of other imported articles decorate its counters and
shelves but only momentarily. Ever since its opening in the fall of
1952 (Mrs. Roosevelt officiated at the ceremony), the Gift Shop has
looked like a bargain sale at Macy's, and its executive director, Mary
Dean, herself a buyer-graduate of the famous department store, as
well as a teacher of arts and crafts, has been hard put to it to keep
it stocked.
Merchandise of the Gift Shop comes from various member nations
of the UN. The quantity of each item sold is too small to interest
large-scale commercial retailers, but through the Gift Shop the arts
and crafts of countries whose wares were previously unknown to
Americans receive an introduction in favorable surroundings. The
sales, though relatively minor in dollar volume, do stimulate the
artists and craftsmen of distant and underdeveloped countries. And
this is a major purpose of the undertaking.
As an example of why such indigenous arts and crafts need stimu-
lation, the American economic adviser to Ethiopia some years ago
became fascinated by the beautiful primitive paintings on thin
goatskin he saw in Addis Ababa. He was sure his own countrymen
would regard them with the same favor and that a profitable
American market could be set up for the Ethiopian artists, whose
work was selling at home for a matter of pennies. When he took his
idea to the Government, however, he met resistance that no amount
of argument could overcome. The Government felt that the primi-
tives were too primitive, an improper advertisement for the level
64 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
of Ethiopian culture and not to be exported. The economic adviser
even had to use caution getting his personal collection of the paint-
ings out of the country when he left.
The point is, of course, that where an individual failed in such a
case, with only nebulous commercial outlets in mind, an organiza-
tion like the Gift Shop, with a widespread reputation for high cul-
tural standards and the weight of UN prestige behind it, easily
could override the Government's objections. And everyone would
be happier for it artists, Government, Gift Shop and picture
buyer.
The Gift Shop is an operation of the UN Co-operative, which also
runs the service station in the UN garage and has tried, but failed,
to be given charge of the cafeteria.
The idea of the Co-op came up at a cocktail party back in 1947
when the UN was at Lake Success. Staff members were having
mechanical trouble with prewar cars, and financial and other sorts
of trouble with the mechanics they hired to do repairs. Complaints
over the situation were practically the whole content of the cock-
tail conversation until someone suggested the co-operative solution.
It was enthusiastically agreed upon and the founders pledged
$2,500 to start their venture. Incorporated under Washington, D.C.,
statutes, the Co-op made its first deal with the Sinclair Oil Company
for gas and oil, and set up a service station near the Sperry plant,
where the UN then had temporary quarters.
In the present UN garage the Co-op service station sells no
gasoline, because safety regulations forbid it. But it still sells oil, and
three mechanics and a washman attend to the cleanliness and
internal health of UN-connected cars. No body work is done.
Nowadays, there are 750 members of the Co-op. Its stock sells at
ten dollars a share, the minimum purchase being one share, the
maximum, fifty. It regularly pays the legal limit in dividends, 4 per
cent. Members and nonmembers alike save receipts on their service
station payments, their Gift Shop and Bookshop purchases. At the
end of each fiscal year, after the annual meeting, when profits have
been totted up, members get a cash rebate on their year's buying,
UN-VHXE 65
usually 10 per cent. Nonmembers may apply this percentage of
their purchases only against the price of membership stock
Co-op membership is open to Secretariat personnel, to the delega-
tion staffs of member nations and to the representatives of non-
governmental organizations who regularly consult on or observe
UN activities.
Another busy spot on UN-ville's Main Street, right outside the
Bookshop, is a branch of the UN Post Office, where visitors may buy
UN stamps and mail letters postmarked "United Nations, N. Y/"
Contrary to some opinion, this branch and the main UN Post Office
under the Secretariat Building are not run by the UN, but by
members of the United States Post Office Department. The printing
of UN stamps is an expense of the international organization, but
revenue from their sale-for-use goes to the United States. Only
philatelic profits accrue to the UN.
Besides document sales, stamps are the one source of independent
income owned by the UN, all the rest of its funds being contribu-
tions from member governments. As a rare source of independent
income, they engender a paternal pride and concern far greater than
the dollar proceeds would seem on the surface to warrant an esti-
mated net for 1953 of $400,000. It may strike Americans as odd
that an organization of sixty great nations, with a modest over-all
annual budget, including the Specialized Agencies and the Ex-
panded Technical Assistance Program, of only a hundred million or
so, should bother itself about a tiny sum like $400,000. Our Con-
gress spends scores of billions a year without excessive anxiety over
their origin. The difference, no doubt, is that Congress also has the
right to tax, whereas the Secretary-General can merely propose a
budget, with contributions to meet it proportioned as fairly as he
knows how among the member nations then hope that they deliver.
At any rate, the philatelic shop near the main Post Office does
make money for the UN, selling UN stamps, not for mailing use,
but for collectors. The only other reasonably immediate prospect the
UN has in the way of proit-making is the guided tours. Although
these were set up by the private American Association for the
66 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBROW
United Nations, and at last reports were still paying back the
substantial loan on which they started business ( girl guide uniforms
cost $125 apiece), the idea has been eventually to turn the proceeds
over to the UN General Fund.
For the financial needs of UN individuals there is a Credit Union,
started in 1948 largely through the inspiration of Victor Kwong,
Administrative Officer in the Department of Trusteeship and In-
formation from Non-Self-Governing Territories, and long-time foe
of sharp commercial small-loan practices.
The Credit Union began with thirteen charter members, each
of whom chipped in $1.75. It grew and the shares became more
valuable. There are now about 1,725 active accounts, meaning
members, and a share costs $25, plus a 25^ membership fee. The
reason for its growth is plainly apparent in a comparison of its
interest rates with those of commercial institutions. (On a $500 un-
secured personal loan repaid within a year the charge by a con-
servative New York bank not a loan shark would be somewhere
between $36.75 and $58.90; the charge by the Credit Union would
be $24.24.)
On savings accounts the Credit Union pays 3.8 per cent interest.
It will accept up to $50 a month in deposits. The maximum invest-
ment permitted is $3,000.
Admittedly, UN staff members from far countries have a hard
time adjusting themselves to life in New York. Most of them want
to learn how we live, to share in our social life, to get out of the
strict UN orbit occasionally and experience for themselves the things
that are familiar to Americans. But language difficulties, long hours
of work and lack of opening acquaintanceships tend to stand in the
way.
Back in 1948 the UN Volunteer Services was organized to do
whatever was possible to meet this social problem. Under the
direction of Miss Aroos Benneyan, its most successful venture has
been a scheme for persuading American families to invite UN
individuals, families or groups for visits in their homes. So far such
UN-VUXE 67
visits have been made In seventeen states, for periods varying from
three days to three weeks, and the results have been remarkably free
of disaster. Both hosts and guests have been surprised by the
rapid establishment of mutual understanding. The visits often have
led to lasting friendships and to a marked broadening of social life
for the UN people.
One unlikely-sounding holiday that came off wel was a Christmas
visit by an Iranian family of four to a Scarsdale, New York, home.
It was the Middle-Easterners* first exposure to an American Christ-
mas, but they joined in the ixee-trimming and other ceremonies,
and everyone had a fine time.
Communities usually take to the idea and give it a good deal of
local publicity. At Skidmore, Pennsylvania, the mayor greeted a
party of UN visitors, the Chamber of Commerce treated them to a
sight-seeing tour, and the various families among whom they were
split up for housing had them join in our outlandish customs for
celebrating Halloween. It was a weekend and some unusually in-
telligent person supervising the local arrangements handled the
question of churchgoing (none of the party was Christian) with
excellent taste. On Saturday night each family invited its guests
to attend church the next morning, but left the choice very clearly
up to the UN visitors, without any approval or disapproval either
way. This had the good effect of creating a feeling of "belonging"
without any sense of coercion.
The UN people pay for their own transportation on such jaunts
(Volunteer Services arranges it), and for incidentals, but otherwise
they are guests. They are chosen, not as VIFs, but as cross-section
representative staff members. Miss Benneyan gives them a very
practical briefing before they leave describing proper clothes,
travel etiquette, treatment of household employees, if any, and the
like.
The UN guests frequently have been able to reciprocate invita-
tions of tin's sort and thereby further the relationships.
Volunteer Services also arranges outings of various sorts for UN
employees, in which private hosts are not involved. At Camp
68 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Nawakwa, near Lake Sebago, New York, for instance, they got
typical American summer resort swimming, rowing, hiking, danc-
ing, etc., at a special price of five dollars a person for both housing
and meals. And, again, before going they had spade-is-a-spade
briefing on manners, clothes and customs, to obviate all possible em-
barrassment.
There are other amusements available after working hours, closer
to home. The Secretariat News, like any local American paper, takes
note of badminton tournaments, meetings of the Art Club and the
Bridge Club, rhythmic gym classes, golf tournaments. There is a
section of fifty-six seats in Carnegie Hall available to UN staff
members on Sunday afternoons at half-price. For the special pleasure
of the distaff side many New York stores give UN discounts. Florida
holiday trips have been offered at reduced prices. There is bowling
and a stamp club.
Again in the private life area, the UN has a Staff Counselor, Mrs.
Dora Kowarski, whose job it is to help not only with the usual diffi-
culties of being an alien, but also with the really personal problems of
staff members, the ones that aren't amenable to group treatment.
Money is naturally one of these. The UN Credit Union is useful
for the more standard loan purposes, but there are cases of ex-
ceptional need it cannot cover. For example, a man with a wife and
two children at home collapses from stomach ulcers. He needs
extensive medical care and rest. Mrs. Kowarski spends a day work-
ing out solutions for the various problems that result in that home.
And taps the UN Staff Benevolent Fund to help with expenses.
The first rule of the Staff Counselor's office is that information
divulged there stays there. No one outside it has a right to see the
records or demand any disclosure of what they contain in con-
nection with individuals. When new Secretariat personnel are
briefed, this is one of the things they are told. Otherwise, there is
no publicity for the confidential service, no urging that the staff use
it Yet, in three and a half years, fifteen hundred problems were
brought for consideration.
A large proportion of these were primarily a matter of blowing off
UN-VUXE 69
steam. The UX has an employee organization called the Staff Coun-
cil with representatives in all offices available for consultation or
complaint on practically anything and everything that can happen
to Headquarters personnel, from rate of pay to prices in the
cafeteria. The Council has a joint Appeals Board and an Admin-
istrative Tribunal for the more difficult or high-level-policy ques-
tions, and the latter has power (which it has been known to use)
to set aside decisions of the Secretary-General. Nevertheless, the
Staff Counselor spends a great deal of time listening to expressions
of discontent over working conditions, salaries and superiors.
Visas for "terminated" employees are a recurring puzzle. Since
many countries nowadays have sudden and violent changes of
political complexion, sometimes of sovereignty as well, their na-
tionals often do not dare go home after losing UN jobs. On the
other hand, they do not have and cannot get credentials from then-
new governments either to go elsewhere or stay here. In the case
of a Chinese, the Staff Counselor's office managed to arrange a dis-
placed person status.
It would be surprising if romance failed to make some sort of
appearance in such an office. One instance that called for a search
of the statute books is recountable. A field worker in one of the
agencies, off in some wild and distant area on UN business, wanted
to marry an American girl. But her parents refused to let her join
him, or leave the country, before the ceremony was performed. He
couldn't return. So the Staff Counselor had to arrange a marriage
by proxy. This wasn't quite so easy as had been expected, because
not all states permit proxy marriages, but Mrs. Kowarski found one
that did, and they lived happily ever afterward.
For emergency medical aid the 3,300 employees have available
a well-equipped modern clinic in the Secretariat Building. But,
rather typically, one of its main uses is for inoculation of UN travelers
against cholera or typhoid or whatever diseases they are likely to en-
counter on business in far places.
This item of travel is a major characteristic of Me in UN-vflle. The
70 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
people here are willing at least, and mostly eager, to go places.
Partly it's out of normal human curiosity and venturesomeness. But
partly, too, it's because the world rather literally seems to them to be
their oyster or, perhaps more accurately, everybody's oyster. The
UN idea is essentially the One World idea, with everyone a citizen.
Since it's a citizen's duty as well as his privilege to know his own
land, an international civil servant of the UN has a particular call
to see the world.
The international civil servant not only has an urge to see the
world physically, but also to see it in his mind's eye functioning as
it might, smoothly, the parts working in unison instead of clashing
and banging and breaking one another to bits. And he has an ability
to keep that comprehensive image spread fast on his retina while
concentrating patiently on the particular tiny part of the repair
work that's his own assignment, just as a watchmaker delicately
and painstakingly adjusts the hairspring while considering the ideal
operation of the watch as a whole. In less fancy terms this means
seeing a happier future for the human race in teaching an Afghanis-
tan fanner how to use a hoe, tenaciously arguing a minor point of
parliamentary procedure, saving a dollar on maintenance expense,
filing letters or even pounding out a routine press release.
Nothing, of course, is easy least of all getting along with human
beings. But the wider-than-usual outlook on life that evidently
goes with UN work seems to have a lubricating effect on human
relations. With the exceptions necessary to prove the rule, staff
members present to the world a uniformly pleasant front of courtesy
and helpfulness. It's conspicuous enough in a country given to
rough pleasantries for an observer to wonder if they regard them-
selves as constantly on exhibition. Perhaps they do.
But if all this dedication and human-kindness concentrated in one
community seem a bit overpowering, it should be noted that
ordinary human squabbles do occur and jockeying for position,
and envy and various other well-known failings. Perhaps a UN
colloquialism will illustrate the general point. High officials are dis-
tinguishable by their fine views of the East Biver, but there are vary-
71
ing degrees of elevation among them and these are marked by the
number of office windows. Hence., a a three-pane pasha** is well up
in the hierarchy, but a ""four-pane pasha* 7 tops him.
UN-ville may not be precisely what town boosters like to call **a
big happy family," but it is the only place in history where the
whole world has hung its hat and gone to work on the common
problems of mankind.
CHAPTER 3
The UN Nobody Knows
THE UN Vishinsky knows in one way and the UN some American
tabloid newspapers know in another are puzzlingly different from
the UN any nonpartisan citizen can see for himself in New York.
But there is another UN that few Americans know about at all, a
UN that may be more important in the long run than the one repre-
sented by political talk in the Assembly or Security Council.
This UN, or rather this part of the UN, is unromantically called
the Specialized Agencies. A fair bet against any group of Quiz Kids
would be to name them.
They are: World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations, United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization, International Labour Organ-
isation, International Monetary Fund, International Bank for Re-
construction and Development, Universal Postal Union, World
Meteorological Organization, International Telecommunication
Union and International Civil Aviation Organization.
Oddly enough, there are three of these Agencies that the Russians
continue to support, though they have left the other seven flat.
Let's have a look at all ten of the Specialized Agencies, and at
UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Fund),
What the UN Does for Health
**They ought to turn it into a hospital/* a bartender mutters, point-
ing over his shoulder toward the UN plant on the East River in
New York. OK
{72,}
UN NOBODY KNOWS 73
What lie and other Americans with the same prejudice forget or
don't know is that it really is a hospital probably the biggest, best
and farthest-reaching hospital the world has ever known.
Three diseases are the chief concern of the World Health Organ-
ization. These are malaria, tuberculosis and the various venereal
afflictions, mainly syphilis. They are the most serious and contagious
diseases known to mankind, from, the point of view both of mor-
tality and economic disability. Where they are endemic or epi-
demic, there are not only mOlioiis of deaths 5 there are also great
areas of land that farmers do not have the strength to cultivate,
industries and handicrafts that languish because workers lack the
energy to do a proper job.
Since disease and low productivity are an inseparable pair of
afflictions, WHO often works with other Specialized Agencies of the
UN to bring aid to underdeveloped areas of the world. DDT spray-
ing cuts down the malaria rate, while the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) provides expert tilling advice that healthier
men and women can then put to good use. With higher incomes and
better nourishment they are able to cope with other problems to
increase their productivity further, to learn new skills, to take
thought of political matters, eventually to conduct their own health
programs. Children in want get special care from UNICEF, in co-
operation with WHO and FAO. And here, too, the health effort has
a spiraHng effect on family productivity. The less burden children
are to parents, the more parents can do for children.
"So what if Indonesians do have yaws?" is an all too common,
calloused attitude of some Americans. And not a very bright atti-
tude, either, for in the long run what's bad for Indonesians or
Africans or Icelanders is also bad for us.
It is a significant but frequently ignored fact that disease in our
time travels just as fast as the airplane. A plague-bearing flea can
attach itself to the clothing of a visitor in a Middle Eastern bazaar
on Monday, and on Tuesday or Wednesday start spreading a black-
star message against isolationism in New York or Chicago.
One of WHO's most vital services is in this field. Twenty-four
hours a day, every day, WHO monitors stand by the radio and tele-
74 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
phone in Geneva, Switzerland, where the Agency's headquarters
are located. Once they heard a message from Panama that yellow
fever had broken out. At this crossroads of the Western Hemisphere
a true epidemic could have been dreadful. But the instantaneous
WHO organization of vaccines and medical crews broke the back
of the threat in four days.
Another time a ship arrived at Singapore with one crew member
suffering from a high temperature and other symptoms of bubonic
plague. Radio messages to and from Geneva promptly got the
vessel into quarantine, while WHO did electronic detective
work. No flea-bearing rats were found at the arrival port, so WHO
operatives had to check backward to the source of the ship's cargo.
There, deep in the Asian inland, another case of the plague was
tracked down and the two were connected by fleas found in the
ship's baled rice cargo. The inland breeding place was immediately
marked off, and WHO had an unheralded victory over the spread
of disease.
By the end of 1952, in two years of operation, WHO had given
direct help to more than a hundred governments and territories.
WHO's regular expenses in 1952 came to $7,677,000. Under the
UN's expanded Technical Assistance Program it was allotted an
additional five million for public health projects.
The idea of attacking disease, along with poverty and ignorance,
on a concerted world-wide basis, using the best talents of all the
world's nations, was so startling and stimulating when it first seemed
practicable, under UN auspices, that the disappointment over
present-day limitations on financial support is understandable. But
a great deal has been accomplished, even in so short a time and with
such meager financing.
Take the VD campaign. (Actually, syphilis is the only strictly
venereal disease in this operational category. But yaws and bejel,
though not transmitted venereally, have similar symptoms and re-
sults, and respond to the same treatment. Therefore the mass inter-
national attack on them goes along with the attack on syphilis. )
Dr. Brock Qnsholm, former head of WHO, spoke of the experi-
UN NOBODY KNOWS 75
ment in VD control Ms experts conducted among sailors touch-
ing at the key port of Rotterdam in Europe. Historically speaking,
Rotterdam has been one of the world's prime sources of syphilis
not only because ships carried it from there to the ports of other
continents, but also because the sailors of smaller vessels spread
it along the Rhine Valley, right through the heart of Europe.
Obviously, the eradication of syphilis among any group as migra-
tory as sailors presents problems. But the WHO experiment has had
success. Aside from modernized methods of diagnosis (the quick
Kahn and Kline tests) and treatment (penicillin), the important
factor in its success was innovation of the treatment book, a docu-
ment like a passport that each patient carries with Mm. It shows
his entire clinical history of syphilis, together with the dates and
other particulars of his treatment up to the moment. On presentation
of the book he gets whatever further care is indicated, free, in any
port through which he passes.
WHO gives expert technical advice on the treatment of syphilis,
supervises conferences of medical people, and even offers fellow-
ships for the training of nurses and doctors in underdeveloped
countries (the whole country of Ethiopia, as an example of the need
for such training, had only forty-four doctors, with all but two of
them practicing in Addis Ababa). The present working aim is less
cure than control.
Preliminary WHO surveys showed large areas of Europe and Asia
where half the people were syphilitic, some places where the inci-
dence rose to 90 per cent. World War II, in the manner of all wars,
brought a great increase of VD ? but it also brought the magic drug,
penicillin. So WHO decided in favor of a mass attack on syphilis,
to match its mass attacks on malaria and tuberculosis. One of the
early trial raids occurred in the remote Ghund Valley of India,
where 65 per cent of the entire population had positive blood tests.
Every infected person in the valley was given a single shot of
penicillin* Five months later check teams returned to assess the
results. Their tests turned up no new cases. The single-shot peni-
cillin drive had completely stopped the spread of the disease.
76 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
With yaws, bejel and pinta, disfiguring and often incapacitating
diseases that plague great areas of the Orient, an injection or two
of penicilHn does even more. It cures them. A never-ending miracle
of satisfaction to UN Held workers is to see a crippled youngster,
covered with dreadful sores, get his injection and within a few
days turn up as sound as a bell.
Yaws, bejel and pinta run a close race to syphilis in causing
human misery and economic loss. Some idea of the extent of this
economic loss is available in the estimated annual cost of syphilis
to United States industry alone: a hundred million dollars and this
doesn't include hospital and medical care just loss of productivity.
An antiyaws campaign in Haiti, involving single penicillin shots,
sent 100,000 people back to work and increased Haitian national
production by five million dollars a year.
Greece was the scene of intensive antimalaria measures by WHO
teams. Food and Agriculture experts got up figures on the economic
results. Before DDT spraying, farm families in malarious areas had
an average gross income per year of $196.34 starvation to Amer-
ican minds, but well above the world average. After the insecticide
campaign, income in those same areas promptly rose to $385.15.
And the land healthy farmers found themselves able to cultivate
increased by 67 per cent. As incidental benefits, DDT eradication
of flies along with the mosquitoes sharply reduced typhoid fever
and dysentery; chickens relieved of their pest afflictions laid more
eggs; cows gave 15 to 20 per cent more milk. The annual cost of
this antimalaria campaign, per person protected, was approximately
equivalent to that of a couple of quinine tablets. In the light of the
suffering of 300,000,000 victims of malaria the world over (with
annual deaths 3,000,000), it seems insignificant.
At the end of World War II millions of children in Europe and
Asia were undernourished, underclothed and often homeless
prime targets for tuberculosis. The first winter three million children
in eleven European countries got emergency food as a primary
measure through UNICEF, then clothing. Afterward, UNICEF
and WHO together began the biggest mass vaccination program in
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 77
history, specifically against tuberculosis, with the preparation called
BCG. In Asia alone 9,000,000 children have been with tuber-
culin, 3,200,000 of them vaccinated. The world program calls for
testing nearly 60,000,000 children and vaccinating wherever TB
has so far failed to penetrate.
The guess is that tuberculosis takes five million lives a year, but
it's often a slow killer and, aside from BCG vaccination, the educa-
tional and nutritional measures used to fight against it are hard
to assess on a readily understandable basis of statistics. Nevertheless,
an item from Detroit, Michigan, where there has been a five-year
program aimed at control of the disease, gives indication of the
benefits that should accrue from WHO's work. The Detroit experi-
ment not cheap in the spectacular sense of DDT spraying to get
rid of malaria nevertheless saved 1,400,000 a year in sanitaria
costs alone. Detroiters spent $200,000 on the program.
WHO has many other purposes besides fighting the diseases men-
tioned above. Its over-all aim is to advise and help member coun-
tries, of whom there are more than seventy, in setting up and
operating efficient national health services on their own. A pro-
digious amount of training is needed in underdeveloped areas. Up
to the end of 1952 WHO granted 2,600 fellowships to doctors,
nurses and sanitary engineers from seventy countries. It provides
consultants for schools; supplies medical literature, laboratory
material and teaching equipment; and it has organized a variety
of special training centers, seminars and demonstrations in many
countries.
WHO's work is divided roughly into three categories; ( 1 ) advisory
services to governments particularly with regard to control of com-
municable diseases and training public health workers; (2) central
technical services in many fields^ such as health statistics, standard-
izing therapeutic substances, health research; (3) emergency aid in
epidemics and disasters.
The communicable diseases against which WHO battles by no
means stop with those already mentioned. Its experts have helped
in the control of typhus in Afghanistan, plague and cholera in India,
78 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
leprosy in Ceylon, filariasis (elephantiasis) in South Thailand,
cerebrospinal meningitis in the Sudan, trachoma in China and the
Philippines, and in various other places worked with less bizarre-
sounding maladies like diphtheria, whooping cough, hookworm,
smallpox, rabies and poliomyelitis. In both London and Washington
it maintains influenza centers for study of this practically universal
affliction.
Once some TV people were preparing a program about the UN's
Specialized Agencies and a clever one got the idea of showing three
maps of the world. The first was to outline illiteracy. On top of that
was to go a tracing of the areas of hunger, and, finally, over both
the others a tracing of the world geography of ill health. It was a
nice idea, but it didn't work out for video because the three maps
were identical in outline and showed up on the screen as only one.
The incident, however, has been used often to illustrate dramatically
how closely related so many different efforts of the UN turn out
to be.
It's hard sometimes to hold people's attention with world-embrac-
ing concepts. The figures get too big, the masses of sufferers too great
to hold our sympathy as human individuals. But WHO sometimes is
able to give help in a humanly dramatic way that we can all under-
stand and appreciate.
A mother from South Africa, visiting in London, became dan-
gerously ill and entered a hospital. The doctors w6re sure she would
die without a blood transfusion. But they knew her blood was a rare
variant of Blood Group O that occurs in only one person out of
every twenty thousand. Without precisely the same variant of
Group O a transfusion would have been as fatal as no transfusion
at all.
When news of her plight was broadcast offers of donations came
in from Germany, France, Holland and Denmark, as well as from
England. Out of 998 blood samples tested one offered by a Somerset
blacksmith turned out to be right. The transfusion was flown to
London and the woman's Me was saved.
Now WHO had nothing to do with the hospital in which this
UN NOBODY KNOWS 79
woman lay, nor with the broadcast of her story. Where it entered
the picture was deep in the background. Under its auspices inter-
national standards for blood-grouping had been agreed upon and
named. Thus, the symbol H* R 1 * (cdE/cdE), which the South
African mother gave as her blood type, was immediately under-
standable to the London doctors and they made no mistake in the
transfusion.
It is this work of international standardization that should have
special meaning for ordinary citizens, but rarely receives their
attention. WHO's International Pharmacopoeia has standardized the
titles, definitions and standards of identity, quality, strength and
purity of drugs in common use. What this means to the ordinary
citizen is that he can take a prescription to a drugstore with confi-
dence, whether he's in Teheran or home in Topeka.
A committee of WHO does the same job for so-called Tjiologicals"
things like insulin, penicillin, vaccines that are more difficult
to test for uniformity. A diabetic victim can tell you how Important
standardization of product is with insulin.
WHO has one other important responsibility of this sort. It is
the question of addiction as applied to drugs. WHO has to decide
whether any new drug is habit-forming or not. Old-time "dope" was
simple enough to identify: opium, morphine, heroin, hashish, co-
caine. But the chemists are busy nowadays with a thousand new
pain-killers and sleeping pills. WHO has to determine what ones
are reasonably safe and what ones to oppose. By agreements among
the member nations its findings have the force of law, in the sig-
natory countries.
One of WHO's important services mentioned earlier but not named
is jaw-breakingly called the Epidemiological Intelligence Service.
This is the Geneva office that keeps a twenty-f our-hour-a-day watch
for outbreaks of the plague and other epidemic diseases. If we think
of it at all, we think of it as fast-acting protection against jet-speed
spread of horrible diseases from poverty-stricken foreign lands to
our shores. But the jet-speed spread can work the other way, too
and has. Although poliomyelitis usually is thought of by experts
80 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
as a plague on privileged countries and doctors in underdeveloped
countries sometimes have trouble recognizing the symptoms, it not
so long ago broke out in India and in Chile, and WHO had to send
"iron lungs'' after it by air.
What the UN Does for Food Production
With Americans the only serious problem about food is finding
money to buy it. Our farms are hugely productive and could be
even more so. The aim here for a long time has been to control our
output in such a way that food doesn't glut the markets and depress
prices to the point where farmers lose money.
To listen to the acrimonious debate over "parity prices" and
watch the heated pulling and hauling that go on in American
politics over support or nonsupport of markets for farmers' produce,
you might not think of our agricultural situation as happy. If so, you
ought to look at the rest of the world.
The problem for agriculturally backward countries which means
a very large part of the world is the brutal fact that food produc-
tion falls behind what's needed to keep the population alive. At the
same time world population increases at a faster rate than farm
produce. Over a fifteen-year period from 1934 to 1949 the respective
rates of increase were 9 per cent for food, 12 per cent for people.
Therefore, starvation, or at the best hunger, is the common lot of
most human beings.
Someone put it this bluntly: "If you killed off half the people in
the underdeveloped countries, which contain about two-thirds of
the human race, there still wouldn't be enough food for the men,
women and children left alive in the world."
It seemed to those who set up the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization that a concerted effort to increase food production
would be not only more humane than this, but more practical. After
all, centuries of disease, semistarvation and two colossal world wars
failed to dent rising population totals. In fact, they rose ever more
rapidly. It's calculated that an extra mouth to feed appears on earth
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 81
every one and a half seconds, day in and day out, year in and year
out.
Moreover, looking at the results of FAQ's 1946 world food survey
(the first such survey ever attempted), the experts were convinced
the job could be done. A good part of their confidence stemmed
from the clear fact that in literate, healthy, energetic countries,
where modem methods were used, surplus crops were common
and easily could be increased if markets for them existed. Later
FAO experiments, usually in combination with other UN Specialized
Agencies, such as the World Health Organization, proved some of
the practical possibilities in specific areas. But no more than a begin-
ning can be claimed and there are formidable obstacles.
An FAO technical expert named W. W. Dickinson returned from
ten months spent on the rich soil of northern Afghanistan and in
an interview gave some fascinating examples of these obstacles. He
is a cotton expert and was sent abroad under the Technical Assist-
ance Program to advise on how to improve Afghan cotton produc-
tion.
Dickinson's problems began in the United States, because he
could find little or no useful information about the place he was
being sent not even weather reports. Not knowing the weather,
he couldn't judge in advance the likeliest type of cotton and had to
take with him a variety of seed, choosing it in places along the same
parallel of latitude in the United States, from the East to the West
Coast
In the walled capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, most of the govern-
ment ministers had never made the mountainous trip to the north
where he was scheduled to work and had no idea what equipment
might be there for his use. Three hundred miles later by jeep
Dickinson saw it: some old steel-beam turning plows that he dated
to the time of Noah, and some awkward old mattocks that weighed
about twelve pounds apiece. When he asked for small common
garden hoes the Af ghans looked blank They'd never heard of such
things.
Thus, Dickinson's first job in Afghanistan was to design a hoe
82 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
and have a hundred copies made* Later lie had to teach his
workers how to use them. They wanted to thin the standing cotton
out by hand, but he insisted on at least this much of modern
methods, and after a few hours of instruction they were hoeing
away as familiarly as if they'd been bom on a Mississippi planta-
tion. Still later, when they saw his methods bringing three and a
half times the former yield, they got their Government to order
thirty thousand hoes.
Dickinson could, he claimed, make it seven times the former yield
with fertilizer, but here he ran into different obstacles. Cottonseed
cake turned out to be the best available fertilizer, but it was used as
fuel in their pottery plants and, aside from grass, weeds and twigs,
there was practically nothing else they could use in that treeless
country. Moreover, there was FAO competition for the cottonseed
cake. The sheep expert wanted it for winter feed, and he finally won
the battle.
Nevertheless, Dickinson made a strong impression with that
three-and-a-half -fold increase. His first year he trained eight agri-
cultural students to spread the gospel of modernization, his second
year thirty. These students teach farmers to use the new methods
and also other students who will spend their full time teaching other
farmers and students so that the lesson spreads quickly.
The Afghan Government sent him back to the United States to
buy forty-five tractors, then return and set up a three-thousand-acre
model plantation in the north, plus a five-hundred-acre one in the
south. Maintenance men have to be shipped in along with the
tractors. The Afghan Government also bought fifteen thousand new
spindles from Germany, to double the country's weaving capacity,
counting on Dickinson's expanded cotton production to feed them.
Afghanistan previously had to import all but 10 per cent of Its
cloth.
Dickinson said that once you gained the Afghans* confidence
there was nothing they wouldn't do to follow your suggestions. But
he admitted their beginning attitude was "negative," even though
they realized they were behind the times and needed to change.
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 83
Obviously, diplomacy was as much a requirement of success as
technical competence. Asked what co-operation he had to get for
his work, lie said with, telling unadomment: *The provincial gov-
ernors, the central government, the fanners and the village chiefs."
Hardly a soft assignment.
The language difficulty he overcame by acquiring a loyal and
intelligent interpreter. But Dickinson "nearly had to break his neck"
before he got him to translate accurately. Eastern politeness some-
times prevented him from passing along statements that might be
unwelcome, and his employer couldn't be sure he knew what was
going on.
Two main points stick out like sore thumbs from Dickinson's
report. One is the almost incredible primitiveness of the tools and
methods used in backward areas. The other is the farmers* eagerness
and ability to adopt new methods once they've been shown their
value. Add a third: that it's neither a quick nor easy job to show
them.
When FAO began in 1945 its job wasn't on quite such a grass-
roots level It had to gather statistics, as in the world food survey
mentioned above, and arrange to have member nations (sMy-six
now) pool such information regularly. It set up a Council to keep
business going between annual meetings of the governing body, the
FAO Conference. One of the Council's duties is to keep a watchful
eye on price trends and supplies, and send notice around when
surpluses or shortages seem likely to occur, so that interested parties
may take proper action.
All this may sound pretty routine, but, as usual in new under-
takings, surprises occur. FAO statisticians were gathering the facts
about rice most important single item of life in much of the
Oriental world. They were comparing annual production totals of
various areas and came upon one area whose figures went something
like this: "1947 2,000,000 tons; I948-- 2,100,000 tons; 194927,-
800,000 tons; 1950 2,200,000 tons." The 1949 total was so wildly
out of proportion that they rubbed their eyes and asked the gov-
ernment in question for confirmation or explanation. If s not certain
84 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
they ever got either in satisfactory terms, but they learned some-
thing valuable about the workings of civil service minds in that
part of the world.
The system of gathering such figures, roughly, was that the lead-
ing man of each little village, whatever his title, would estimate
the local crop. These local estimates were put together at higher
and higher levels of government til they reached the bureau where
civil servants, who thought of themselves as having a position worth
capitalization, did the final totting up and set the sum down in their
books. Their addition was faultless, it was properly entered in the
books, and it was no part of their duty to question or criticize if
something had gone haywire beneath them, so that was the end of it.
Despite such minor contretemps, FAO managed to compile enor-
mously useful background material. It got together an organization
of more than six hundred workers, a large proportion of them food
or agricultural scientists, and set up headquarters first in Washing-
ton, then, in 1951, in Rome, Italy. The present Director-General is
Norris E. Dodd, a farmer from Oregon, who was U.S. Undersecre-
tary of Agriculture before joining the FAO staff.
By 1950, when the UN Expanded Technical Assistance Program
got under way, FAO was ready to accept the largest share of its
first twenty-million-dollar budget largest because it was agreed
that increased food production and management was the most im-
mediately important project for Technical Assistance. Already FAO
had had pertinent experience. For European dairy herds depleted
by the war, FAO experts had provided several solutions: the latest
techniques of artificial insemination, a vaccine to control contagious
abortion, means of curing mastitis. In Greece FAO nutritionists had
started a school breakfast feeding plan for children, helped to set
up nutrition education programs and to establish a government
nutrition service.
In 1949 FAO established a seed fund of outstanding varieties dE
cereals, grasses, legumes, oilseed crops and vegetables, from whick
member countries take samples for experimental purposes. FAO gets
UN NOBODY KNOWS 35
performance records on the seeds and gives this information to any-
one interested.
Earlier, in 1947, knowing the advantages of hybrid com seed
(it produces three-quarters of a billion more bushels of com in the
United States than farmers could grow with the older, open-pol-
linated varieties), FAO began sending it to twenty countries of
Europe and the Near East, and more recently to India, for experi-
mental planting. You probably have seen pictures of some of the
results towering over the heads of Iowa visitors. These hybrids can
be bred for a variety of characteristics to meet local conditions to
resist pests and diseases, to thrive on drought or excess moisture,
to mature early or late, etc. It will take time to test all the possi-
bilities for best results in all the varied conditions of the countries
to which the sample seeds were sent, but early indications, such as
a 25 to 30 per cent yield increase in the Mediterranean area, pointed
to success.
Spreading agricultural know-how isn't always a one-way matter.
The United States experts have found a few things in their wander-
ings that they knew nothing about before a Japanese-developed
sweet potato on Formosa, for example, with a higher starch content
and a higher yield. A disease-resistant bell pepper found near Lan-
chow in China, and an early-maturing muskmelon in the same area.
A frost-resistant apricot in Thailand.
But perhaps such items aren't too interesting to nonfarmer readers.
Fish may be more so. FAO knew that the most important need in
the diet of undernourished peoples was proteins. Also, that the
quickest and easiest way to increase their supply of proteins was
with fish.
For technical Information on commercial ishiog techniques,
refrigerating, stocking in ponds, etc., FAO has sent its experts pretty
much all around the world. It has sponsored Fisheries Councils in
the Indo-Pacific area and in the Mediterranean, offered advice on
research, administration and marketing problems. And one of its
experts, John Fridthjof, even organized a widely publicized promo-
tion stunt in Santiago, Chile.
86 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Not to be misunderstood, he called it Fish Week. Publicizing it
with thousands of posters and pamphlets, daily radio talks, lectures
at the University of Chile and recipe give-aways, he drew 250,000
visitors to his displays on Santa Lucia hill, above the city o Santi-
ago. Here he had a small museum showing fishery development in
the country, and a movie theater that gave evening performances of
fishery subjects made in Canada, the United Kingdom and the
Scandinavian countries. Commercial booths on the hill sold 35,000
kilos of fried hake during the week. And at the end of the week the
Chilean Minister of Economy and Trade announced that the follow-
ing year (1952) his Government would spend $3,720,000 on new
shore f acilities for fishing activities and on modernizing fishing craft
and gear. Fish Week thus turned out to be both a business and an
FAO triumph.
More than 90 per cent of the world's fish food has been taken
from the waters of the Northern Hemisphere, usually in the shallow
depths off the edges of continents. No one knows how far mankind
really could go in exploitation of this ready-and-waiting source of
nutrition, particularly the deep-sea variety. But FAO is doing a
good deal of work on the subject of fresh water specimens that may
be more meaningful to low-income inlanders who can't pay the
cost of transportation and refrigeration from the seas.
There is a pleasant story about fresh water fish and the FAO. It
starts back in 1939, before either the FAO or the UN was born,
when a fish culture expert named W. H. Schuster was visiting an
Indonesian fish farmer. The farmer displayed five fingerlings he*d
raised in his pond and while Mr. Schuster looked curiously at them
one released spawn from its mouth, then another did the same.
They were mouth-breeders. Furthermore, they were mouth-breeders
of an African species called Tilapia, native to the coast of Mozam-
bique and never before seen either in Indonesia or any of the
thousands of miles of water between Indonesia and Mozambique.
How they made the trip no one is likely ever to know.
But Mr. Schuster instantly saw a practical point that over-
shadowed the mystery. Since fresh water fish usually spawn only
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 87
in rivers or special breeding ponds, fish farms have to be restocked
each season with fingerlings caught in streams no easy task or
raised in hatcheries. But the Tilapia bred without a tremor in fresh,
stagnant, brackish or salt water. They were just what the fish culture
expert ordered for Indonesia.
The Tilapia's young were introduced into other Indonesian ponds
and by the time Mr. Schuster got back from his war years in Japa-
nese prison camps they had increased and multiplied to the status
of a staple food. The Japanese propaganda experts found it worth
while to claim their country had introduced the fish.
In 1950 FAO sent a couple of hundred Tilapia from Indonesia to
Thailand, where they bred as happily as in Indonesia, and by the
end of 1952 numbered 100,000. In the markets of Bangkok the Thais
are glad to pay as much for them as they do for the most popular
native fish.
Mr. Schuster's fingerlings clearly are making a peaceful conquest
of Asia.
It comes as a minor shock to some people to learn that trees are as
much a responsibility of the Food and Agriculture Organization
even when they don't bear fruit as hake or cotton plants or cattle.
But the reasons, when stated, are clear enough. *
Wood is used for cooking (though coal and gas and electricity are,
too). Timber is raw material for construction, for plastics., for paper,
for textile fibers. Farmers use trees as windbreaks and they need the
forests to check soil erosion and to help keep water from flowing
away to the sea too fast. Trees and forests need scientific care and
protection to grow, and they need other kinds of attention to prevent
their waste and to encourage their replacement.
World War II destroyed a tragic number of homes in Europe
that could have been most easily and quickly replaced with wooden
structures. But artillery and aerial bombing also destroyed forests.
Lack of wood presented itself at the end of the war as one of the
toughest obstacles to restoring housing for the people of all coun-
tries involved in the struggle.
FAO studied the problem on a European regional rather than
88 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
national basis and made suggestions which resulted in sending to
countries that were still able to export limber millions of dollars'
worth of forestry equipment. By the end of 1948 lumber supplies
had risen almost high enough to meet the demand. The UN Eco-
nomic Commission for Europe had a considerable hand in this good
work, but FAO gave most of the technical advice and influenced
national governments not only to begin large-scale planting of new
forests, but to mesh their forestry programs with those of other
countries into a regional pattern.
The rape of America's unparalleled forests is still an unforgivable
sin, but belated conservation efforts during the past generation have
begun to prove the arguments of their proponents.
Meanwhile, FAO experts study ways to lessen the drain on
Canadian, Swedish and American forests made by the insatiable
hunger for newsprint and the other products of wood pulp, such as
plastics, motor fuel, etc. Late in 1952 a conference of thirty pulp and
paper experts at an FAO conference in Rome concluded that it
would be feasible to establish a brand-new pulp industry based on
tropical and subtropical woods, and also on various leftovers of
tropical agricultural products sugar-cane bagasse, for example.
They agreed that well-established methods could pulp tropical hard-
woods, as well as lesser woods, and that varying cost factors in less
developed countries (higher chemical, transportation and interest
charges as against lower labor and raw material prices) might bal-
ance out and permit actual competition with the old established
pulp industries, in Scandinavia and North America.
Director-General Dodd noted with what seemed like some sur-
prise and a good deal of satisfaction that representatives of private
industry at this conference made no effort to withhold their knowl-
edge and experience from the FAO members, but worked right
along with everyone else toward getting the facts as straight as
possible.
You have a good chance, then, in the not too distant future, of
reading a morning newspaper that stems from a Borneo bamboo
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 89
forest, while your wife brings in breakfast wearing a plastic apron
that started life as Philippine teak.
For different reasons many areas of the world have been denuded
of forests, some almost entirely of trees. The obvious advantages of
soil and water conservation afforded by woodlands make these
lands a subject of interest to FAO. Since the only continent in the
world without a eucalyptus is Antarctica, since it is a tree that
proverbially grows fast and has almost as many uses as species,
which number a thousand, FAO forestry experts focused their
attention for reforestation purposes on the eucalyptus. Late in 1952
a group of experts from interested countries went with FAO officials
for a two-months tour of Australia, the tree's best-known habitat, to
learn all they could of its f oibles, care and usefulness. It seems likely,
as a future result, that many improbable places on the globe wifl
have a look of Down Under.
FAO foresters would like to see the best possible use made of
existing timber, which partly means reduction of waste; they would
like to see definite programs established to maintain the forests that
exist, which partly means replanting after cutting; and they would
like to create new forests.
One of their troubles In maintaining existing forests required
enlisting emergency aid from another FAO branch of experts, the
entomologists. Cause of it all was an insect that Americans regard
quite properly as a pest but innocuous the fall webworm (Hyphan-
tria cunea) or tent caterpillar. In its native North America the fall
webworm is restrained by the lethal discipline of forty different
parasites that feed on it Hence its harmlessness.
But somehow, back in 1940, specimens crossed the Atlantic un-
detected and passed nervous borders without authority to a place
near Budapest in Hungary, where they were first noted. Since then
their numberless progeny have infested large areas of Yugoslavia
and spread well into Austria. Other Eastern bloc countries besides
Hungary are no doubt affected, and nations to the west of Austria
are seriously alarmed about their prospects.
The hungry larvae of the tent caterpillar, so inoffensive in Amer-
90 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
ica, ate every leaf from over a hundred species of temperate zone
trees, shrubs and plants, once they got to Europe. The forty types
of parasite policemen were left behind in America and the larvae
have been wanton in unimpeded destruction of plants and trees.
As an emergency measure the FAO and various European coun-
tries had to institute a major spraying and dusting campaign, in-
volving 9,000,000 trees in Yugoslavia, 300,000 in Austria and not a
little money. As a long-term measure FAO sponsored a co-operative
research program on the biology of the fall webworm and also the
American parasites that have to be exported to do police duty
abroad.
FAO has plenty of other problems of a border patrol nature
desert locust control, for example, or helping to establish standards
under which plant life may pass from country to country (the
Dutch once had to make out eighty different forms for exporting
tulip bulbs to different countries; under a new convention sponsored
by FAO a single form does for all). There is a possibly apocryphal
daim that one ingenious FAO expert invented a machine to halt in-
sect immigration a kind of large megaphone, with a grinding
mechanism at the small end and a sound-maker that imitated the
mating call of the male insect. Females flew lovingly in and were
ground to bits.
But the key purpose of FAO remains the dissemination of modern
scientific knowledge. It has held many scientific meetings, set up
training schools and established fellowships (perhaps five hundred
of them by the end of 1952) for special training of qualified local
people from all over the world.
Perhaps its most dramatic educational effort has been at
Pdtzcuaro, where FAO, UNESCO and the Mexican Government
have joined forces to see what could be done to improve the lives
of all the inhabitants of a backward community, in living standards,
health and culture, using local resources. The final outcome is by no
means yet assessable, but interest has been intense and the full story,
when it is ready to be told, should be fascinating.
A practical insurance project FAO hopes one day to set up, but
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 91
hasn't so far been able to get beyond the discussion stage, is estab-
lishment of an Emergency Food Reserve, for ready use in case of
disaster anywhere in the world. The scheme has many complica-
tions, but it also has many attractions and someday may be a fact.
What the UN Does for the Children
There is a convent on the border between Jewish and Arab terri-
tories in the Middle East, where the strife of recent years has up-
rooted so many families and cost so many lives. UNICEF (the
United Nations International Children's Fund) has sent food
to the convent since 1948. Not long ago thirty of the inmates
decided to show their gratitude. They were five-year-old orphan
girls.
With pieces of cardboard, bits of colored stone and odd strips of
satin, they put together and lovingly dressed a ten-inch-high figurine.
They placed the little statue, shimmering, on an altar in the kinder-
garten, where all the orphans could see and each remember to give
thanks in her own way to the now embodied benefactress they called
"Mademoiselle UNICEF."
It seems a shame to many people that an organization so uni-
versally admired and loved should have had to lead a hand-to-
mouth existence. But that's the case. It was established in December
of 1946 by the UN General Assembly, not with the permanent and
more or less autonomous character of a regular Specialized Agency,
but for a three-year period. Contributions for its support were purely
voluntary, by governments and individuals. In December of 1950
the Assembly voted a new three-year lease of life with a view, as
UNICEF publications put it, "to establishing the Fund on a perma-
nent basis at the end of that time.**
But, although more than half of the world's 900,000,000 children
under fifteen are in what amounts to a constant state of need a
state that holds little hope of major improvement for at least
a generation UNICEF, their only practical source of help on a
world-wide basis, by mid-1953 seemed to have a future even more
92 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
uncertain than Its past. And the cMef cause of uncertainty was die
United States.
To most American parents, children present three common prob-
lems. One is getting them to eat properly to balance the dessert
with spinach. Another is getting them to dress properly rubbers in
the rain, mufflers in cold weather. The third Is getting them to the
doctor or the dentist on schedule.
To most parents everywhere else on earth the problems are so
different that Americans sometimes have trouble comprehending
them. For something like half a billion children there never have
been shoes or milk or doctors. And their parents had no choice In
the matter.
UNICEF started, in 1946, as a direly needed emergency agency to
do something for the thirty million European children whom World
War II had made homeless, ragged and starving. Food was the first
need and on the advice of the Food and Agriculture Organization,
UNICEF supplied It in the cheapest, easiest, most nutritious form
dried skim milk. The first winter three million youngsters In the
eleven hardest-hit European countries got this help.
After food came clothing, and UNICEF found the raw materials
cotton, wool and leather, chiefly from which the needy countries
themselves fabricated shoes and shirts, dresses, coats and suits.
Then came the pressing demands of health. With so much mal-
nutrition, lack of proper clothing and destruction of housing, tuber-
culosis was reaching epidemic proportions. The Scandinavian coun-
tries, on their own, made a start to fight It. Then UNICEF stepped
In and, with the aid of the World Health Organization, began the
historic campaign of vaccination with BCG (Initials of the word
"bacillus'* and the names of the two French scientists who developed
the vaccine, Calmette and Guerin). This campaign, when completed
on a world-wide basis, will have reached sixty million children
tested for tuberculosis with tuberculin and from twenty to thirty mil-
lion vaccinated. It costs about a dollar to vaccinate twenty-four
children. The estimate is that BCG provides about two years of
immunity for four-fifths of the children not already Infected.
Yaws and malaria and syphilis are diseases of children as well as
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 93
adults and UNICEF began working with the World Health. Organ-
ization to fight them on a mass scale. A UN1CEF field worker gives
a human idea of the results.
One day he saw a fourteen-year-old girl in a UNICEF-WHO
clinic on the island of Java, where yaws has been a blight for cen-
turies, afflicting four-fifths of the rural population. Despite the fact
that one shot of penicillin is usually enough to stop the disease
and two shots are almost a sure cure, many Javanese have become
fatalistic about it and if they go at all to the clnics do so without
much hope.
The field worker says this fourteen-year-old was the most beauti-
ful girl he'd ever seen, with dark, expressive eyes, fine features, a
gold-bronze skin. But when he asked,, ** Aren't you glad you're going
to be cured?" she merely shrugged her shoulders. Then he saw how
carelessly she was dressed, how little regard she had for her
appearance not even the typical Javanese flower in her hair.
On her way out, an hour or so later, he saw her again. She had
talked with other patients, received her injection and there was a
new light in her eyes. On a table near the door lay a crimson hibiscus
and she stopped to put it in her hair.
The UNICEF worker thought: "I wonder if the lucky young man
who gets her will ever know how much he owes UNICEF,"
In money, ridiculously little, since one penicillin treatment costs
about fifty cents. But in health and hope and happiness something
incalculable.
By 1952 two million children in Asia had been tested under
UNICEF auspices for yaws, 375,000 treated. The spread of syphilis
and bejel, of course, comes under the same program. Twenty mil-
lion have had protection against malaria, chiefly by DDT spraying,
not only in Asia, but also in Central America. And there is the great
antituberculosis program.
In the beginning a "eup of milk** was the symbol of UNICEF. At
one time there were seven million children "sitting around the
UNICEF food table.** As economic conditions improved over much
of the world, that figure was cut by half, and of the three and a
half million still being fed, only 575,000 got their skim milk for the
94 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
chief purpose of preventing starvation. They were refugee children
and those living in drought-stricken areas.
The rest of the three and a half million typified a change in aim
for UNICEF. The aim became health for the children, rather than
simple survival. In Africa, for example, 340,000 youngsters were fed
skim milk to combat a widespread diet deficiency disease called
kwashiorkor. In Central America UNICEF joins other UN Special-
ized Agencies in distiibuting the skim milk for demonstrations to
show its value in improving general child health. Here the idea is to
encourage locally mantained school-feeding programs. Similarly,
elsewhere in Latin America, in the Eastern Mediterranean and in
Asia, maternal and child welfare centers receive the milk.
To offset rickets, as one specific target, and round out children's
diets generally, UNICEF also provides fish-liver oil in various forms
our traditional cod liver oil is one. This, again, is in considerable
part an educational measure and wherever possible is done through
schools. There is a nice story about it from the Philippines.
A thirteen-year-old boy in one of the provinces was night-blind
could see practically nothing after dark. One night he failed to arrive
home before sunset. His frantic parents gathered the neighbors and
sent searching parties through the jungle. While they were beating
the woods, the mother heard someone approaching the house. At
first her hopes rose, then she realized it couldn't be her Jos6 because
of the firm, rapid step. He would have been stumbling and bumping
into trees* But it was!
"Mama!" Jose shouted. "I can see!"
And the story came out. Jose, playing baseball, had forgotten to
start home in time and hurried along in fear as the sun went down.
It went all the way down long before he reached the nipa hut that
was his home, but somehow it never got too dark for him to see.
Gradually he realized that his night-blindness was gone and his
fear changed to joy.
At school for the month past Jos6 had been getting shark-liver
capsules from UNICEF. They contain large quantities of Vitamin
A, lack of which causes night-blindness.
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 95
The whole village was educated that one night
Much of UNICEF's educational work is carried on in conjunction
with the Food and Agriculture Organization. The idea first is to
show the value of milk and fish oil to children's health, then to show
local populations how to produce their own. In the latter field, the
Food and Agriculture Organization naturally has greater com-
petence. It not only demonstrates how to produce more^ but also
how to use what is produced in the most effective way. In the case
of milk this has much to do with pasteurization, refrigeration and
drying. UNICEF, up to the middle of 1952, had given equipment
for these processes to fourteen countries in Europe, the Middle East
and Latin America that now guarantees safe, low-cost or free milk
to four million children.
Although UNICEF is not officially a Specialized Agency, its tech-
niques and procedures follow the pattern of other UN organizations.
The aim, as with the Food and Agriculture Organization, World
Health Organization and others, is first to demonstrate the value of
modern methods, then to train native technicians how to apply them
and also teach other native technicians. Otherwise, UNICEF has as
its main functions to furnish a "nucleus of knowledge and initiative.**
It gathers the best up-to-date technical knowledge and takes the
lead in spreading it Also, it has a mobile corps of experts ready
to send to trouble spots.
In another way UNICEF follows the procedure of such agencies
as Food and Agriculture and World Health. It insists that the money
it spends in any country be matched by equivalent sums in local
effort. That this rule has been carried out is evident from a couple
of figures. Up to July 1, 1952, UNICEFs total receipts from govern-
ments and individuals (there have, of course, been many voluntary
contributions from other-than-governmental sources) were $165,-
000,000. The sixty-four countries it had aided spent within their
own boundaries the considerably larger sum of $190,000,000, and
this was their own money. Beyond that, in gratitude a number of
these assisted countries themselves became contributors to the
Children's Fund.
96 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
On the principle observed elsewhere in the UN, that countries
should give support in proportion to their means, the United States
always has been the largest dollar contributor to UNICEF. Despite
our usual pride in American generosity for such worthy causes, there
has been resistance against appropriations for UNICEF and in May,
1953, when sixteen nations voted to continue the children's organ-
ization, the United States delegate was the only one to abstain. Even
Soviet Russia voted in favor.
If the abstention., implying doubt about continued American sup-
port, stemmed back to resentment against the dollar amounts we
had previously contributed as compared with those other nations
gave, one fact deserves note. On a comparative population, or per
capita, basis, the most generous giver was not the United States, but
little Iceland. And there were several other countries, on the same
basis, that topped our record.
Early in the "cup of milk* program, when the European need
for food was worst, someone asked an Italian child what UNICEF
meant He answered: 'It's the American word for ^cow.' "
A little later, when UNICEF*s aims expanded and supplies began
to be sent all over the globe, there was a feeling that the organ-
ization's name on crates and boxes ought to be translated into the
various languages of receiving countries, or at least the initials
forming it into the different alphabets, so that they would be surely
recognized. But the packing cases already shipped all bore a stand-
ard UNICEF symbol and before a decision was made, 'UNICEF"
had become an actual word in far parts of Asia, South America, even
along the Arctic Circle.
To poverty-stricken parents in scores of now friendly countries the
disappearance of that symbol and the supplies and technicians that
bear it would be a bewildering deprivation for their children.
What the UN Does for Education
Newspaper headlines of the last few years offer a kind of reverse
for this heading, something like: **What Some U.S. School Boards
Want to Do to the UN." The answer is pretty close to mayhem.
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 97
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization) is the chief target of the school boards" enmity; but
their dislike often includes the rest of the international organization,
in California and Texas^ chiefly, though elsewhere^ too, it has been
freely charged UNESCO tries to undermine the traditional
patriotism of our school children by giving them an ideal of world
government. The imputation is that Communists invented the ideal
of world government, along with the electric light, airplane, radio
and other ideas.
The more practical charge is that UNESCO tries to take control of
the American system of education. In several instances UNESCO
literature about the UN was cited as an example of the propaganda
method in this effort, and, despite argument from substantial sec-
tions of the communities involved, teaching aboiit the UN was
removed from the schools.
In Los Angeles, which perhaps fought the issue out most bitterly,
it happens that the start of the debate came over a little book called
The **" in UNESCO. It was signed by Superintendent of Schools
Alexander Stoddard, along with the rest of the school board, and
issued as Publication No. 498 of the Curriculum Division of Los
Angeles City School Districts. None of the signers could very well
have been on the payroll of UNESCO.
The closest the book itself came to a philosophy of world govern-
ment (as anyone who bothers to examine it will see) was to urge
international understanding and co-operation. True, these are aims
of UNESCO, as they are of the UN as a whole. But they are also
explicitly stated objectives of the United States Government, now
and for many years past, whether Republican or Democratic. Never-
theless., teaching about the UN was banned in Los Angeles schools,
even though in this case it was begun by the school board itself.
It is true that UNESCO makes pamphlets and other teaching
materials available to schook that want them. To the observer who
tries to' be objective, these materials do not seem to have Marxist
leanings; they merely try to explain the workings of the UN.
But all this obscures what is probably the main point of UNESCO
a point which one would expect to appeal to practically all Amer-
98 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
leans, UNESCO's biggest project Is to a kind of little red
schoolhouse" big enough to teach reading and writing and arithmetic
to the more than half of al the people in the world who are illiterate.
Plus a few other essential forms of knowledge. It's hard for most
Americans to realize that there are a billion and a half people on
earth who can't read a street sign in any language, tell what mer-
chandise they're buying from the label or write a two-line note.
These people can't tot up figures, except in their heads (if they have
any idea of figures). They have little or no notion of sanitation,
proper nutrition or anything else about domestic science, and prac-
tice agriculture about as it was practiced five thousand years ago.
It isn't stupidity that makes them so; it's plain ignorance.
UNESCO's strength is being channeled into a gigantic drive to
help these people. As an example of the difficulties it faces, there is
one small underdeveloped area in Africa where five hundred different
dialects are spoken and less than ten of those five hundred ever
have been put into writing by anyone. UNESCO's task in this area
would be to decide, first, whether or not to try to reduce the five
hundred different dialects into some common writing form, into
which the hundreds of dialects all would fit; then work out a way
of registering the phonetic sounds of the varying dialects in that
common writing form; then teach the value of writing and reading
in that form; then teach the natives this brand-new, utterly un-
thought-of technique; and, finally, prepare some of the better native
students to teach the rest of their fellows how to use it.
This is a task that has no real comparison with the American Tittle
red schoolhouse." Here we had a written language many centuries
old and a traditional respect for dealing with it on paper. In the
jungles and on remote mountain plateaus there is no such back-
ground. Scholars have to start from scratch, tuning their ears for
strange primitive vocal sounds, translating them into marks on paper,
teaching the natives what the marks mean, and, finally, teaching
native trainers how to teach their fellow natives what they mean
and how to make them, so that knowledge will spread.
A few years ago, India, with its ancient and respected civilization,
UN NOBODY KNOWS 99
won set up a democratic form of government It
have shocked Americans to know that 85 per cent of the
population qualified to vote in the first could not and did
not cast ballots, simply because they couldn't read them. Since they
couldn't read newspapers or magazines either, were few
radios, the on the ballots what they represented would
have meant to them anyhow.
An army marches on its stomach. A democracy marches on its
ability to a newspaper. UNESCO proposes to produce this
ability In the more than of the human race that does not have
it now. This, UNESCO and the UN consider, is a first step toward
universal democracy and away from tyranny.
If you worked the problem out in an ordinary American class-
room context, with thirty pupils to a class* and an average of three
thousand dolars a year to the teachers, the project would require
fifty million instructors and cost one and a half billion dolars a year.
The money, of course, is little compared with what we spend on
armament, but where would UNESCO find the fifty million
teachers?
Actually, UNESCO in 1953 had about to spend on all
its activities. Hence, its only way of spreading "fundamental edu-
cation' 7 is the same as that of so many other UN Specialized Agen-
cies "training trainers.'*
The slogan, TEach One Teach One/* which now permeates prac-
tically all Specialized Agency Technical Assistance activities, was
conceived by an incredibly energetic and purposeful Protestant
missionary named Dr. Frank C. Laubach.*
Long before the UN had genesis in Franklin D. Eoosevelfs mind,
Dr, Laubach back in 1929 began an indomitable, singlehanded at-
tack on world illiteracy. The calculation is that his individual efforts,
directly or indirectly, have taught ABCTs to some fifteen million
persons. He has worked in sixty-four countries and, in his phrase,
* For an excellent fan account of Ms weak see the Profile by Robert Rice in
The New Jorker, February 16, 1952.
100 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
"made lessons'* in 239 languages or dialects, practically none of
which he can speak himself. He has been a valuable adviser to
UNESCO, which uses much of his pictorial methodology and
counts heavily on his "Each One Teach One" philosophy.
Dr. Laubach started with the savage Moros on the biggest
Philippine island, Mindanao. Their only literate citizens wrote and
read in Arabic, but the people's language was Maranaw, a fortu-
nately simple language that never before had been put on paper.
Dr. Laubach put it on paper for the first time, not so much with the
idea of starting a pedagogical revolution as with the purpose of
forwarding his evangelical mission, which was financed by the
Union Congregational Church of Upper Montclair, New Jersey.
When Dr. Laubach began Ms fight against illiteracy about 4 per
cent of the population in his Lanao province of Mindanao could read
and write, in Arabic. Two years later 20 per cent of the population
could read and write their native Maranaw in the far simpler Roman
alphabet, which he used in ^making lessons." And the literacy rate
was rising 1 per cent per month. Part of Dr. Laubach's enormous
success on Mindanao had a debt to one early pupil who was im-
pressed by the "Each One Teach One 9 slogan. What this particular
Moro savage had to say was: "Everybody who learns has got to
teach. If he doesn't, 111 kill him." The disciples knew very well
he meant it, and they went out and taught
But the Moro's approach was miles away from Dr. Laubach's.
He is a great unbeliever in "No." He states categorically that no
teacher should ever ask a question that the student cannot answer.
He believes strongly in the virtues of slapping on the shoulder, smil-
ing at the pupil and saying, in effect: "You're doing fine.** None of
his lessons lasts a moment longer than the student's attention, and
if that fails, he feels it's the lesson's fault, not the pupil's.
On Mindanao Dr. Laubach selected three words that had all
the consonant sounds in the language. He wrote each of the words
across the top of a large chart, then broke it down below into
syllables, giving, along with the syllables as they actually appeared
in the word, all possible vowel variants to go with the consonants.
UN NOBODY KNOWS 101
Within an or as little as twenty minutes
the was to discover lie had already learned
how to read.
In this venture lie was fortunate in having a very simple
language to with and in being able to deal with it in Ms own
alphabet, since no other to interfere. Later prefects presented
much more serious difficulty Dr. Laubach to elaborate his
method and suit it to special circumstances in the various countries.
The chief addition is pictures^ which are adroitly worked out to
illustrate language sounds with representations of things whose
spoken names coincide with the names of the written character. For
example, in Burmese the written character for the sound **wa" is a
circle; Dr. Laubach illustrated it with a picture of a very fat boy
whose stomach was perfectly round s "wa w being the Burmese word
for "fat"
UNESCO experts have added a great deal to Dr. Laubach's sys-
tem and the ^fundamental education" program includes basic
teaching in sanitation and domestic science as well as reading and
writing. But the missionary^ work on Mindanao was valiant pioneer-
ing that proved spectacularly how much could be done by a single
devoted man. It was something else, too dramatic proof of the
value of such effort.
For three hundred years under Spanish rule of the Philippines the
Moros had been intractable thorns in the side of authority. They
were never conquered and over the centuries they developed a
proud pugnacity that carried on ova: into the era of American
sovereignty. White men went armed on Mindanao as kte as 1928,
thirty years after the Spanish-American War, and with reason. But
within five years of the 1929 start of Laubach's campaign, the
Moros changed to peaceful ways and it was possible for Americans
to live on the island in safety. The Moros also became sympathetic
to Christianity and Dr. Laubach got all the converts lie could
handle which, was his aim in the beginning,
But, despite that astonishing figure of fifteen million taught to
read and write through his efforts, the missionary has remained
102 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
unhappy about the problem of illiteracy. TTie aanua! world popula-
tion increase in backward areas far outstrips the gains in readers
and writers for which he has been responsible. Poor people re-
produce more often than those in better circumstances, and igno-
rance remains as firm a friend o poverty as disease. Only the sort
of combined attack on all three that agencies of the UN like
UNESCO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International
Labour Organisation and the World Health Organization have
planned and set in operation has any chance of long-term success.
Fundamental education centers, encouraged and advised by
UNESCO experts, beginning with the first pilot project in Haiti,
now are working in many scattered areas of the world. Perhaps the
most interesting is in the Pdtzcuaro Lake region of Mexico.
UNESCO's Director-General from 1948 to 1952, Jaime Torres Bodet,
in the early 1940's was Minister of Education in Mexico and started
his own program of fundamental education which in the course of
two years, with the familiar "Each One Teach One** slogan, taught
1,200,000 Mexicans how to read and write. For the estimated 70,-
000,000 people living in Central and South America who lack these
abilities, the Patzcuaro experiment now offers much wider hope.
It is a joint operation of the Mexican Government, UNESCO and
the Organization of American States. In addition, the Food and
Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization and the
International Labour Organisation have sent experts. The stated pur-
pose is to raise living standards using only the economic and cultural
resources locally available, except for the advice and encouragement
of UN and government experts. It is also a kind of UNESCO show-
case for fundamental education.
Food and Agriculture field men engage in such homely projects
as demonstrating how to prune fruit trees properly, how to control
insects in the orchards, how to build a model pig pen, how to drive
a tractor. Under their direction the village of Cucuchuco became
famous as the first community in the region to install its own prac-
tical water system. The Food and Agriculture experts* function is to
demonstrate modern ideas in home economics, nutrition and agri-
UN NOBODY KNOWS 103
culture, to rouse in co-operative effort for improvement by
the communities, to the natives to spread
the new techniques by down-to-earth work in the villages.
One of the problems, as in underdeveloped areas^ is
to generate that new ways of cultivating land and caring
for livestock are really worth the effort of applying. The trainees
who go out to spread this confidence the people have had
remarkable success, largely by practical personal demonstration of
what to do and how it succeeds. But there are visual teaching ma-
terials, too, provided by the UN agency. Simple though these are,
knowledge of reading and writing helps. This, partly, is where
UNESCO comes in. Along with teaching handicrafts and teaching
students how to make teaching materials.
Half the fourteen thousand inhabitants of the twenty villages in
the area were illiterate and not much interested in changing. The
pictorial approach helped. Posters were especially useful, but all the
known reproducing processes cost too much or presented too great
technical difficulties at Patzcuaro. So, two UNESCO men, Uru-
guayan Julio Castro and American Jerome Oberwager, decided to
work out something new. And they did.
After much experimentation they arrived at what they called the
glueplate process so cheap and so simple that any teacher-artist
combination can use it, any carpenter can build the press for run-
ning off copies. What they did was to cover a glass plate with a
fifty-fifty mixture of paraffin wax and beeswax on which the artist
could draw his picture and do his lettering direct., correcting as he
went. Then, after lines were cut out with a simple engraving tool, a
mixture of glue and glycerine was poured over the wax, allowed to
solidify and removed, thus providing the stereotype or printing
surface. They inked it, smoothed paper over it (any size can be
used) and had a fine reproduction. The cost less than two cents.
UN field workers have to be ingenious and ready to meet local
needs everywhere. At P&tzcuaro, however, they perform on a kind
of dual stage. Not only do they extemporize to raise the standard
of living for the Indians of the immediate region, but also furnish an
104 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
instinctive drama for visiting teams of trainees from at least seven-
teen other Latin-American countries. These visiting teams go about
the Pitzcuaro area with the local trainees, watching them at their
work of teaching others. Then they go home to their own countries
and each one starts teaching one in an ever widening circle. As it
widens, the seventy million Latin Americans who cannot read and
write will have an ever increasing chance to learn.
But fundamental education is by no means the only important
function of UNESCO. On a higher intellectual level (for those who
benefit), it serves as an exchange bureau for scientific and cultural
information of every conceivable sort. It helps libraries to collect
books. It has catalogued both in French and English the fine col-
lection of recorded folk music from all over the world in the French
National Eecord Library in Paris. It sponsored an international
treaty that went into effect early in 1952 abolishing import duties
on a wide range of educational, scientific and cultural materials. It
helped to set up an educational film center in Turkey. It sponsored
a meeting in Brooklyn, New York, of forty-five museum experts and
educators from twenty-five countries in Europe, Asia and the Amer-
icas, in part to promote the international establishment of mobile
museum units, international exchanges of staff and the creation of
more fellowships. It has set up the system of UNESCO Gift
Coupons, which are a form of international currency that facilitates
the purchase of books and other cultural materials. It persuaded the
Universal Postal Convention to lower postal rates on newspapers
and periodicals.
Now and then UNESCO sponsors a special project to which
people with long-standing special opinions may object. One such
project was publicized in Life Magazine, May 18, 1953. It was a
three-year study by sociologists, anthropologists and geneticists from
all over the world on the controversial subject What Is Race? The
major conclusions of the scientists were that the three main races of
the world Caucasian, Negroid and Mongoloid show little or no
variation in intelligence and aptitude, though they do have genetic
BN NOBODY KNOWS 105
differences that make for the differences in their outward appear-
ance, and that, as the races more reely ? as they are doing,
even the genetic differences may disappear*
What the UN for Labor
"We took the initiative and we are not going to be thrust aside
so easily as all that I have written to Lloyd George to tel him so.
I'm not going to let him do this to me. w
This was Albert Thomas speaking as first Director of the Inter-
national Labour Office of the League of Nations^ in 1920. It doesn't
sound so heretical today, perhaps, bet at the time Lloyd George was
key member of the League's Supreme Council, and the Supreme
Council, which had just dictated the terms of peace after World
War I, held such a remote, lofty and powerful place in the scheme
of things that hardly anyone thought of publicly disagreeing with
its policy decisions, let alone writing Mr. Lloyd George a direct
letter of dissent. Particularly a dissent that said his august tribunal
was usurping the privilege of a small and not much regarded off-
shoot of the League.
It really was heresy at the time and other members of ILO, who
had not yet come to know Albert Thomas well, almost literally shook
in their boots.
His difference with Lloyd George, pertinently enough for us today,
had to do with Soviet Russia. ILO had suggested what would be
known now as an investigating committee to go see what actually
was happening in the new Soviet State. The suggestion won a
good deal of public attention, since people were hardly less curious
then than they are now about the Russian situation, and the Supreme
Council took note. But their way of taking note was to consider a
Commission of Enquiry of their own, not of ILO. It was to this that
Albert Thomas objected.
In the end no League of Nations or ILO inquirers made the
junket, but Director Thomas' letter to Lloyd George had the unusual
effect of bringing ILO up for discussion during an entire Supreme
108 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Council meeting. The Labour Office never before had had such
prominence.
But it has had prominence ever since.
Among the UN Specialized Agencies ILO holds the unique
position of being the only organization that bridges the gap between
the old League of Nations and the present UN. The International
Telecommunication Union and the Universal Postal Union are con-
siderably older in years than ILO, but they were not connected
with the League. They did their necessary business independently,
ILO started as a kind of stepchild of the League, not exactly un-
wanted but hopefully understood to be in the background. An idea
of the situation may be had from one incident. ILO headquarters
were temporarily in London. For expenses the treasurer of ILO gave
a check made out for him personally to an English member of the
staff, who was to set up an office account. The 5,000 check was on
the Bank of England. When the ILO staff member took it to his
own bank the manager irst asked: "What is the International Labour
Office?" Then, after a full explanation, he continued to look doubt-
ful, suggesting that a resolution of the ILO Governing Body (which
was not due to meet for another six weeks ) would really be neces-
sary before accepting such an account. And finally insisted that the
ILO staff member deposit the check in his own account (which
had rarely held more than &4), if he must have immediate action,
adding dolefully: "Do you realize that if you were run over and
lolled when you leave the bank the money will be the legal property
of your heirsF' As the staff member later wrote:
For six months the whole of the funds of the International Labour Office
remained at the mercy of the traffic in London and Genoa until, when
the Office at last reached Geneva, proper and regular arrangements
were made. It should be added, as a further indication of our financial
difficulties, that there were times when, had a fatal accident occurred,
any dispute between unscrupulous heirs and the Office would have been
over something less than a five pound note.
There was something else that E. J. Phelan (who was the ILO
staff member just quoted, and who wrote an excellent biography of
UN NOBODY KNOWS 107
Albert Thomas) in humorous detail. Again,
it may not sound a for today, but it was important.
Since the United would nothing to do with President
Wilson's creation, Great Britain France naturally took leading
parts in the League. Since neither had ever tried such an under-
taking with the other before, both rather violently
differing concepts of government administration and of the civil
servant's function at varying levels of authority there was prob-
ably bound to be misunderstanding friction. In this case the
conflict of came to a Marions over a public relations
man^s "in** and "out" basket and the British Civil Service Registry
system, wMch kept documents in a central file til called for or unless
they were routed on to someone else in the organization. The system
called for initialing the sBp on a routed paper or document once
the interested person had finished with it. But this the press relations
man hadn't learned. And, since it was part of Ms job to see prac-
tically everything that went through the office, he had a certain
justification for hysteria. The mountains of papers he waded through
one day and put in his "out 5 * basket kept returning the next day,
along with new ones, to Ms "in** basket till at last he exploded in a
meeting and demanded to know who the practical joker was. The
wild laughter that greeted Ms explosion didn't improve Ms temper
at the moment, but it helped to clear the air.
Gradually the two schools of civil servant thought began to see
the special merits of each other's systems, to work together, and to
have mutual respect. TMs long history of international elbow-
nibbing is one of the particular values of ILO to other parts of the
UN. Newer agencies often have profited from its time-tested admin-
istrative advice. No other agency has had its wealth of experience.
Under the League and in the interregnum before the UN, ILO
worked steadily to set up better conditions of employment for men
and women, tO 1 prevent unemployment, to lower working hours. It
gathered admirable labor statistics. The standards it recommended
and worked for never won, any international legal standing, but,
gradually, bit by bit, they became realities many of them, at any
108 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
rate. The eight-hour clay* for example, and the protection of women
workers.
On the other hand, as time went on, it became clearer that the
primary objectives of the labor movement could not be achieved
in a vacuum. From the beginning, in 1919, ILO had had a unique
"tripartite" worker-government-employer membership, but the focus
of attention was on labor's welfare and problems, as distinct from
those of the rest of the community. By time of World War II and
even more by the time ILO entered the UN as a Specialized Agency
its viewpoint had broadened. The emphasis turned to over-all in-
creased productivity, in which labor should have a Just share.
David A, Morse, Director-General of ILO since 1948, thinks of
the change as ^acceleration^ or "implementation" of long-term ILO
working plans. In a number of directions ILO has become more
"operational*"
For instance, in what might be called the diplomatic field, ILO
was caled upon some years ago to intercede in a dispute between
the International Transport Workers Federation and the Govern-
ment of Panama. Actually, the matter had come before the ILO
Maritime Commission as far back as 1933, but dragged on without
action till finally, in 1948, the seamen's organization threatened a
boycott of certain ships flying the Panamanian flag. Its claim was
that the ships were obsolete and had been transferred to registra-
tion in Panama to dodge taxes, currency regulations, safety rules
and social and labor standards. ILO investigated, while the Trans-
port Workers postponed the boycott. Then, from the investigation,
ILO suggested a number of changes in Panama's maritime laws.
The Government of Panama rather bitterly objected to parts of the
ILO investigation, but in the end revised its laws pretty much to
the satisfaction of the workers and the threat of boycott ended.
Mr. Morse recalls a more striking case that had its scene in Greece.
Information came to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Associa-
tion that a number of union leaders had been sentenced to death
in Greece and were in early danger of execution. The Director-
General promptly wrote the Greek Government a polite letter asking
UN NOBODY KNOWS 109
for of the to, the crimes with
which they were charged the rendered against them.
The to letter at denied trade unionism had
anything to do with the cases, insisting the men had been tried
and sentenced to for treason, but it went on to say that
the Greek Government had clemency which cov-
ered the in question and they were therefore from execu-
tion, though imprisoned for Me. It appeared, however, other
men in much the position had been executed, and in labor
circles 1LO got credit for highly persuasive letter- writing. More im-
portant, the incident reflected the prestige of its Freedom of Asso-
ciation Committee as a protection for trade unionists throughout
the free world.
In the more contemporary field of increasing productivity, ILO
has spread out pretty widely, along with the rest of the Expanded
Technical Assistance Program. Over half its field work is vocational
training, and mostly training trainers. William Yalden-Thomson,
Assistant Director-General in charge of Technical Assistance opera-
tions, defines the worth-while field man as one who can get the feel
of local materials and teach natives of the locality to make the most
of them. Also and more important for ILO's purposes one who
has the knack of teaching natives how to teach other natives. ILO
wants to get job-training going, in the most effective manner pos-
sible, but it also wants to get its experts out and on another Job
Just as fast as the local people are trained well enough to take over
for themselves.
The last paragraph sounds like Asia or South America. But prob-
ably ILO's most spectacular project so far has been the politically
delicate business of Yugoslavia. As everyone knows, Yugoslav head
man Marshal Tito Is the first (and up to now only) leader of a
Communist satellite country to break away from the Kremlin, carry-
ing his nation with him and still professing Communist ideology.
His country represents a wholly singular gray between the stark
black and white of the world's political division today, depending
110 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBHOW
on and to an extent promising to defend the one side, while still
leaning toward the other philosophically.
Since the break with Moscow Tito has had no easy time either
politically or economically. Earlier standard Communist efforts
toward farm collectivization backfired and his industrial program
stayed in low gear. Finally he came to ILO, saying, in effect: "We
can build factories, but we can't find people to run them/' What
he wanted particularly was foremen, well trained in specific jobs.
Because of the political aspects, ILO foresaw fairly hideous
trouble in the project, but it also saw a challenge worth accepting
and went ahead.
The sometimes vaunted advantages of a dictatorship worked out
in one way. ILO wanted very carefully selected trainees and Tito
saw it got them, cutting every strand of red tape that interfered.
The 370 men chosen were briefed with the greatest care to avoid
friction between them and their politically different host-trainers,
then were sent all over Europe mainly to Western Germany,
Sweden, Holland, France and Belgium. For precaution, ILO set up
a rigid inspection system to operate during the training period in
the various factories where the trainees were installed. ILO also
sent to Yugoslavia from various European countries 350 veteran
foremen to prepare the ground in Tito's factories for the return of
the newly trained natives. Then ILO sat back to wait, in trepidation.
It was almost a disappointment, things went so smoothly. The
Yugoslavs turned out to be eager beavers who loved every minute
of their training and kept their instructors after hours asking perti-
nent questions. There wasn't a trace of political trouble. Factory
managers liked the trainees' work so well that in a number of cases
they asked permission to keep them on.
Perhaps the human payoff came with the disastrous floods that
swept England and the Low Countries in 1952. The Yugoslav fore-
men-trainees in the Netherlands emptied their pockets of every
guilder to help.
When the project was ended Tito requested another million dol-
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 111
lars of ILO Technical Assistance to renew the training drive. Greece
and Israel, taking notice, also asked for foreman-training aid.
A less spectacular but more typical piece of work was done by
an ILO man in Haiti, who found out a way to tan local skins into
very beautiful leather and taught his method to thirty Haitians.
They picked up his evangelical enthusiasm and began spreading
his technique to other trainees and trainers. Now there is every
likelihood that the island will have a profitable small tanning indus-
try where nothing of the sort existed before.
This is the kind of grass-roots, pay-as-you-go, one-thing-at-a-time
development most ILO people believe in. They have had thirty-five
years* experience in the ups and downs of international effort and
their resultant philosophy is one of pretty adamant gradualism. They
refused to give up when the League folded. They were flattered to
death when the UN invited them to join the fold. After the United
States Point Four program poured $66,000,000 into an Afghanistan
hydroelectric irrigation dam project (the results of which one ob-
server described as "something out of Evelyn Waugh with about a
hundred yards of usable road, electricity no one could read by and
the rest confusion"), ILO imperturbably sent out a practical Greek
who was expected to find out what the Afghans had the capacity
and resources to do for themselves, then help guide them to make
the most of both. The budget for the Greek was about $12,000 a
year.
This is not to say that ILO keeps its head cautiously hidden in
the sand. Once or twice, on the contrary, it has been found with its
neck rather conspicuously stuck out. The Altiplano survey was such
an occasion. Its categorical title was Tndigenous Population Survey"
and a number of sparkling ideas were expected to dazzle forward-
looking citizens once proceedings got under way. Actually, they
did get under way to the extent that fourteen or fifteen ILO, FAO,
WHO, UNESCO and UN experts spent four months studying the
multi-thousand-feet-high Andean plateau of Bolivia, Peru and Ecua-
dor that goes by the name of Altiplano. Here, at least a quarter of
the earth's tin and a lot of other minerals make fabulous fortunes
112 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
and periodic political revolutions for some people. But here, too,
the "indigenous population," illiterate, diseased and poor beyond
description, scratches out practically no living at all. ILO thought
it might make a spectacular scene for pilot projects in a new way
of life, teaching new skills to use on the old resources, educating,
eradicating disease. And the preliminary survey, sparked by ILO,
was considered something of a classic. But other Specialized
Agencies that were expected to share the work and expense of a
four-year program became reluctant, particularly after a sharp cut in
the expected Technical Assistance funds, and the project at last
report was uncertain, leaving ILO out on the limb with partial
commitments that couldn't be carried on to any worth-while con-
clusions without the other Agencies* co-operation.
ILO stuck its neck out in another direction at about the same
time. This particular protrusion happened in India. Privately owned
textile and engineering industries asked ILO to supervise testing
of a managerial technique called "productivity and payment by
results." In the United States it is better known and argued over
as the "incentive plan." The peculiar delicacy of this venture lay in
the fact that in India employment at any sort of wage or pay is a
land of privilege that Occidentals do not understand. Somewhere
between 40 and 50 per cent of the Indian adults able to work are
normally unemployed, in any Western sense. They are in a perma-
nent condition of unemployment, not expecting anything else. A
regularly paid job of any sort for half the people is more or less in
the dream world of those "You, too, can make $15,000 a year if
advertisements that sell correspondence courses in this country.
Except that this half of the Indian population can't read.
The peculiar delicacy and danger of the venture was that it
might destroy a few jobs. A very few even six or eight or ten
would be enough to lose face for the labor unions. Yet they were
willing to take the chance, and ILO embarked on the experiment,
insisting only that both labor and management be in together on
every step of the way. The object, of course, was increased produc-
THE "UN NOBODY KNOWS 113
tivity an especially desperate need of India and the risks seemed
worth taking.
Preliminary results in the engineering field showed increases from
12.5 to 116 per cent; in textiles from 6 to 36 per cent.
This is the new "operational" or "accelerated" or "implementa-
tional" philosophy of ILO at work.
There is, ILO people like to feel, less disposition nowadays to
send experts out into the field who come back and write elaborate
reports that are "filed and forgotten/' As an instance of the latter-
day emphasis on concrete results, they suggest a minor project in
Jordan. When it was brought up, ILO had doubts the Government
of Jordan would be interested enough in the end to contribute its
proper share. But an expert nevertheless was sent, though with
specific instructions to find out the Government's attitude before
getting the Agency too involved. To the surprise of Geneva head-
quarters, things began to pop almost immediately. The Government
quickly agreed to the project and at once allotted land for build-
ings, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency came up with a
$40,000 grant, the expert completed a foot-high pile of blueprints
and before his return home learned that work had already started
on construction two and a half weeks after he set out.
This, ILO people felt, was action.
They like to cite seventy-three-year-old Sir Malcolm Darling as a
similar example. Arriving in Pakistan on an ILO mission, he asked
for transportation and got evasive replies. "Well," said Sir Malcolm,
"if you haven't a jeep, give me a burro and let's go/' Or, regarding
another Pakistan mission, the anxiety of a male member over a
female member who disapproved of Oriental religious discrimina-
tion against women: "The first week I was afraid she was going to
start a religious war. The second week I was sure she'd win it/*
Training, of course, is a vital function of many Specialized
Agencies, particularly under the Technical Assistance Program.
ILO's training is essentially vocational. Where, as at the famous
proving ground in Patzcuaro, Mexico, there is a combined effort
by several agencies, ILO people try to keep their teachers in the
114 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
strictly vocational channel, giving instruction in handicrafts, me-
chanical skills and the like. Reading and writing are up to
UNESCO, farming to FAO, health to WHO.
Nevertheless, a dividing line is often hard to find. Ask an FAO
expert at what point a tree goes out of FAO jurisdiction into some-
thing else. He may get fired with enthusiasm and find himself in
carpentry before he knows it. Similarly, ILO, because it has as a long-
time goal reasonable standards of living for all workers, finds it-
self hip-deep in a pretty world-wide movement for land reform.
Land reform, of course, essentially means breaking up big absentee-
ownership estates into smaller owner-operated farms. Historically,
it is probably the most explosive political and economic issue
known to man. Every conceivable political label has been attached
to it, from Roman times and before, down through the Middle
Ages, our own Civil War, present-day commotions in the Philip-
pines, Asia and elsewhere. The enormous conflict over collectiviza-
tion in Soviet Russia, in historical perspective, was merely an item
in the long chronology. Whether in our day land is best farmed
in small areas for philosophical reasons of personal ownership or in
large areas for most economical use of machinery, for planning,
etc., is a question that the experts argue at length. But ILO, like
many other organizations, cannot fail to take an interest. Whichever
way a decision goes, workers are involved.
Where once ILO made its greatest point in setting up standards,
such as the eight-hour day, protection for women at work, industrial
safety regulations, disability insurance and wage scales, it now
makes greater effort to implement those standards. Most of its aims
are already immortalized in beautifully written laws. The problem,
as is particularly true with social security laws, is to guarantee
proper administration.
The tendency has good exemplification in a minor branch of
ILO*s program. This is rehabilitation work and placement o per-
sons disabled either in industry or by any other cause. Mr. A. A.
Bennett, ILO expert in the field, made it dramatic with a very
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS HE
casual remark: "The United States, you know, has a very liberal
definition of blindness.' 7
People with more or less normal sight tend to think of blindness
as a condition without qualification. We may say: *Tm practically
blind." But we don't mean anything o the sort. When we really
think o blindness, we think o the dark. Yet for the purposes ol
industrial employment, compensation and insurance there obviously
have to be measurable degrees of vision impairment. In a negative
land of way it's nice to know that the United States has a liberal
definition of blindness. It's also good to know that a strong UN
organization like ILO watches over such matters without our asking.
Finally, ILO has one over-all competence that com.es close to
beggaring the competence of every other organ of the UN. World-
wise, it knows more about manpower than any other organization.
What mankind has the capacity to accomplish ILO knows better
than anyone else. The knowledge some day should prove useful.
What the UN Does about Money
Although the UN and all its Specialized Agencies operate on an
annual budget hardly greater than that of the New York City De-
partment of Sanitation (which, for some reason, is the favorite
comparison), and talk of poverty is as sad in the Secretariat Build-
ing as it is in any normal American household, two of the UN's
Specialized Agencies do have money to play around with, if the
expression doesn't sound too careless. And the sums have a billion-
dollar flavor markedly in contrast with other UN outlays.
These agencies are the International Monetary Fund (known as
the Fund) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and De-
velopment (known as the Bank).
Workings of the Fund are impossibly mysterious to nonfinancia
minds (like ours) that can barely understand how to balance a
checkbook. Long, long ago most national currencies had their value
related to the value of gold, and even then fluctuations in exchange
(or relative value of one national currency to another) were fre-
116 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
quent and erratic. Shrewd men who understood such matters made
money out o them. Nowadays, with most of the gold in the world
underground at Fort Knox, the problem o understanding is even
more intricate.
There are complicated exchange restrictions enforced by govern-
ments practically everywhere, and many currencies have different
valuations domestically and abroad. Partly because of such restric-
tions, one country owing another country money because of unequal
imports and exports may have great difficulty making payment. By
making American dollars, Belgian francs and British pounds sterling
available, the Fund eases such short-term crises. It also helps mem-
ber countries, when possible and beneficial, to keep their currencies
at par, by the same method of putting up dollars, francs or sterling.
Up to the beginning of 1953 the Fund had exchanged $896,408,380
of these relatively strong currencies for the weaker currencies of
some twenty-two countries to help with their international financial
problems.
Aside from advancing a monetary helping hand, the Fund has
been active in urging relaxation of exchange restrictions. Admitting
that these "may for the time being have to exist in many countries/'
it still hopes to help its fifty-four members work toward a "relatively
free state of international trade and payments."
Further than this specific purpose, the Fund's Articles of Agree-
ment require member governments to adhere to the high standards
of conduct in financial and foreign exchange affairs set up by the
organization. Through constant consultation with governments the
Fund feels it is definitely improving the international code of ethics
in the exchange field.
The Fund's staff of financial and economic technicians, gathered
from thirty-one countries, is constantly at work gathering and
analyzing data on the shifting economic and financial scene, and
these findings are available to members, Moreover, Fund experts
have directly helped members to combat inflation, improve credit
policies, draft new banking laws, establish foreign exchange budg-
ets and study the financial aspects of development programs.
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 117
The Fund receives no financial support from the UN, which
might interest some readers in the question, where it gets eight
hundred-odd million dollars with which to do business. As a mat-
ter of fact, its assets are more than ten times that figure.
This, very roughly, is how it works. Each member government
is assigned a quota, either in the original Articles of Agreement or
as it joins the Fund. The quota determines the member's voting
power and also the amount of foreign exchange, if eligible, it is
entitled to buy from the Fund. To join, a government must sub-
scribe an amount equal to its quota, partly in gold and partly in
its own currency. The quotas vary from Panama's $500,000 to
$2,750,000,000 for the United States. Sales of exchange are subject
to a service charge of three-fourths per cent, payable in gold or
partly in gold and partly in the member's own currency. This serv-
ice charge has been the Fund's chief source of income.
The Fund's purposes, of course, are high: "to facilitate the ex-
pansion ... of international trade, and to contribute thereby to
the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and
real income and to the development of the productive resources of
all members'* by promoting "international monetary co-operation
through a permanent institution which provides the machinery for
consultation and collaboration on international monetary problems."
Yet, when a major money policy change, such as currency devalu-
ation, is about to take place, smart operators obviously can cash in
on advance information. Since it's unavoidable that a number of
officials know what's going on, there is always the chance of a leak.
The Fund is particularly proud that no leak has occurred in con-
nection with any of its operations.
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was
set up more or less in tandem with the Monetary Fund. Some
board members work with both institutions and the two share an
office building in Washington. (They are the only Specialized
Agencies with headquarters in the U.S.) It's even necessary for a
118 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
country or territory to become a member of the Fund before it's
eligible to become a member of the Bank.
But their functions are clearly distinct. The Fund is intended to
help keep national currencies stable, so that industry, trade and
agriculture have the confidence and favorable financial atmosphere
to expand themselves and thereby improve the people's living stand-
ards. Its effect on the individual is indirect. But the Bank is intended
to lend money directly for the reconstruction, the establishment or
expansion of industry and agriculture. The effect of its operations
in making jobs and improving living standards is concrete and im-
mediate, visible to anyone.
The idea, of course, is not to give money away and therefore
experienced credit men weigh the probabilities of repayment before
any loan is made. But for a banker with imagination it must be
far more cheerful deliberation than in the case of an ordinary com-
mercial loan, because one of the chief considerations always is the
effect of the loan itself. Will it help the country or the area to be-
come more productive? Will it help balance the economy? Will it
help to make jobs that are permanent? Will it help to make people
more content? If it will, other things being reasonably advantageous,
then it probably will be repaid and is worth making. There aren't
many Wall Street men or bankers in small towns who can afford
to think this way, but it's the fundamental and in the long run very
practical philosophy of the Bank.
Before the Marshall Plan went into effect in Europe it used its
available half -billion dollars of investment money to help in the
reconstruction of the continent's ravaged industry. Now its atten-
tion is turned mainly toward less highly developed countries in
other parts of the world. The place-names of its investments read
like an atlas Mexico, Brazil, India, Colombia, Iraq, Turkey,
Australia, Uruguay, Ethiopia, Thailand, Nicaragua, Iceland, the
Belgian Congo, Paraguay, Southern Rhodesia, Pakistan, Peru, Iran,
Ceylon and also countries closer home. Loans to date total a billion
and a half dollars.
Of that total the largest amount went for reconstruction, reflecting
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 119
the urgent needs of Europe in the immediate postwar years. The
second largest amount reflects the newer phase of the Bank's ac-
tivities, development in this case, electric power development.
Third is transportation; fourth, agriculture and forestry; and fifth,
industry.
One loan to India is an attractive example of the Bank's invest-
ment policy. The sum was $18,500,000 and it was paid in April,
1950, to aid the Bokar-Konar project a combination electric power
flood control irrigation and increased water supply development
similar to our own Tennessee Valley plan.
The scene is the Damodar Valley, through which flows the Konar
River. Bokar and Konar are two new cities springing up on the
river, Konar at the site of a dam being built with the help of Bank
funds, Bokar twelve males downstream where a steam electric plant
is under construction, also with the help of Bank funds. About
4,500 people have been working to build the communities out of
what was useless jungle, building not only houses ( out of concrete
block, incidentally, instead of the traditional mud), but also roads.
The area had been inaccessible before.
The new houses have electricity, running water and adequate
sanitary facilities none of which had been known in this region
of India. Bokar and Konar offer regular jobs something rare any-
where in India. And clearing of the jungle offers new tillable land,
part of which is to be taken over by the farmers whose land will
be inundated when the dam is in operation. But there has been a
gradual migration both to the new farming land and the cities from
surrounding areas.
Engineers are instructing the Indians in construction and opera-
tion of both the dam and the steam electric plant, which is sched-
uled for completion in 1953. India's Damodar Valley Corporation,
a public agency patterned after the American TVA, which is con-
ducting the whole program, also is responsible for setting up model
farms in the new farming areas where the paddy farmers learn
modern agricultural techniques, such as contour plowing and ter-
racing to prevent erosion, use of improved manures.
120 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
The Damodar Valley is rich in mineral resources and the addition
of the Bokar electric plant's 150,000 kilowatts will surely raise and
make cheaper the output of coal, which up to now has been mined
largely by hand. Increased power will benefit the steel and asso-
ciated industries already established in the valley and develop
new ones, such as fertilizer plants, cement plants and locomotive
repair shops. Production of many other minerals is expected to go
along with the effects already mentioned of added electric power.
There are dozens of other probable results. If all the good effects
eventuate the Bokar-Konar project might well turn out to be the
inspiration for a whole new way of Indian lif e.
This is not by any means to hint that the Bank would be re-
sponsible for bringing the Indian people out of centuries of abject
poverty. Its loan is only a part of the financing. Incentive for the
project was Indian. And its direction is in the hands of Indian
Government officials. But the Bank, nevertheless, has helped and in
doing so has shown the nature of its aims.
The fact that the Bank merely helped with its loan and cannot
take credit for all the good that may result parallels a point that
its president, Eugene R. Black, often emphasizes in connection with
our part in the European postwar recovery. He chides Americans
who say our ten- or twelve-billion-dollar contribution did the job,
stating that 90 per cent of the capital for reconstruction came from
Europe itself. Then he goes on to insist that outside aid cannot be
the complete answer to economic development anywhere, quoting
one of the conclusions reached at the Commonwealth Economic
Conference in London late in 1952: "The major sources of capital
to promote development must come from within each country. . . .
Capital from outside will then find a fruitful basis on which to
work"
A few other quotes from Mr. Black give a good notion of the
Bank's thinking.
The problem of lifting living standards, he says, "is not just to
provide capital, but to help create conditions and skills for using
it effectively. . . .
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 121
TFarm production is fundamental in the underdeveloped coun-
tries. Agriculture is the chief economic activity in most of them,
and the pressure of growing populations on available food supply
is one of their major problems. Moreover, productive agriculture
is usually a basic requisite for ultimate industrialization. Farm
productivity must rise if man-power is to be released for industry;
farm earnings must increase if a healthy market is to be provided
for local manufactures. . . .
"In many underdeveloped countries the lack of basic facilities . . .
means that industrialization must begin modestly with small and
light industries; but it is extremely difficult . . . for the Bank to
assess the comparative economic value ... of many small industrial
enterprises. . . .
"We are particularly glad when we are able to finance not merely
one isolated project, but several projects winch will have a cumula-
tive effect on a country's economic life. In Ethiopia, for instance, we
have made separate loans for highways, for telephone and radio
communication, and for a development bank. The roads should
give farmers and stock-raisers an incentive to added production
through easier access to markets; the development bank should be
able to make loans for processing plants which will increase the
earnings from Ethiopia's agricultural exports; and new communica-
tions, making possible the dissemination of market information and
the control of freight shipments, should greatly aid the country's
domestic and international commerce in agricultural products.**
It was said earlier that a banker with imagination must find it
more cheerful to deliberate over a loan of the International Bank
kind than an ordinary commercial one, because one of the chief
considerations always is the effect of the loan itself. But it must not
be forgotten and the Bank does not forget that one of the effects
of lending is on lending itself. The Bank objects to very long-term
cheap loans, not because it wants to deny aid where it's needed, but
because such loans tend to demoralize the whole financial structure.
They imply a lack of interest in repayment on the part of both
parties and end by reducing the chances of repayment. To grants
122 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
in aid, called just that, the Bank has no objection. But if it's a loan,
it should be treated as a loan, and paid off, on time, with full in-
terest.
In the case of real loans, the Bank, like any other self-respecting
financial institution, takes a paternal interest in the borrower, gives
good advice in every way possible, and sends him customers.
What the UN Does about the Mail
As the largest of the Specialized Agencies in point of members
(ninety-three), the next oldest and perhaps the most successful
international organ existing today, the Universal Postal Union takes
very little nonsense from anyone. A few sentences from the 1952
UPU report will give an idea:
In 1951, relations between the United Nations and the Universal
Postal Union developed regularly and without interruption. . . . The
Union sent representatives to several meetings of the United Nations,
the agenda of which contained items likely to be of interest to the
UPU. . . . On the other hand, the UPU continued its previous practice
of declining invitations to sessions which were of no interest to it. ...
For its part, the Union invited the United Nations to send representa-
tives to the May-June session of the executive and Liaison Commission.
The United Nations accepted this invitation. . . .
An attitude like this of rather aloof equality by the part toward
the whole suggests a solid amount of self-esteem. And there is no
doubt that UPU has grounds for it.
It is easy enough to be romantic about the business of carrying
mail. Its history goes back to the beginning of writing. When mes-
sages could be written and read, the next logical step was someone
to carry them: viz., the postman.
The first regular postal system on record was set up in 500 B.C.
by Darius the Persian, who used relays of horsemen, in the manner
of our own nineteenth-century Pony Express, to carry messages
throughout his huge empire. Julius Caesar organized a mail service
during his conquest of Britain that got letters to Rome in twenty-
six days. In 1800 it took thirty days.
Until the year 1635 mail service was largely a royal prerogative
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 123
or at least a private privilege. Britain's postmaster, Thomas Wither-
ings, that year established a public post between London and Edin-
burgh. But then, and for a long time thereafter, the system was to
charge by distance rather than weight and a person sending a
letter overseas might have a choice of three different prices, de-
pending on the route the ship took. He was never too sure of de-
livery, either.
The postage stamp was not a midnight stroke of individual
genius. In seventeenth-century Paris there was a local postal service
costing a sou per letter. The sender paid and got a receipt, which
he sent along with the letter. It was from that practice that the
postage stamp finally developed in the nineteenth century.
England and France concluded the first postal treaty in 1670, by
which England supplied semiweeldy packets across the Channel
and France carried the mail overland to Lyons. But all over the
world communication by letter continued to be helter-skelter and
unreliable through the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth cen-
turies. With the great expansion of trade in the nineteenth century,
many additional treaties between countries were signed, but there
remained irritating differences in rates and methods of handling,
and pressure mounted for international regulation.
The United States suggested the first conference to find a solution.
It met in Paris in 1863. But the American Civil War interfered, as
did the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. (Incidentally, it was
during the latter conflict that airmail first became known, with a
pigeon-and-balloon service out of besieged Paris to Tours.) And
it wasn't until 1874 that an international congress at Berne, Switzer-
land, agreed on a plan to bring order to world mail delivery.
This agreement, which was called the International Postal Con-
vention, provided for unif ormity in treatment of correspondence, for
simplification of accounts and for reduction of rates, which were to
be calculated on weight rather than distance. It also provided for
the establishment of what in 1875 was called the General Postal
Union and in 1878 changed its name to the Universal Postal Union,
the present UN Specialized Agency.
But it was UPU as an independent entity that did the job of
124 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBHOW
setting the world's mail delivery to rights. Hence its attitude of
well-deserved self-esteem.
The job UPU does is almost incredibly vast. Under its aegis about
sixty billion letters a year are handled inexpensively and with dis-
patch. So smooth is the operation that not one person in a thousand
has any idea how it's done.
Probably because the operation is so vast, the basic principle be-
hind it is exceedingly simple; it has to be. The basic principle is to
regard all member states as a single territory. Since UPU's member
states and territories (ninety-three of them) for any practical purpose
comprise the whole world, this means that national borders are
disregarded. Like radio signals and the weather, the mail knows
no frontiers. And, being realists in their way, Soviet leaders recog-
nize the fact. UPU is one of the three Specialized Agencies with
which they stayed after leaving all the others.
The single-territory principle imposes a duty on each member
state to transmit foreign mails entrusted to it by the best means it
uses for its own mails. Hence every country has access to the rail-
way, shipping and airmail services of every other country in the
world, at uniform rates and with uniform treatment.
The figure of sixty billion letters a year does not mean only letters
moving from country to country. That figure is probably not much
over two billion at present. The sixty billion letters are the total
handled both internationally and internally by member countries.
UPU does not interfere with internal practices of members,
though its advice is available through the International Bureau at
Berne, Switzerland, and has had effect in promoting efficiency.
( Circulars requesting information which is later published in other
circulars give a hint in their homely titles, such as: "Two Features
of Mailbags" and "Use of Bicycles in Rural Areas.") What it does
is collect and publish information of all kinds relating to postal
service, issue lists of air and steamer services and act as an office
for settling international accounts.
This last function is one that puzzles many people, how any
accounting system could keep track of two billion items scattered
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 125
around among ninety-odd countries and territories. Obviously, UPU
makes no attempt to balance books to the penny. What happens is
that every three years member countries compare a month's trans-
actions one with another and pay off the differences through UPU.
Not that the business is done casually. One of the duties of the
International Bureau at Berne is to adjust disputes among members
over such payments. A UPU Report immortalizes one such argu-
ment in nearly six pages of type, with twenty-two clauses and many
more subclauses, reflecting much correspondence, sharp legal
thought and weighty deliberation all over the sum of 5.12 gold
francs, or about $1.75.
In addition to adjusting disputes, the International Bureau stands
ready to answer questions of any member as to practices that affect
the other members.
A standard requirement of UPU members is that they follow
regulations in handling eight types of "ordinary mail" letters,
single and reply-paid post cards, commercial papers, printed matter,
raised print for the blind (the 1952 UPU Congress voted for free
transmission of such literature), samples of merchandise, small
packets and phono-post articles, such as phonograph records.
There are seven other postal services outlined in agreements sup-
plementing the basic Postal Convention. UPU members have to
observe the agreements only if their governments have ratified
them. The services cover insured letters and boxes, parcel post,
money orders, cash on delivery packages, postal checks, collection
orders and subscriptions to periodicals.
The UPU Congress meets every five years to revise the Universal
Postal Convention (as the International Postal Convention was
renamed in 1947). In 1952 two of the more interesting changes
were a 50 per cent reduction in rates on all newspapers, books and
magazines sent abroad, and amplification of a scheme to permit
payment in national currency, at local post offices, for subscriptions
to foreign newspapers and magazines, with low-rate mailing rates.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organi-
zation had urged these changes.
126 UN: TODAY AND TOMORBOW
Although UPU does not interfere in the workings of its members'
domestic postal services, it has within recent years, through its In-
ternational Bureau, added to the organization facilities for the ex-
change of technical information among all the member postal ad-
ministrations.
The International Bureau supplies member postal administrations
with the many millions of international reply coupons that are used
each year to facilitate correspondence between countries.
It is also the philatelist's friend. It receives stamps of aH kinds
from all member countries and territories and is required, under
the Convention, to distribute them to all other members. In one
year it handles 2,500 different kinds of stamps.
What the UN Does about the Weather
It hasn't, of course, been true for many years, as Mark Twain
complained, that no one does anything about the weather. Meteor-
ologists have done a great deal about the weather. A lot of their work
has been done in strange and lonely places, remote from the so-
called civilized world, and almost all of it has been negative, in
the sense that it has consisted of observation rather than constructive
action.
Nevertheless, the observation has resulted in better short-term
forecasts and more detailed patterns of wind, rain and storm now
available have made modern aviation possible even if it's still not
practicable to plan a picnic a week in advance, and even if farmers*
almanacs are the only institutions brave enough to prognosticate
next spring's climate.
On the positive side, there has been enough experimentation
for meteorological realists to say flatly that rain-making is a scientific
possibility, provided we are willing to pay the price and make the
equipment necessary to work our will on the millions of tons of air
hanging over our heads. It is even possible to make rain without
too much cost and without fantastic new mechanisms, under just
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 127
the right conditions, locally, and now. Airplane spraying of clouds
with silver iodide or dry ice has done it.
But the main meteorological work has been and remains trying
to find out what weather has been and what it is now. Benjamin
Franklin had ideas about wind patterns that gave a good deal of
inspiration to later students of weather. We can say with assurance
from much detailed observation that weather travels generally
from west to east And we can say with equal assurance that this
is the reason why Soviet Russia remained a supporter and co-
operative member of the UN's World Meteorological Organization
long after leaving all but two other of the Specialized Agencies. She
got more out of it than the Western countries. Oddly enough, how-
ever, and the technicians have no explanation, a good deal of win-
ter weather moves westward from Siberia.
But these are generalities that don't help much in specific situa-
tions. For instance, in the Allied invasion of Europe during World
War II it would have been enormously valuable to have month-
ahead predictions, even for the Infantry. But the best meteorol-
ogists could do for the Air Force was a twelve-hour forecast, fol-
lowed by a three-hour jump-up. One of the things WMO officials
like to emphasize is that a weather report never says what the
weather wiU be, only what it is. From present conditions, accurately
reported, experts can make fair estimates of the near future. These
are called forecasts.
The trouble is that there aren't enough modem weather stations,
manned by well-trained technicians, in all the meteorologically im-
portant parts of all the world. There isn't enough radio equipment.
And therefore the day-to-day global weather pattern is anything
but complete. Since aviation has become so important, air currents
are a matter of particular concern. Range of planes has been in-
creased so vastly that most of them can fly around or over storms,
or choose a new destination within a thousand miles. But winds,
though they have a generally easterly direction, are fickle at all alti-
tudes. Learning more about them, and how to cope with them, is
a matter of great moment to WMO.
128 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Weather has a connection with agriculture that no farmer ever
failed to see. But large-scale agricultural enterprises, like Hawaiian
pineapple growing, have turned increasingly to modern meteorology
for their forecasting needs. There is less reliance on the old-time
farmer's instinct about rainfall and more on statistical records of
the past, along with attention to current indications.
In Syria farmers have wheat harvest in May and look anxiously to
the sky for clouds that may drop a little water to fill out the wheat
buds. But the French, on their departure, left no weather data be-
hind them, on which to make even the most general predictions.
In the Judean hills, where there are six months of sunshine a year,
the farmers want to know when to expect rain, but the only radio
receiving sets are in the coffee shops. In Iraq there is need of irri-
gation, but the farmers don't want to use the precious dammed-
up waters if it's going to rain. And they don't know when it's going
to rain.
As the latest of the Specialized Agencies (it came into being
April 4, 1951, though its predecessor, the International Meteorologi-
cal Organization, stemmed back to 1853), WMO has had less op-
portunity to boast of definite achievements than some of the others.
But the problems it faces and some of the projects it proposes to
carry out are a good deal more fascinating than the average layman
might suppose.
Aside from rainfall, frost and such weather matters of interest to
farmers, there are insects. Locusts, for example, travel with the
winds. They also breed according to moisture conditions. Hence
they are a fit subject for meteorology and a WMO expert was in-
vited to the Middle East to help in the fight against them. In
Baghdad he got a request for WMO to do something about non-
migratory insect pests, which was a bit harder for a weatherman.
WMO is co-operating with the UN Education, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on arid zone research. Since
the dry belt extends entirely around the world (even through
Haiti) from about 25 to 35 degrees North, the value of increasing
its productivity is easy to appreciate. WMO's particular researches
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 129
are in: sources of energy (wind and sun especially); the use of dew;
the possibilities of artificial rain.
Another large-scale idea that appeals to some WMO officials,
and that would affect agriculture, is a climatological survey of all of
Africa. On a smaller scale, but still important to a very large area,
is the hope of establishing in Afghanistan a rainfall observation
post for the Upper Nile River. Such a plan as this last one depends
in the first place on a request from the country involved. This, of
course, is true of all Technical Assistance programs.
WMO works closely with the Food and Agriculture Organization,
as one would expect. In some ways its co-operation, as one also
would expect, is perhaps even more important to the International
Civil Aviation Organization. Much of the proposed work is too tech-
nical for useful mention here, but one interesting task already has
been attended to. This was defining the point meteorologically at
which an airplane ought to attempt a forced landing on water.
A couple of other interesting jobs are: (1) preparing an interna-
tional cloud atlas picturing all the kinds of clouds that appear over
the various parts of the earth and (2) working up global charts of
thunderstorm frequency and distribution. The latter involves help-
ing to perfect a mechanism for counting flashes of lightning.
A radical idea for future thought and experiment that has nothing
to do with aviation, agriculture or ships at sea, but does appeal to
the imagination, is concerned with architecture. It has been talked of
in Israel. The notion is that the temperature and wind measure-
ments of meteorology could well be taken into account in the
construction and siting of houses. Judicious use of such knowledge
might result in a new sort of "indoor climating/*
Meanwhile, the practical work of WMO is directed toward train-
ing technicians and advising governments that request help in
modernizing their systems of weather observation and reporting.
There were half a dozen Technical Assistance projects confirmed for
1953, with a total budget of $75,000.
One advantage WMO has over some of the other Specialized
Agencies is an international code of reporting that obviates Ian-
130 UN: TODAY AND TOMORBOW
guage difficulties. A Rumanian girl wanted to apply for a job in the
weather bureau of Israel. No one in the office could understand
Rumanian and she had no other language which in almost any
other occupation would have meant an impasse. But in this case
she merely walked over to the map and plotted the weather on it,
without error, from cabled information on the desk not sent
in the Rumanian language. She got the job and later learned Israeli.
What the UN Does for Telecommunication
The word "telecommunication" looks formidable and is not the
easiest one in the world to pronounce. From an academic point of
view it isn't even a very legitimate word, since it's half Greek and
half Latin. But the aim in coining it is clear enough to gather
in one word the name for a number of ways to send and receive
messages. These are chiefly the telegraph, the telephone and radio,
but just to be on the safe side the definition includes "visual or
electromagnetic systems." The Greek prefix "tele" merely means
"far-off."
It took very little time after Samuel Morse invented the tele-
graph for European countries to put it to use. And they promptly
found it necessary to make international agreements about stan-
dardized operation, kinds of apparatus and collection and account-
ing of rates. The first agreement came in 1850, between Germany
and Austria, others quickly followed and in 1865 twenty countries
signed a treaty at Paris, which created the International Telegraph
Union to handle all the problems.
Radio was first used (this might be forgotten by some who do
not remember a time when the air was free of commercials ) as a
safeguard for ships at sea. Radio and SOS were practically synony-
mous in the public mind. But even in those simple days it quickly
became apparent that international regulations were necessary to
standardize signals and define responsibilities. At a conference
in 1906 at Berlin twenty-seven countries accepted the principle that
it was a duty to answer a ship's call for help, either from shore or
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 131
from another ship. This conference set up the International Radio-
telegraph Union. And in 1934 this Union joined the original Inter-
national Telegraph Union to form the International Telecommuni-
cation Union, which thus has the longest organizational history of
the UN Specialized Agencies. It's also the second largest in point
of members, with ninety-two countries or territories on the roster,
two as associates. Only the Postal Union has more.
The telegraph and telephone have been around long enough not
to demand anything very revolutionary in the way of international
regulation nowadays at least in peacetime. Perhaps as a result, it
has been intimated that ITU turned into and remained for many
years something of a European gentlemen's club. No American
got in until 1945.
But radio is a different and much more exciting matter, even
though the conflicts involve electronic objectives and techniques
that are well over most nontechnical heads. In a figurative, as well
as literal, sense, one expert pointed out, radio is the most sensitive
area of the modern world.
In a 1927 conference of the International Radiotelegraph Union
(before it merged with the International Telegraph Union to form
the present ITU), the nations reached an agreement not to inter-
fere with existing radio stations. That meant they agreed to stay
off transmitting frequencies assigned to stations already in exist-
ence.
This was advantageous for American radio, because we were
pioneers in the field and had pre-empted most of the desirable fre-
quencies. But it could hardly increase our popularity abroad.
The 1927 agreement was reaffirmed in 1932 when the radio and
telegraph unions decided to merge into ITU. After the actual merger,
in 1934, ITU had headquarters at Berne, Switzerland, and authorized
frequency assignments came to be known as the "Berne List"
Qualification for listing depended on two things: ( 1 ) date of first use
of a frequency by a station and (2) date of notification to ITU.
So far so good. This was the day of relatively low frequencies and
things went along smoothly enough. But suddenly the day of high
132 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
frequencies dawned short-wave radio. And, to put it mildly, the
situation changed.
In 1939 the Russians filed application for short-wave stations at
every five kilocycles along the spectrum. They made little effort to
justify their applications by setting up or even by faking stations,
though here and there something of that sort happened. All they
did was attempt to take over practically the whole upper range of
frequencies by means of a little paper work.
Actually, in 1938 the spectrum had been charted only up to 200,-
000 kilocycles and it wasn't till an ITU conference at Atlantic City
in 1947 that the new importance of short-wave was recognized by
extending the table of frequency allocations up to 10,500,000 kilo-
cycles.
At this 1947 Atlantic City conference the United States took the
lead in an effort to change the method of allocating frequencies.
The practical purpose, of course, was to outflank the Russian paper
maneuver, but to everyone except the Soviet bloc the proposals
seemed reasonable. Mainly, they involved junking the old date-of-
first-use-date-of -notification system in favor of more pragmatic ques-
tions, such as the working condition of both sending and receiving
equipment, and whether or not the station asking a frequency allo-
cation really was in operation. A kind of international court for
radio allocations was to be set up (International Frequency Regis-
tration Board) and a world conference at Geneva was to make out
a basic list of allocations from which to start work and which the
Russians would have to accept.
The Russians did not accept. They resisted, and went right on re-
sisting.
Finally, late in 1951, ITU held an Extraordinary Administrative
Radio Conference at Geneva which decided to override the Rus-
sians and put the Atlantic City proposals into effect. The interna-
tional court for allocations (IFRB), as a result, is now in operation,
and the Russians, at last reports, were still resisting.
An official brochure about ITU diplomatically says the IFRB
"will record frequency assignments made by the various coun-
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 133
tries, and advise ITU members with a view to operating the maxi-
mum number of radio channels in those portions of the spectrum
where harmful interference may occur.** Granted understanding of
electronics, it might be interesting to know how such advice works
out.
Despite conflicts, ITU remained one of the few fields where in-
ternational co-operation still obtained after the schism between East
and West. And, according to eyewitness reports, it wasn't the
belligerent sort of "co-operation" represented in the General As-
sembly and various conferences, but the sort marked by a daily,
courteous "Good morning/*
The reason for this, of course, is that radio signals are no more
barred or hindered by frontiers than is the weather. And that,
without some effective agreement among nations about the use of
frequencies, confusion in the ether might be even more extreme
than it is in the political council chambers. Such chaos would be
just as harmful to one side as the other.
ITU is assigned 1 per cent of the Technical Assistance Program
funds about $200,000 and in 1953 had about half a dozen
projects in the field. Most of these were concerned with showing
countries how to improve their telephone and telegraph systems,
or reassessing their radio setups. There were also fellowships for
training in communications. These were awarded only to electronics
engineers or applicants of similar technical background.
What the UN Does for Civil Aviation
The tasks that most Specialized Agencies face, Herculean though
they are, at least have a long historical background. Food produc-
tion, health, learning, finance, mail service, even telegraphic com-
munication are all activities in which men have had many years
or many centuries of experience.
The tasks that the International Civil Aviation Organization
faces are just as Herculean and brand-new at the same time. As a
major factor in transportation, international civil aviation did not
134 UN: TODAY ANB TOMORROW
exist till after World War II. It was the war itself, with its cost-be-
hanged demands for fast transport to all the corners of the globe,
that made international civil aviation what it is today. True, in the
five years from 1934 to 1939 air route mileage doubled and miles
flown tripled, to a figure of 300,000,000 miles a year. But, during the
war, Air Transport Command planes alone flew twice that distance
in a single month!
Although ICAO must answer questions that were never asked be-
fore the last war, those questions began to make themselves heard
right after World War I, when the first commercial air service was
established between London and Paris, in 1919. The two hop-skip-
and-jump crossings of the Atlantic that same year helped to draw
attention to the questions. The 1919 Peace Conference took note
and its Aeronautical Commission drew up an agreement known as
the Paris Air Convention. This attempted to set up uniform techni-
cal regulations and to perfect air navigation. But probably its most
important content was a formulation of what has remained the
fundamental principle of international air law: that each nation's
sovereignty extends to the air above it. This means, of course, that
the planes of one country may not fly to the airfields of another
country, or over that country, without express agreement between
them.
In 1927 Pan American Airways began its overseas career with
scheduled flights across the narrow sea between Key West, Florida,
and Havana, Cuba. This led to a Pan American Convention in 1929
similar to the Paris Convention. But it wasn't till 1944 that the
volume of air traffic became formidable enough to make broadly in-
ternational action an obvious necessity.
The great volume of air traffic was still military in 1944, of course,
but aviation people were looking to a future of air-minded travelers
after hostilities ceased. They knew that on a commercial basis the
world-wide system of navigational and meteorological facilities
that the military had set up would be almost prohibitively expen-
sive. They knew, too, that many political and economic conflicts for-
gotten during the alliance of war would inevitably pop up in peace-
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 135
time. And that there were innumerable legal questions that had
never been settled internationally. So, in 1944, fifty-two Allied and
neutral nations met in Chicago to discuss what might be done.
From that meeting, eventually, came the International Civil Avia-
tion Organization, officially bom April 4, 1947.
Between 1945 and 1947 there was an interim organization ab-
breviated as PICAO. One of its members was Spain, and Franco's
dictatorship was not welcome in the UN or, at that time, in its
Specialized Agencies. To complete negotiations for association
with the UN as a Specialized Agency, ICAO's first Assembly had to
pass an amendment to its constitution which had the effect of
dropping Spain from membership. Oddly enough, at the same As-
sembly, Italy, an ex- Axis state, was accepted for membership. (In
1950 the UN's prohibition of Spanish membership in Specialized
Agencies was rescinded, and Spain rejoined the organization.)
The work of ICAO breaks down into three main categories: air
navigation, air transport and legal matters.
Starting with the last, the committee in charge aims to build up
a body of international air law, by agreement among nations and
by co-operation with other international organizations trying to
unify and codify international law. It has tried to get recognition,
on an international basis, of property rights in aircraft, even when
they cross frontiers. And it struggles to straighten out such diffi-
cult questions as the legal status of an aircraft commander and the
liability of an air carrier to passengers.
The Air Transport Committee is concerned with commercial mat-
ters like payments for the use of airports and navigational facilities,
international airmail, insurance, taxation, gathering statistics. Under
it a unit with the awkward title of "Division on Facilitation of In-
ternational Air Transport" struggles to improve and standardize
customs, immigration and other such procedures that have tended
to keep planes expensively on the ground longer than necessary
and passengers waiting, which is more important to the average
traveler.
But it is the work of the first committee, on air navigation, that
136 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
has most general interest Dr. Edward Warner, president of the
ICAO Council, pointed out obstacles to its aims in these words:
[Air transport] requires, among other things, a network o air naviga-
tion aids extending almost from pole to pole. . . . Some must be installed
where the touch of metal to the ungloved finger is an almost fatal error;
and others where sweat-blurred eyes and sweat-slippery hands are a
constant threat to precise adjustments. . . . They are needed in the
wealthiest areas of lie world; but also in the poorest; and obviously, but
ironically and painfully, it happens that the installations which are most
difficult to make and most costly to maintain, because of remoteness or
of climatic and geographical conditions, are very commonly located in the
territories of the governmental authorities which would be least able to
bear even moderate expenses for such purpose.
Yet, he adds:
The safe and regular movement of aircraft depends upon unbroken
perfection in the performance of certain services. It is not sufficient
that radio communications be perfectly operated at 90 per cent of the
aeronautical ground stations of the world, if the equipment of the
remaining 10 per cent is worn out or neglected or inattentively operated.
To fill some of the gaps mentioned in Dr. Warner's statement,
ICAO appointed a Joint Support Committee. Under it the first
collective action was to establish a floating network of weather sta-
tions in the North Atlantic. The thirteen stations agreed on in 1946
were revised downward in 1949 to ten. These were served by twenty-
five vessels, of various nations, in rotation. These vessels not only
radioed weather and navigation guidance to aircraft, but also fig-
ured in some thrilling rescues at sea. ^
One that happened in 1947 won wide attention. An unscheduled
flying boat, the Bermuda Sky Queen, ran out of fuel and landed in
mid-ocean with sixty-nine passengers aboard. The vessel at Sta-
tion C, U.S. Guard Cutter Bibb, in spite of thirty-foot-high seas,
saved all the passengers and crew.
A different sort of aid was given a plane flying westward from
the Azores. Bucking headwinds and turbulent weather, it lost the
use of most of its navigational radio equipment and ran low on fuel,
but managed to Thome" on the weather station vessel. The pilot,
with a low fuel supply and reports of more bad weather ahead,
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 137
thought an attempt to reach Newfoundland by dead reckoning
was a poor risk and wanted to ditch Ms plane by the surface
vessel But the vessel persuaded him to wait, got in touch with an
eastbound plane and persuaded its pilot to change course, rendez-
vous at the station, then lead the first plane into Newfoundland.
The ocean station vessels also have made many rescues for dis-
abled surface ships. But perhaps the most useful thing about them
is that they provide a fine sense of security for pilots, who know
they are there always, ready to help. Often enough that sense of
security has saved a ditching. A plane in trouble will make for the
nearest station vessel. Reaching it safely, the pilot will regain con-
fidence and continue on to the nearest land, knowing his course
is being plotted and help wiH be sent if he gets into further diffi-
culty.
The Air Navigation Commission as a whole, under which the
Joint Support Committee arranged for these oceangoing weather
stations, has the duty of recommending all sorts of international
standards and practices that will improve air navigation. Its in-
terest and work are concerned with a wide variety of largely tech-
nical matters airworthiness, accident investigation, air routes and
ground aids, meteorology, search and rescue, communications, rules
of the air and air traffic control, personnel licensing.
The procedure is for ICAO technical divisions to work out sug-
gestions which the Air Navigation Commission considers, then pre-
sents to the ICAO Council. If the Council adopts them, they are
passed on to member governments. Then, unless a majority of the
member governments disapprove., they go into effect. This means
that every member is bound to abide by them or notify ICAO
of any discrepancy in its own practices. Out of the first dozen sets
of new standards adopted by the Council and submitted to member
states, twelve went into effect
What's to Come
These are the ten Specialized Agencies already in existence (plus
UNICEF). Two more are planned, but not yet realized. One of
138 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
these two is the International Trade Organization (ITO), con-
ceived of as titte third member of a triumvirate, including the Bank
and the Fund, to aid international trade.
For ITO, breaking through the international trade barrier of
tariffs will be a paramount task. While establishment of the agency
has been postponed indefinitely, the tariff task has been attacked
with considerable success in three conferences (Geneva, 1947;
Annecy, 1949; and Torquay, 1950-1951). These resulted in a treaty
called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), put
into effect on a provisional basis by thirty-four countries. It covers
55,000 tariff rates.
The other Specialized Agency still to come is the Inter-Govern-
mental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO). In a rough
way, it will parallel the International Civil Aviation Organization,
promoting international co-operation in maritime navigation, en-
couraging maximum use of safety measures and seeking removal
of shipping restrictions and discriminations.
The budgets of the Specialized Agencies now operating and
which require support from their members ( the Bank and Fund are
self-supporting) range from a few hundred thousand to eight or
nine million dollars a year, with an over-all total of about forty mil-
lion dollars a year. UNESCO, World Health Organization and the
International Labour Organisation have the heaviest regular ex-
penditures, the World Meteorological Organization the least. In
addition to their regular over-all income of forty millions, eight of
the Specialized Agencies are allotted varying shares of the Technical
Assistance fund.
Technical Assistance began with a relatively small appropriation
by the UN itself ($288,000 in 1949). In 1950 fifty member nations
pledged an additional sum of twenty million dollars, above the UN
appropriation, for an eighteen-months period, and Specialized
Agency people hoped that this would grow larger year by year.
There even began to be something like competition in courting
underdeveloped countries for projects (any Technical Assistance
project has to be requested by the country in which it is to be car-
THE UN NOBODY KNOWS 139
ried out). But the boom in beneficence failed to expand according
to expectations. The fund for 1952 was nineteen millions and while
it increased in 1953 to twenty-one millions, the Agencies which were
allotted shares of it had to come back to earth and concern them-
selves with the quality of their projects rather than the quantity.
Some officials considered this a good thing, though not for publica-
tion.
At times the functions of different Specialized Agencies approach
so closely that overlapping becomes almost unavoidable. Take the
tree example. Its nurture and protection from insects are cer-
tainly within the province of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Cutting it down may be, too, and chopping it up for firewood. But if
the wood is to be used to make a table or a chair, say, just where
does FAO stop before it impinges on International Labour Organisa-
tion territory? Or UNESCO's, for that matter, which teaches handi-
crafts?
Such jurisdictional questions are usually minor, however, and on
the whole the Agencies get along well with one another.
What their efforts in the long run will mean to the human race
is still too early to judge. Some observers feel that the technological
strides of advanced nations in recent times are so great that they
have reduced the chances of underdeveloped areas' catching up to
an all-time low. As Dr. Laubach complained, the illiterate, the poor
and the diseased reproduce faster than the more fortunate part of
the human race so far has been able to create literacy, decent jobs
and proper health conditions for them.
Nevertheless, the Specialized Agencies are a brave and hopeful
new venture. Some, as individual projects (ICAO, for example), are
complete innovations. For others, longer established, the world-
wide character of their present operations is unprecedented. And,
certainly, the co-ordinated work of all of them, on an earth-circling
scale, is something that never before has been tried.
The idea of persuading the human race to raise itself economically
and culturally by the bootstraps using the little money available
to UN agencies as a land of advertising fund may seem over-am-
140 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
bitious to some. But pilot projects in food production, in education,
in labor training already have shown far more than promising re-
sults. The "Each One Teach One" technique has given a fine start-
ing account of itself. With time it may prove to be the geometrical
progression the world needs to solve its desperate human problems.
If the concerted drives of the dozen Specialized Agencies, which
deal in one way or another with almost all the peaceful activities
and aspirations of mankind, have any large measure of success, one
great breeding ground of wars will disappear. It is true that discon-
tent can be whipped up to the fighting pitch in technologically ad-
vanced countries like Germany or Japan, and that underdeveloped
countries simply cannot wage a modem war. But the colossal in-
equalities of our world are an invitation to trouble. Whatever the
Specialized Agencies do to raise living standards in the less privi-
leged areas is all to the good. And it promises to be a great deal.
CHAPTER 4
The Private Citizens Part
WHEN ILO's director, Albert Thomas, wrote his indignant letter
to Lloyd George in the early days of the League of Nations it was
generally considered as something approaching a breach of eti-
quette, if not worse. His point, the question of labor conditions in
the then newly established Soviet regime of Russia, had an un-
deniable significance. But at that time protocol was more im-
portant. The League, when it functioned at all, functioned on a
very high level and anyone of less than ambassadorial rank rarely
was seen, let alone heard. Albert Thomas* demarche made a sensa-
tion, but it was definitely not a popularity conquest for him per-
sonally. It was through Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Churchill and some
other modern statesmen, much later, that the international im-
portance of Everyman's opinion began to be understood.
The sometimes maligned United States State Department de-
serves a word of credit in this respect. At the San Francisco con-
ference which wrote the UN Charter the State Department invited
representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations to sit in and
help. As one result, specific provision was made in the Charter for
such private organizations to co-operate practically with the UN. As
another direct result, representatives of women's organizations suc-
ceeded in getting distaff rights written into the international consti-
tution over the resistance of die-hard masculinists.
Philosophically minded UN people emphasize the point that
the Charter's wording starts "We the peoples." Not "We the Gov-
ernments, the Dictators, Kings, Presidents or what not." "We the
141
142 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
peoples/* We the human beings. And the Charter goes on to specify
ways in which private organizations may make themselves felt at
the world's highest political council tables.
It's hard to overemphasize the significance of this fact. Everyone
knows that the YMCA exists, that the International Chamber of
Commerce promotes business, that trade union organizations watch
over labor rights, that child welfare outfits do what they can to pro-
tect helpless youngsters. But the day-by-day functioning of such
NGO's in connection with the UN is something that gets far less
attention than it deserves.
UN people say one of the most dramatic examples of a Non-Gov-
ernmental Organization's work is Tony Sender's expose of forced
labor. The story is too long to present in detail. And it isn't Tony
Sender's story entirely: without the support of Matthew Woll, her
American Federation of Labor boss, this refugee from the Nazis
never could have forced the facts of Soviet slave labor to interna-
tional attention. At the European meeting of the Economic and
Social Council in mid-1953, a curtain was drawn over the tragic
story as a political concession to the "new look" regime in the Krem-
lin, but the horrid details are still in the record.
Another NGO target is the explosive issue of petroleum. No one
in the United States need worry about criticizing Russian labor
policies, but comments on Standard Oil may entail a certain cau-
tion. The word "cartel" has unpleasant connotations and it was un-
derstandable that the world's biggest oil producers, American, British
and Dutch, opposed publicizing a report on their quiet agreements.
It took enormous effort on the part of Senator Sparkman, aided by
the International Co-operative Alliance, to get the report out
into the open. It seems unlikely that a gallon of gasoline will go
down much in price as a result of the NGO effort, but the fact that
such closely guarded high-level financial operations were disclosed
to the public is impressive. Only a Non-Governmental Organization
would have the intestinal fortitude to bring such a thing to pass.
Only an NGO would have the time, courage and endurance to
keep at it till it did come to pass.
THE PBIVATE CITIZEN'S PABT 143
It's estimated that there are thirty million American members
of NGO's connected with the UN, and 400 million the world over.
The Economic and Social Council has a Standing Committee de-
voted to the Non-Governmental Organizations and it depends on
them for much of the support of its work, also for much of the work
itself. Actually, as time goes on and the relations between the more
active NGO's and the Council grow closer, it becomes harder and
harder to find the dividing line between the govemmentally ap-
pointed international workers and the nongovernmentally appointed.
Their purposes, of course, are identical, and their means of ac-
complishing them often overlap.
Counting all the organizations that make any effort, however
spasmodic, to keep up with UN activities, there are approximately
four thousand listed. The majority of these are national outfits that
content themselves with reporting events at the UN to their mem-
berships. There are 239 mostly international organizations that take a
more active part in UN affairs* These, upon application to the
Secretary-General, have been assigned three forms of status:
Category A, Category B and listing on the register. Category A is
the highest form of consultative status, authorizing its members to
appear before the Economic and Social Council, to present written
or oral statements, and to suggest items for the Cornell's provisional
agenda. Category B (and some organizations merely listed on the
register) also may present written statements on subjects in which
they are deemed to have special competence, but whereas Category
A is permitted a comparatively garrulous two thousand words of
length, Category B is limited to five hundred words. The Secre-
tary-General may invite organizations on the register to submit
written statements. And the Economic and Social Council Commit-
tee on Non-Governmental Organizations may at any time call in
members of Categories A or B for consultation on matters considered
to be within their special competence.
International and national NGO's may ask for the privilege of
appointing observers to sit in and report on UN public meetings.
TThese observers have fairly regular background conferences of their
144 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
own, separate from those of newspaper, radio and press association
people, at which they are briefed by the Assistant Secretary-General
in charge of the Department of Public Information or another UN
official of similar rank. This is an important part of DPI's work, since
the UN, always hard-pressed to find money to pay for its necessary
activities, depends heavily on NGO's to keep the world public in-
formed of its operations. NGO publications, NGO speakers and NGO
writers for non-NGO publications compete with the UN's own vast
mill of words to tell what Dorothy Lewis' Radio Department calls
"the greatest story being told." This is not the least valuable of
NGO functions.
The range of NGO interests and special knowledge is vitally sig-
nificant to the UN. Some of the items suggested to the Economic
and Social Council by NGO's on which ECOSOC took action give
an idea of the direction NGO tMnking takes:
1. Equal pay for equal work for men and women World Federa-
tion of Trade Unions.
2. Forced labor American Federation of Labor.
3. Administration of oil resources International Co-operative Al-
liance.
4. Abolition of discriminatory measures of an economic and social
character from which workers suffer on grounds of race and color
World Federation of Trade Unions.
5. Study of the economic situation of Africa World Federation
of United Nations Associations.
6. Conclusion of an International Convention on Customs Treat-
ment of Samples and Advertising Material International Chamber
of Commerce.
Up to April, 1953, NGO's had submitted 345 written statements
to the Economic and Social Council.
There is a phrase sometimes used about NGO work "a two-way
street." One direction of the effort is to help shape UN policy. Often
this occurs in the Specialized Agencies. The International Chamber
of Commerce, for example, makes studies of economic subjects
which are frequently published by the UN. The World Health Or-
THE PBIVATE CITIZEN'S PART 145
ganization accepts advice from individual doctors or medical and
public health associations. The Food and Agriculture Organization
takes heed of farmers.
Most often the policy-affecting work of NGO's is economic or
technical. But sometimes it's political, too. The political achieve-
ments, however, are rarely quotable, for obvious reasons. If it be-
came known that an NGO rewrote the trace proposal of a UN
member nation, both the government that presented the proposal
and the NGO would be embarrassed* And the NGO might lose its
usefulness.
The other direction of the "two-way street" is spreading the UN
gospel. A year or so ago Dorothy Lewis made a strenuous speaking
tour, talking chiefly to NGO conventions. The strongest impression
she got from it was the effect of association. It made no great dif-
ference, she insisted, what she said or how she said it The impact
of the UN idea came not out of her words, but out of the fact that
trusted friends and leaders of the audiences shared the platform
with her and made anything she said believable and worth hearing.
And they asked her to speak at other meetings hundreds of them.
This lending of local authority to UN aims is far more important to
the development of the international organization than it might
seem.
Lyman White, an astute student of the history of international af-
fairs, emphasizes the novelty of all intergovernmental organizations,
pointing out that "at least 90 per cent of the present vast interna-
tional machinery, governmental and nongovernmental, has been
created during the last three decades.** Most of the early experiments
were nongovernmental, or, like the Universal Postal Union and the
International Telecommunication Union, representative of gov-
ernments but privately operated. The experience in international co-
operation acquired by Non-Governmental Organizations through
the years and now made constantly available to the UN is not the
least of its assets.
Note on the Future
COLERIDGE plirased the old thought: "And in to-day akeady walks
tomorrow/' No one is expected to make an acceptable prediction
for next year's UN or next year's world. A decade from now is more
uncertain, and a generation inconceivable. But we do have today.
And despite the all-too-apparent tragedies of our time there are
good things on which to base hope for the future.
One good thing that often escapes attention is the fact that we
are beginning to know more about ourselves. The UN, as the world's
greatest repository of information, is a reflection of the twentieth
century. We may not yet have learned how to act sensibly on the
facts, but at least they are becoming available.
The UN's facts are mostly technical economic, financial, scien-
tific, statistical. Political truths are still rare and difficult to prove.
But the direction the UN has chosen for its long-term course is
surely toward verity. The public availability of its information, the
openness of most of its meetings, the constant stress on President
Wilson's ideal of open covenants openly arrived at are well-marked
highways to ultimate revelation.
There is an assumption of long standing in some quarters of the
American press that American diplomats are always outwitted by
wily foreigners. This assumption is not shared by foreigners, who
point to concrete historical facts like: (1) the Louisiana Purchase,
from which we gained the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma,
Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas, Montana, most of
Minnesota and parts of Colorado and Wyoming for fifteen million
dollars; (2) the accession of the Territory of Alaska, which we got
147
148 UN: TODAY AND TOMORBOW
from Russia for seven millions; (3) the annexation from Spain of
the Philippine Islands, after a war which Congress expressly re-
solved was declared to free Cuba. Foreigners, recalling such
events, do not unduly worry about American diplomats' ability to
take care of American interests. They do, however, worry about
United States willingness and ability to take care of its responsibili-
ties to the rest of the world.
The American share of total UN expenses, including Technical
Assistance and the Specialized Agencies, amounts to about seventy-
five cents per capita per year. Although the sum is less than we
willingly spend on a single aircraft carrier, we complain about it,
chiefly because we pay more than other member nations. If we
could accurately foresee a change in the reluctant attitude of so
many Americans toward the UN, we might more confidently predict
a successful future for the organization.
As Joseph Stalin's imperialistic course of action after World War
II threw off all the early logic of the UN, so his death has disor-
ganized current thinking. How the resulting internal political up-
heaval in Russia will eventually affect the rest of the world is im-
possible to guess. How much unrest there actually is behind the
Iron Curtain and what will come of it, no one can say. How
the spectacular native moves toward self-government in the heavily
populated territories of Asia and Africa will turn out is another
question for the crystal ball. But a point to remember about the
UN's role in these matters is that both its thinking and its practical
agencies favor land reform and land reform is the most ancient
and powerful of all revolutionary forces. Therefore, though land-
owners may oppose UN philosophy, the many hundreds of millions
of soil-tillers will certainly sympathize.
How the twenty Latin-American member nations will influence
the future history of the UN is still another question. Relative na-
tional power changes with time and the basis on which UN deci-
sions are made now may be unrecognizable fifty years hence.
What is reasonable to predict is that the UN will continue and
NOTE ON THE FUTURE 149
become more effective with time. Its present political weaknesses
may be partly offset by its economic efforts and the member na-
tions may sometime decide to trust it with the necessary powers
to keep the world in order. Meanwhile, the everyday work it does
is the best thing that ever has happened to the human race.
io i Questions and Answers
About the UN
1. Q.: When does the General Assembly meet?
A.: According to its Rules of Procedure, the General Assembly
meets in regular session once a year starting on the third
Tuesday of September. However, by agreement of a ma-
jority of the members the date of the opening of the ses-
sion may be postponed.
2. Q.: When does the Security Council meet?
A.; According to the Charter, the Security Council "shall be
so organized as to be able to function continuously" mean-
ing that state members of the Security Council have perma-
nent representatives at the headquarters of the United
Nations so that they are available for meetings called on
quick notice. Meetings are called by the chairman of the
Council and according to the Rules of Procedure of the
Security Council the interval between the meetings "shall
not exceed fourteen days." However, this latter provision
is not always followed.
Attendance by Visitors
3. Q.: How can visitors get tickets?
A.; By calling the admissions office at UN Headquarters at
8:30 A.M. or later the day of a meeting or the day before.
4. Q.: Are visitors allowed in all the meetings?
151
152 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
A.: Visitors are allowed in all public meetings, space permit-
ting.
5. Q.: What is a "closed" meeting?
A.: A closed meeting is one to which only members and their
advisers are permitted.
6. Q.: Why is a meeting canceled?
A.; A meeting is canceled by the chairman at the request of a
member if the reason for the request is deemed sufficiently
important.
Mechanics of Meetings
7. Q.: Are meetings recorded? Why is there duplication of re-
cordings and verbatim reports?
A.: All of the meetings are voice-recorded by UN Radio for
the archives. Verbatim reports are also made because these
can be easily duplicated for the members and Secre-
tariat. In case of question, the verbatim record can be
checked with the record of the meeting.
8. Q.: How do the earphones work?
A.; There is a dial with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, to cover
the five official languages of tibe UN, plus the direct trans-
mission of the speaker's voice. The listener can "tune in w
by turning the dial to whatever language he wants
Chinese, French, English, Spanish, Russian or the original.
9. Q.: What is a Rapporteur?
A.; A Rapporteur, or reporter, is responsible for drawing up
the official report of a meeting or session.
10. Q.: How many people participate in a meeting?
A.: Representation varies according to the Charter-dictated
size of the body. As for actual "participation/'' this depends
upon how many delegates wish to be heard on a certain
item.
11. Q.: May visitors take pictures?
A.: Yes, if it can be done without interfering with the conduct
of UN business.
101 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE UN 153
12. Q.: Wliere does tibe chairman of a committee sit?
A.; The chairman sits in the middle of the long table facing
the other members.
13. Q.: What are the Rules of Procedure?
A.: The General Assembly and the Security Council, Trustee-
ship Council and Economic and Social Council all deter-
mine their own parliamentary rules. Voting varies from a
simple majority decision to the veto right owned by per-
manent members of the Security Council.
14. Q.: There are sixty flags what is the sixtieth to join the UN
family?
A.: Indonesia.
15. Q.: What is the story of the UN flag?
A.: The UN emblem was designed by the Presentation Branch
of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in April, 1945, in
response to a request for a button to be worn by delegates
to the San Francisco Conference. The San Francisco de-
sign was a circular representation of a map of the world,
extending to 40th Parallel South, and with 100th Meridian
West of Greenwich in the lower vertical position. The
Secretary-General urged the adoption of an official seal
and emblem of the UN and on December 7, 1946, the
General Assembly approved with slight modification the
San Francisco design. The revised emblem consisted of
a map of the world on a pole aximental by equidistant
projection, sided by two olive branches, ancient Greek sym-
bols of peace. On October 20, 1947, the Assembly adopted
without objection a resolution that the flag of the UN
should be the official emblem adopted by the General
Assembly. The UN flag may on no account be displayed
lower than the flag of any individual nation, nor be smaller.
The UN flag may be displayed on either side of any other
flag without being deemed to be subordinated. The UN
flag is flown in all Trust Territories alongside the flag of
the Administering Authority.
154 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
16. Q.: Are all the UN meetings broadcast?
A.: No. Only those of particular interest.
17. Q.: In what languages are they broadcast?
A.: UN broadcasts often are rebroadcast by member nations;
therefore there is no way to tell the number of languages
used.
Interpretation System
18. Q.: What are the five official languages?
A.; Chinese, French, English, Spanish and Russian.
19. Q.: Why is French used in the signs around UN Headquarters?
A.: Although there are five official languages, French and
English, as the most common tongues of diplomacy, have
been the "working" languages. Spanish is to be added.
20. Q.: What are the language requirements for an interpreter?
A.: The average interpreter must know two languages, say
French and Spanish, well enough to translate both into
colloquial English. However, Chinese interpreters need
only be able to translate Chinese into English and English
into Chinese.
21. Q.; How does simultaneous interpretation work?
A.: The interpreters listen to the speech in one language with
earphones and interpret it into other languages on their
microphones. The audience as well as the delegates "tune
in" to whatever language they wish to hear.
22. Q.: How much do interpreters make?
A.; About $100 to $200 per week.
23. Q.: How can a person train himself to become an interpreter?
A.: UN personnel wish they knew the answer to this ques-
tion. A competent interpreter is very hard to find, and
practically impossible to train.
24. Q.: Spain is not a member of the United Nations. Why is
Spanish an official language?
A.: Spanish is an official language because of the twenty Latin
American member countries where Spanish is spoken also
the Philippines.
101 QUESTIONS AND ANSWEKS ABOUT THE UN 155
25. Q.: Will Chinese last as an official language if the Communists
are seated?
A.: Yes. The sealing of the delegates of the People's Republic
of China in place of the Nationalist Government delegates
would not change the status of Chinese as an official lan-
guage.
26. Q.: How do the interpreters manage when a slang expression
is used?
A.; The interpreters are supposed to be sufficiently fluent so
that they can use a similar slang expression in the language
into which they are interpreting the speech.
Budget
27. Q.: What does the budget include?
A.; The budget includes all of the expenses of the United Na-
tions, its various bodies, offices, missions, etc.
28. Q.: What is the largest part spent for?
A.; For salaries and maintenance of UN Headquarters in
New York.
29. Q.: Who pays for the budget?
A.: The state members of the United Nations.
^ 30. Q.: What determines how large the budget shall be and how
much each country pays?
A.: The Secretary-General draws up a tentative budget based
upon the budget of the year before and expected expen-
ditures for the next year. This is examined and revised if
necessary by the Advisory Committee on Administrative
and Budgetary Questions. The Committee on Contribu-
tions determines what percentage of the budget each mem-
ber should pay. The budget and scale of contributions are
then discussed in Committee 5 of the General Assembly
and finally adopted by the General Assembly.
31. Q.: Is membership in any of the councils determined by the
amount of contribution to the budget?
A.; No.
156 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
32. Q.: Is there an article limiting the contribution of any one
country to one-third o the entire budget?
A.: Yes. In 1952 the General Assembly adopted a resolution
stating that no country should contribute more than one-
third o the budget of the UN.
33. Q.: Who pays the delegates?
A.; The United Nations pays for the travel of five representa-
tives from each member state to meetings of the General
Assembly, travel and subsistence for members of special
committees and commissions (sometimes only travel), and
travel and subsistence for members of regional commis-
sions. As a rule no provision is made for members of the
Security Council, ECOSOC and the Trusteeship Council
on the theory that these meetings are generally held at
Headquarters.
All other expenses, including salaries, are paid by the
member states.
34. Q.: By whom are the personnel of the UN paid?
A.; The personnel of the UN are paid out of the general bud-
get of the UN, regardless of nationality of the employee.
35. Q.: Why is the U.S. the largest contributor to the UN budget?
A.; The contribution of each member state of the UN is deter-
mined oh the ability to pay.
36. Q.: Is it because the United States has the largest delegation?
A.: No, this has nothing to do with the scale of contributions.
37. Q.: Why is the U.S.S.R. share of the budget so small?
A.; The U.S.S.R. contribution, like that of the other members,
is determined by the Committee on Contributions and
finally adopted by the General Assembly, on the basis of
ability to pay. The U.S.S.R. contribution has been raised
during recent years.
38. Q.: What happens if a government changes hands and has
paid part of its contribution? Does the new government
pay the rest?
A.: Yes, the new government is obligated to pay the remainder
of the contribution.
101 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE UN 157
Structure and Organization of the UN
General Organization and Charter
39. Q.: What determines whether or not a nation will be admitted
to the UN?
A.; According to the Charter, membership is open to all
"peace-loving states which accept the obligations con-
tained in the present Charter, and in the judgment of the
Organization, are able and willing to cany out these obli-
gations." Membership is effected by a decision of the
General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Secur-
ity Council.
40. Q.: If a country gives up its membership in the UN, can it
return?
A.; In the Charter no provision is made for withdrawing or
returning, but presumably both are possible.
41. Q.: Are there any provisions for barring a nation from the
UN?
A.; See Answer 39. According to the Charter a nation may be
expelled by vote of the General Assembly upon recommen-
dation of the Security Council.
42. Q.: Does the General Assembly have to approve any decision
made in councils and committees?
A.: The General Assembly receives reports from all bodies of
of the UN and can make recommendations to any one of
them. Individual decisions of the councils and committees
are not necessarily subject to approval of the General As-
sembly except in cases where expenditure of money is
involved, or adherence by member states is called for (as
in the Genocide Convention), etc.
43. Q.: What is UNESCO?
A.: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization is one of the Specialized Agencies of the
United Nations.
44. Q.: How is an organization like UNICEF created. What is
its status with regard to the machinery of the UN?
158 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
A.; The United Nations International Children's Fund was
established by vote of the General Assembly in December,
1946. It is not a Specialized Agency, but an integral part of
the United Nations. Its Executive Board was named by the
General Assembly in the resolution establishing the Fund.
Security Council
45. Q.: What problems does the Security Council discuss?
A.; Any matter relating to the maintenance of peace and se-
curity brought to its attention by a member of the United
Nations, by the Secretary-General or by a nonmember,
party to a dispute, which agrees in advance to accept the
obligations of the Charter.
46. Q.: How may a nation not a member of the UN bring a dis-
pute before the Security Council?
A.: By accepting in advance, "for the purposes of the dispute,
the obligations of pacific settlement provided in the present
Charter"
47. Q.: Why does the Security Council change chairmen each
month?
A.; Since the Security Council is so organized as to be in con-
tinuous session, the Rules of Procedure provide that the
chairmanship of the Council be changed in rotation each
month (in the English alphabetical order) so that all
members will have equal opportunities.
48. Q.: How many nations are permanent in the Security Council?
Why are they permanent members? How decided?
A.: There are five permanent members in the Security Coun-
cil: China, France, the United Kingdom, the United States
and the U.S.S.R. These are specified in the Charter. They
were designated as permanent members at the time the
Charter was drafted on the theory that on questions re-
garding the maintenance of peace and security, the so-
called Big Five, who would have the primary responsibility
for the maintenance of peace, should always have a voice.
101 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE UN 159
Trusteeship
49. Q.: What does Trusteeship mean?
A.: Trusteeship is the term used to define the relationship be-
tween an administering power and non-self-governing ter-
ritories designated as "trust" areas.
50. Q.: What is the Trusteeship Council? How does it operate?
A.; The Trusteeship Council is composed of the nations ad-
ministering trust areas, the permanent members of the
Security Council that are not Administering Authorities of
such trust areas and as many nations without trust areas
as necessary to make an equal division between adminis-
tering and nonadm in istering powers. The Trusteeship
Council examines and makes recommendations concerning
the administration of the trust areas; it receives petitions
from the inhabitants of the areas and sends visiting mis-
sions to the areas to make on-the-spot investigations.
51. Q.: What can the UN do if an Administering Authority vio-
lates its treaty with the UN?
A.; The Trusteeship Council can censure the Administering
Authority, send visiting missions, etc., and make recom-
mendations for rectifying the action. The General Assem-
bly could also make recommendations.
The UN has no authority to "make" the territory inde-
pendent, but the General Assembly has asked each Ad-
ministering Authority to indicate "the period of time in
which it is expected that the Trust Territory shall attain
the objective of self-government or independence."
52. Q.: What is a U.S. Trust Territory?
A.: There is the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (the
Marianas, Marshals and Carolines) under U.S. adminis-
tration, which is a "strategic area trusteeship." The agree-
ment under which this last area is administered was ap-
proved by the Security Council rather than by the General
Assembly.
160 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
International Court
53. Q,: How are the judges appointed? By whom?
A.: The fifteen judges of the Court are elected for nine-year
terms by the General Assembly and the Security Council,
voting independently. No two may be nationals of the
same state. Nominations are sent in by the member states.
54. Q.: Where does the Court meet?
A.; At The Hague, Netherlands.
55. Q.: How is the Court organized?
A.: The Court elects a President and Vice President for three-
year terms, a Registrar and such other officers as may be
necessary. The full Court sits except when it decides to
form a "chamber" of three or more judges to consider cer-
tain types of cases.
56. Q.: Has the Court taken any important decisions? Done any
important work?
A.; The Court has had several important cases brought to it
and has rendered important decisions and advisory opin-
ions on the Corfu Channel Case, the Anglo-Iranian Oil
Case, rights of U.S. nationals in Morocco, admission of
members to the UN, reparations to UN personnel for in-
juries suffered in the service of the UN, etc. Perhaps one
of the most far-reaching was the advisory opinion in the
last-named case which declared that the UN had an inter-
national personality and was able to sue for reparations
from a member or nonmember state.
Secretariat
57. Q.: How long does the same personnel represent their coun-
try in the Secretariat?
A.: The members of the Secretariat are selected on as wide a
geographical basis as possible, but no member "represents"
the country of his nationality. Tenure of office is decided
101 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE UN 161
according to regulations approved by the General Assem-
bly. Members are retired at the age of sixty.
58. Q.: Does a Secretariat employee cease to be a citizen of his
own country?
A.: No, but lie takes an oath giving Ms primary allegiance to
the international organization and guaranteeing that he
will not be swayed in his work for the UN by any national
or partisan considerations.
59. Q.: Does he pay taxes?
A.; All UN employees except U.S. nationals are exempt by
their governments from income taxes. Other than relief
from income taxes, UN employees enjoy very few diplo-
matic immunities or privileges.
60. Q.: What does the Secretary-General preside over? What is
his job, his responsibility? By whom is he appointed?
A.; The Secretary-General is the chief administrative officer
of the United Nations. He does not "preside" over any-
thing. He performs the chief administrative functions of
the UN, makes an annual report to the General Assembly
on the work of the UN during the preceding year, appoints
the staff of the UN, and may bring to the attention of the
Security Council or General Assembly any matter he thinks
may threaten the maintenance of international peace and
security. The Secretary-General is appointed by the Gen-
eral Assembly on recommendation of the Security Council.
61. Q.: Is there a representative of the Secretary-General at all
meetings?
A.: Yes.
Voting
62. Q.: What majority is needed to pass a resolution?
A.: This varies from body to body. Resolutions are adopted in
the General Assembly by a two-thirds majority of mem-
bers present and voting, if the question is an important
one, or by a simple majority if the question is of a more
162 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
routine nature. Committees of the Assembly take decisions
by a simple majority.
In the Security Council decisions are taken by a majority
of seven, including the affirmative votes of the permanent
members. Procedural questions are decided by the af-
firmative votes of any seven members.
Resolutions in the Economic and Social Council are
adopted by a majority of the members present and voting.
The same is true in the Trusteeship Council.
Commissions and committees take decisions by simple
majority.
63. Q.: What is meant by abstention?
A.; Abstention means that a member does not vote either,
for or against a resolution.
64. Q.: What happens to the unanimous vote of the five permanent
members in the Security Council on substantive matters
when Russia is not present?
A.: During the time the Soviet Union was absent from the
Security Council, the Council took the position that an ab-
sence was tantamount to an abstention. The Soviet Union
itself initiated the custom that an abstention is not a veto.
It must also be remembered that the Charter says that the
vote must include the "concurring votes of the permanent
members' 7 ; it does not specify "all" or "five."
Membership on Councils and Committees
65. Q.: How are countries appointed to councils and commissions?
A.: The General Assembly elects the members of the councils
and any commission or committee it might establish.
The councils elect the members of any commissions or
committees they might establish.
66. Q.: Is geographical distribution the same on all the commit-
tees, commissions and councils?
A.; An effort is always made to have as wide a geographical
101 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE UN 163
distribution as possible; however, membership on the vari-
ous councils, committees and commissions is not the same.
67. (X; Are the "Big Five" on all the councils?
A.: According to the Charter provisions, the "Big Five" are
automatically members of the Security Council and the
Trusteeship Council. It is not mandatory that they be
members of the Economic and Social Council, but they
have been so far.
68. Q.: Is there any body where all the nations are represented?
A.: All nations are represented in the General Assembly and in
the six main committees of the General Assembly.
Substance Questions Regarding Enforcement:
69. Q.: What force is there behind the UN now?
A.; At the present time the UN has the force of world public
opinion,
70. Q.: Why doesn't the UN have an army? Isn't there Charter
provision for one?
A.; The agreements envisioned under Articles 43 and 45 of the
Charter have not been completed, primarily due to tensions
existing among the Big Five and lack of agreement on the
Military Staff Committee which is composed of the Big
Five. The Collective Measures Committee, however, es-
tablished by the Assembly's "Uniting for Peace" Resolu-
tion in 1950, is studying measures for collective security,
including a UN legion. Also, member countries have been
asked to indicate what forces they would be willing to
contribute for future UN action.
71. Q.: Can the UN do anything when one country is sending an-
other armaments and causing a threat .to the peace? If so,
what?
A.; The UN cannot prevent one country from sending arma-
ments into another country. Suclx an act does not neces-.
sarily cause a threat to the peace of the world; in fact it
might help to build up the forces of collective security.
164 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Miscellaneous
72. Q.: What nations have applied for membership in the UN
and not been admitted?
A.: Albania, Mongolian People's Republic, Jordan, Ireland,
Portugal, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Rumania, Bulgaria, Fin-
land, Ceylon, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Re-
public of Korea, Nepal, Vietnam, Libya, Democratic
People's Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, Laos.
73. Q.; What about the membership of Spain?
A.; By resolution of the General Assembly in 1946 Spain was
barred from membership in the UN and the Specialized
Agencies. In 1950, however, the General Assembly re-
considered the question and decided that the Specialized
Agencies should be free to decide for themselves whether
Spain should become a member and be allowed to par-
ticipate in their work. Spain now is a member of several
UN Specialized Services.
74. Q.: Is the Point Four Program a U.S. or a UN program? What
is the difference?
A.; Point Four is the name given to the United States bilateral
program of technical assistance. The UN Technical As-
sistance Program is a multilateral one in which all mem-
bers of the United Nations are invited to participate.
75. Q.: What per cent of the world's people are represented in
the UN?
A.: Over 1,800,000,000 people are now represented in the
United Nations something like 80 per cent of the world's
population.
76. Q.: Do the families of the Secretariat live in the building?
A.: No. The Secretariat Building contains the working offices
of the various departments under the administration of
the Secretary-General, plus liaison offices of the Specialized
Agencies, newspaper and radio rooms and space for mis-
cellaneous purposes. None of the sixty member nations has
office space in the Secretariat Building.
101 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE UN 165
77. Q.: Is there a UN coin?
A.; No.
78. Q.: Does the UN profit from sales of UN stamps?
A.: Not from those used for mailing; only from those sold to
philatelists.
79. Q.: Has the UN budget increased or decreased since the organ-
ization started?
A.; The normal budget for 1953 was less than the one for
1952. Funds for the Specialized Agencies, however, and
for the Expanded Technical Assistance Program are not
included in the normal UN budget. The total of all three
comes to less than $100,000,000 a year.
80. Q.: Who would be responsible in the event of a crime com-
mitted on UN property?
A.; Depending on the nature of the offense: municipal, state
or Federal authorities would be in charge, unless special
legislation of the UN conflicted with the American statute,
in which case UN regulations would take precedence.
Normal procedure would be for UN guards to apprehend
the transgressor and turn him over to the American author-
ities.
81. Q.: How could the Korean conflict be a UN operation, with
Russia a member of the international organization?
A.; The UN forces resisting aggression in Korea were fighting
only against Northern Korean and Chinese Communist
armies. No question of Soviet Russia's connection with
the conflict was formally raised.
82. Q.: Does the Meditation Room have any special symbol?
A.: No, except for its lack of symbols. The design is intended
to make all religious creeds comfortable.
83. Q.: How many vetoes have been registered?
A.: 55 by Russia; one by France; one by France and Russia.
84. Q.: Is it possible to revise the UN Charter?
A.: Yes. One of its provisions requires that it automatically
receive reconsideration after the first ten years. Otherwise,
a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly is necessary
166 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
for any specific change, with ratification by two-thirds of
the UN members, including all permanent members of the
Security Council.
85. Q.: Did anyone besides Mr. Rockefeller donate the land on
which UN Headquarters stands?
A.: Yes, New York City.
86. Q.: Can anyone besides UN employees park his car in the UN
garage?
A.: Yes, people visiting the UN on business.
87. Q.: Are there eating facilities for visitors not on UN business?
A.: No.
88. Q.: Is the UN playground restricted to children of UN em-
ployees?
A.; No, any child may play there. A UN guard supervises the
playground.
89. Q.: What can I do to entertain UN personnel?
A.; Telephone PLaza 4-1234, Ext. 3361, or write Miss Aroos
Benneyan of Volunteer Services, United Nations, New
York.
90. Q.: Can I, as an individual, make a monetary contribution to
the UN?
A.; Yes, there is a general fund. Write to the Secretary-General,
United Nations, New York.
91. Q.; How can I keep up with UN activities?
A.; You can subscribe to the United Nations Reporter (pub-
lished monthly), subscription price, $1 per year; or to the
Bulletin (published biweekly), subscription price, $4.50
per year.
92. Q.: Can a private citizen contribute to the UN Library?
A.: Yes, exchange services are always welcome. Any docu-
ments from however remote a source are received with
gratitude by the UN Library.
93. Q.: How can I get someone to speak about the UN for my
local organization?
101 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE UN 167
A.; Write Volunteer Speakers, Department of Public Informa-
tion, United Nations, New York, or telephone PLaza
4-1234, Ext. 3411.
94. Q.: How do you pronounce the name of the new Secretary-
General, Dag Hammarskjold?
A.: Mr. Hammarskjold has publicly announced that he does
not mind having his name pronounced "Hammer-shield,"
since this is the meaning of the word in English and no
average American could get close to the proper pronun-
ciation.
95. Q.: What is the oldest organization connected with the UN?
A.: International Telecommunication Union.
96. Q,: What are the three Specialized Agencies that Soviet Russia
still supports and co-operates with?
A.: World Meteorological Organization, Universal Postal Union
and International Telecommunication Union.
97. Q.: Where was the first meeting of the UN held?
A.: In London, England.
98. Q.: How long does the Secretary-General serve? The President
of the General Assembly?
A.: By resolution of the General Assembly the Secretary-Gen-
eral serves a five-year term and is eligible for reappoint-
ment; the President of the Assembly, under the Charter,
for the duration of one session.
99. Q.: Why is the no-smoking rule in the elevators so rigidly
observed?
A.: Because some UN personnel have religious objections to
the use of tobacco.
100. Q.: Are there pages, as in the United States Senate?
A.: No. There are messengers who deliver mail, but the chief
dependence for communication is on the telephone.
101. Q.: How long does it take to wash the UN Headquarters
windows?
A.: A crew of nine men works the year around keeping the
6,800 windows polished.
Charter of the United Nations
and Statute of the
International Court of Justice
CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE TUSTTTED NATIONS DETEBMINED tO Save Succeeding
generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has
brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women
and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obliga-
tions arising from treaties and other sources of international law can
be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger free-
dom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS to practice tolerance and live together in peace
with one another as good neighbors, and
i|
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of
methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common
interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic
and social advancement of all peoples,
169
170 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS.
Accordingly, our respective Governments, thorough representatives
assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full
powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present
Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an interna-
tional organization to be known as the United Nations.
Chapter I
PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES
Article 1
The Purposes of the United Nations are:
1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to
take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of
threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or
other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and
in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjust-
ment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead
to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for
the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to
take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. To achieve international cooperation in solving international prob-
lems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in
promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental
freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion;
and
4. To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attain-
ment of these common ends.
Article 2
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated
in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the foHowing*l?rinciples.
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality
of all its Members.
2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits
resulting from membership, shall fulfil in good faith the obligations
assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
CHABTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 171
3. All Members stall settle their international disputes by peaceful
means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice,
are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political inde-
pendence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the
Purposes of the United Nations.
5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any
action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain
from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations
is taking preventive or enforcement action.
6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members
of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as
may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.
7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United
Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic
jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such
matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall
not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.
Chapter II
!M3EMBEBSHIP
Article 3
The original Members of the United Nations shall be the states which,
having participated in the United Nations Conference on International
Organization at San Francisco, or having previously signed the Declara-
tion by United Nations of January 1, 1942, sign the present Charter and
ratify it in accordance with Article 110.
Article 4
1. Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving
states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and,
in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out
these obligations.
2. The admission of any such state to membership in the United
Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the
recommendation of the Security Council.
172 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Article 5
A Member of the United Nations against which preventive or enforce-
ment action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended
from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the
General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.
The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored by the
Security Council.
Article 6
A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the
Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the
Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of
the Security Council.
Chapter III
ORGANS
Article 7
1. There are established as the principal organs of the United Nations:
a General Assembly, a Security Council, an Economic and Social Council,
a Trusteeship Council, an International Court of Justice, and a Secretariat.
2. Such subsidiary organs as may be found necessary may be established
in accordance with the present Charter.
Article 8
The United Nations shall place no restrictions on the eligibility of
men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of
equality in its principal and subsidiary organs.
Chapter IV
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Composition
Article 9
1. The General Assembly shall consist of all the Members of the
United Nations.
2. Each Member shall have not more than five representatives in the
General Assembly.
CHAKTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 173
Functions and Powers
Article 10
The General Assembly may discuss any questions or any matters within
the scope of the present Charter or relating to the powers and functions
of any organs provided for in the present Charter, and, except as pro-
vided in Article 12, may make recommendations to the Members of the
United Nations or to the Security Council or to both on any such ques-
tions or matters.
Article 11
1. The General Assembly may consider the general principles of
cooperation in the maintenance of international peace and security,
including the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of
armaments, and may make recommendations with regard to such prin-
ciples to the Members or to the Security Council or to both.
2. The General Assembly may discuss any questions relating to the
maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any
Member of the United Nations, or by the Security Council, or by a state
which is not a Member of the United Nations in accordance with Article
35, paragraph 2, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make
recommendations with regard to any such question to the state or states
concerned or to the Security Council or to both. Any such question
on which action is necessary shall be referred to the Security Council
by the General Assembly either before or after discussion.
3. The General Assembly may call the attention of the Security Council
to situations which are likely to endanger international peace and security.
4. The powers of the General Assembly set forth in this Article shall
not limit the general scope of Article 10.
Article 12
1. While the Security Council is exercising in respect of any dispute
or situation the functions assigned to it in the present Charter, the
General Assembly shall not make any recommendation with regard to
that dispute or situation unless the Security Council so requests.
2. The Secretary-General, with the consent of the Security Council,
shall notify the General Assembly at each session of any matters relative
to the maintenance of international peace and security which are being
dealt with by the Security Council and shall similarly notify the Gen-
174 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
eral Assembly, or the Members of the United Nations if the General
Assembly is not in session, immediately the Security Council ceases to
deal with such matters.
Article IS
1. The General Assembly shall initiate studies and make recommenda-
tions for the purpose of:
a. promoting international cooperation in the political field and
encouraging the progressive development of international law and its
codification;
b. promoting international cooperation in the economic, social,
cultural, educational, and health fields, and assisting in the realization
of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction
as to race, sex, language, or religion.
2. The further responsibilities, functions and powers of the General
Assembly with respect to matters mentioned in paragraph 1 b above are
set forth in Chapter IX and X.
Article 14
Subject to the provisions of Article 12, the General Assembly may
recommend measures for the peaceful adjustment of any situation, re-
gardless of origin, which it deems likely to impair the general welfare
or friendly relations among nations, including situations resulting from
a violation of the provisions of the present Charter setting forth the Pur-
poses and Principles of the United Nations.
Article 15
1. The General Assembly shall receive and consider annual and
special reports from the Security Council; these reports shall include an
account of the measures that the Security Council has decided upon
or taken to maintain international peace and security.
2. The General Assembly shall receive and consider reports from the
other organs of the United Nations.
Article 16
The General Assembly shall perform such functions with respect to die
international trusteeship system as are assigned to it under Chapters
XII and XIII, including the approval of the trusteeship agreements for
areas not designated as strategic.
CHAKTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 175
Article 17
1. The General Assembly shall consider and approve the budget of the
Organization.
2. The expenses of the Organization shall be borne by the Members
as apportioned by the General Assembly.
3. The General Assembly shall consider and approve any financial
and budgetary arrangements with specialized agencies referred to in
Article 57 and shall examine the administrative budgets of such
specialized agencies with a view to making recommendations to the
agencies concerned.
Voting
Article 18
1. Each member of the General Assembly shall have one vote.
2. Decisions of the General Assembly on important questions shall be
made by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting.
These questions shall include: recommendations with respect to the main-
tenance of international peace and security, the election of the non-per-
manent members of the Security Council, the election of the members of
the Economic and Social Council, the election of members of the Trustee-
ship Council in accordance with paragraph 1 c of Article 86, the
admission of new Members to the United Nations, the suspension of the
rights and privileges of membership, the expulsion of Members, questions
relating to the operation of the trusteeship system, and budgetary ques-
tions.
3. Decisions on other questions, including the determination of addi-
tional categories of questions to be decided by a two-thirds majority,
shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting.
Article 19
A Member of the United Nations which is in arrears in the payment
of its financial contributions to the Organization shall have no vote in
the General Assembly if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the
amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years.
The General Assembly may, nevertheless, permit such a Member to vote
if it is satisfied that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the
control of the Member.
176 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Procedure
Article 20
The General Assembly shall meet in regular annual sessions and in such
special sessions as occasion may require. Special sessions shall be con-
voked by the Secretary-General at the request of the Security Council or
of a majority of the Members of the United Nations.
Article 21
The General Assembly shall adopt its own rules of procedure. It shall
elect its President for each session.
Article 22
The General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it
deems necessary for the performance of its functions.
Chapter V
THE SECURITY COUNCIL
Composition
Article 23
1. The Security Council shall consist of eleven Members of the United
Nations. The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the
Security Council. The General Assembly shall elect six other Members
of the United Nations to be non-permanent members of the Security
Council, due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the
contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of
international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organiza-
tion, and also to equitable geographical distribution.
2. The non-permanent members of the Security Council shall be
elected for a term of two years. In the first election of the non-permanent
members, however, three shall be chosen for a term of one year. A
retiring member shall not be eligible for immediate re-election.
3. Each member of the Security Council shall have one representative.
Functions and Powers
Article 24
1. In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United
Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsi-
CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 177
bility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree
that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security
Council acts on their behalf.
2. In discharging these duties the Security Council shall act in
accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. The
specific powers granted to the Security Council for the discharge of these
duties are laid down in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII.
3. The Security Council shall submit annual and, when necessary,
special reports to the General Assembly for its consideration.
Article 25
The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out
the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present
Charter.
Article 26
In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international
peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the
world's human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be
responsible for formulating, with the assistance of the Military Staff
Committee referred to in Article 47, plans to be submitted to the Mem-
bers of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the
regulation of armaments.
Voting
Article 27
1. Each member of the Security Council shall have one vote.
2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall
be made by an affirmative vote of seven members.
3. Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made
by an affirmative vote of seven members including the concurring votes
of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter
VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall
abstain from voting.
Procedure
Article 28
I, The Security Council shall be so organized as to be able to function
continuously. Each member of the Security Council shall for this pur-
pose be represented at all times at the seat of the Organization.
178 UN: TODAY AND TOMOKBOW
2. The Security Council shall hold periodic meetings at which each
of its members may, if it so desires, be represented by a member of the
government or by some other specially designated representative.
3. The Security Council may hold meetings at such places other than
the seat of the Organization as in its judgment will best facilitate its work.
Article 29
The Security Council may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems
necessary for the performance of its functions.
Article 30
The Security Council shall adopt its own rules of procedure, including
the method of selecting its President.
Article 31
Any Member of the United Nations which is not a member of the
Security Council may participate, without vote, in the discussion of
any question brought before the Security Council whenever the latter
considers that the interests of that Member are specially affected.
Article 32
Any Member of the United Nations which is not a member of the
Security Council or any state which is not a Member of the United
Nations, if it is a party to a dispute under consideration by the Security
Council, shall be invited to participate, without vote, in the discussion
relating to the dispute. The Security Council shall lay down such condi-
tions as it deems just for the participation of a state which is not a
Member of the United Nations.
Chapter VI
PACIFIC SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
Article 33
1. The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to
endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first
of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation,
arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrange-
ments, or other peaceful means of their own choice.
2. The Security Council shall, when it deems necessary, call upon the
parties to settle their dispute by such means.
CHABTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 179
Article 34
The Security Council may investigate any dispute, or any situation
which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute, in
order to determine whether the continuance of the dispute or situation is
likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.
Article 35
1. Any member of the United Nations may bring any dispute, or any
situation of the nature referred to in Article 34, to the attention of the
Security Council or of the General Assembly.
2. A state which is not a Member of the United Nations may bring to
the attention of the Security Council or of the General Assembly any
dispute to which it is a party if it accepts in advance, for the purposes of
the dispute, the obligations of pacific settlement provided in the present
Charter.
3. The proceedings of the General Assembly in respect of matters
brought to its attention under this Article will be subject to the provisions
of Articles 11 and 12.
Article 36
1. The Security Council may, at any stage of a dispute of the nature
referred to in Article 33 or of a situation of like nature, recommend
appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment.
2. The Security Council should take into consideration any procedures
for the settlement of the dispute which have already been adopted by the
parties.
3. In making recommendations under this Article the Security Council
should also take into consideration that legal disputes should as a general
rule be referred by the parties to the International Court of Justice in
accordance with the provisions of the Statute of the Court.
Article 37
1. Should the parties to a dispute of the nature referred to in Article
33 fail to settle it by the means indicated in that Article, they shall refer
it to the Security Council.
2. If the Security Council deems that the continuance of the dispute
is in fact likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and
security, it shall decide whether to take action under Article 36 or to
recommend such terms of settlement as it may consider appropriate.
180 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Article 88
Without prejudice to the provisions of Articles 33 to 37, the Security
Council may, if all the parties to any dispute so request, make recom-
mendations to the parties with a view to a pacific settlement of the
dispute.
Chapter VII
ACTION WITH BESPECT TO THREATS TO THE PEACE, BREACHES
OF THE PEACE, AND ACTS OF AGGRESSION
Article 89
The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the
peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recom-
mendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with
Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Article 40
In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security
Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the
measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to
comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desir-
able. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights,
claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall
duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.
Article 41
The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use
of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and
it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such
measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of eco-
nomic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and
other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.
Article 42
Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in
Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it
may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to
maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may
include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or
land forces of Members of the United Nations.
CHABTBR. OF THE UNITED NATIONS 181
Article 48
L All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the
maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make avail-
able to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special
agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, includ-
ing rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining interna-
tional peace and security.
2. Such agreement or agreements shall govern the numbers and types
of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature
of the facilities and assistance to be provided.
3. The agreement or agreements shall be negotiated as soon as possible
on the initiative of the Security Council. They shall be concluded be-
tween the Security Council and Members or between the Security Council
and groups of Members and shall be subject to ratification by the signa-
tory states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes.
Article 44
When the Security Council has decided to use force it shall, before
calling upon a Member not represented on it to provide armed forces
in fulfillment of the obligations assumed under Article 43, invite that
Member, if the Member so desires, to participate in the decisions of the
Security Council concerning the employment of contingents of that
Member's armed forces.
Article 45
In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures,
Members shall hold immediately available national air-force contingents
for combined international enforcement action. The strength and degree
of readiness of these contingents and plans for their combined action
shall be determined, within the limits laid down in the special agreement
or agreements referred to in Article 43, by the Security Council with the
assistance of the Military Staff Committee.
Article 46
Plans for the application of armed force shall be made by the Security
Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee.
Article 47
1. There shall be established a Military Staff Committee to advise and
assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Security
182 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Council's military requirements for the maintenance of international
peace and security, the employment and command of forces placed at its
disposal, the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament.
2. The Military Staff Committee shall consist of the Chiefs of Staff
of the permanent members of the Security Council or their representa-
tives. Any Member of the United Nations not permanently represented
on the Committees shall be invited by the Committee to be associated
with it when the efficient discharge of the Committee's responsibilities
requires the participation of that Member in its work.
3. The Military Staff Committee shall be responsible under the
Security Council for the strategic direction of any armed forces placed at
the disposal of the Security Council. Questions relating to the command
of such forces shall be worked out subsequently.
4. The Military Staff Committee, with the authorization of the Security
Council and after consultation with appropriate regional agencies, may
establish regional subcommittees.
Article 48
1. The action required to carry out the decisions of the Security
Council for the maintenance of international peace and security shall be
taken by all the Members of the United Nations or by some of them, as
the Security Council may determine.
2. Such decisions shall be carried out by the Members of the United
Nations directly and through their action in the appropriate international
agencies of which they are members.
Article 49
The Members of the United Nations shall join in affording mutual
assistance in carrying out the measures decided upon by the Security
Council.
Article 50
If preventive or enforcement measures against any state are taken by
the Security Council, any other state, whether a Member of the United
Nations or not, which finds itself confronted with special economic
problems arising from the carrying out of those measures shall have the
right to consult the Security Council with regard to a solution of those
problems.
CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 183
Article 51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of indi-
vidual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a
Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken
measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures
taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be
immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way
affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the
present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary
in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Chapter VIII
REGIONAL ABRANGEMENTS
Article 52
1. Nothing in the present Charter precludes the existence of regional
arrangements or agencies for dealing with such matters relating to the
maintenance of international peace and security as are appropriate
for regional action, provided that such arrangements or agencies and
their activities are consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the
United Nations.
2. The Members of the United Nations entering into such arrangements
or constituting such agencies shall make every effort to achieve pacific
settlement of local disputes through such regional arrangements or by
such regional agencies before referring them to the Security Council.
3. The Security Council shall encourage the development of pacific
settlement of local disputes through such regional arrangements or by
such regional agencies either on the initiative of the states concerned or
by reference from the Security Council.
4. This Article in no way impairs the application of Articles 34 and 35.
Article 53
I. The Security Council shall, where appropriate, utilize such regional
arrangements or agencies for enforcement action under its authority.
But no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements
or by regional agencies without the authorization of the Security Council,
with the exception of measures against any enemy state, as defined
in paragraph of this Article, provided for pursuant to Article 107 or in
184 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
regional arrangements directed against renewal of aggressive policy on
the part of any such state, until such time as the Organization may, on
request of the Governments concerned, be charged with the responsibility
for preventing further aggression by such a state.
2. The term enemy state as used in paragraph 1 of this Article
applies to any state which during the Second World War has been an
enemy of any signatory of the present Charter.
Article 54
The Security Council shall at all times be kept fully informed of
activities undertaken or in contemplation under regional arrangements or
by regional agencies for the maintenance of international peace and
security.
Chapter IX
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COOPERATION
Article 55
With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being
which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations
based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination
of peoples, the United Nations shall promote:
a. higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of
economic and social progress and development;
b. solutions of international economic, social, health, and related
problems; and international cultural and educational cooperation;
and
c. universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and funda-
mental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language,
or religion.
Article 56
All Members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in
cooperation with the Organization for the achievement of the purposes
set forth in Article 55.
Article 57
1. The various specialized agencies, established by intergovernmental
agreement and having wide international responsibilities, as defined in
CHABTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 185
their basic instruments, in economic, social, cultural, educational, health,
and related fields, shall be brought into relationship with the United
Nations in accordance with the provisions of Article 63.
2. Such agencies thus brought into relationship with the United Nations
are hereinafter referred to as specialized agencies.
Article 58
The Organization shall make recommendations for the coordination of
the policies and activities of the specialized agencies.
Article 59
The Organization shall, where appropriate, initiate negotiations among
the states concerned for the creation of any new specialized agencies
required for the accomplishment of the purposes set forth in Article 55.
Article 60
Responsibility for the discharge of the functions of the Organization
set forth in this Chapter shall be vested in the General Assembly and,
under the authority of the General Assembly, in the Economic and
Social Council, which shall have for this purpose the powers set forth
in Chapter X.
Chapter X
THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
Composition
Article 61
1. The Economic and Social Council shall consist of eighteen Members
of the United Nations elected by the General Assembly.
2. Subject to the provisions of paragraph 3, six members of the Eco-
nomic and Social Council shall be elected each year for a term of three
years. A retiring member shall be eligible for immediate re-election.
3. At the first election, eighteen members of the Economic and Social
Council shall be chosen. The term of office of six members so chosen
shall expire at the end of one year, and of six other members at the end
of two years, in accordance with arrangements made by the General
Assembly.
4. Each member of the Economic and Social Council shall have one
representative.
186 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Functions and Powers
Article 62
1. The Economic and Social Council may make or initiate studies and
reports with respect to international economic, social, cultural, educa-
tional, health, and related matters and may make recommendations with
respect to any such matters to the General Assembly, to the Members
of the United Nations, and to the specialized agencies concerned.
2. It may make recommendations for the purpose of promoting
respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms
for all.
3. It may prepare draft conventions for submission to the General
Assembly, with respect to matters falling within its competence.
4. It may call, in accordance with the rules prescribed by the United
Nations, international conferences on matters falling within its com-
petence.
Article 63
1. The Economic and Social Council may enter into agreements with
any of the agencies referred to in Article 57, defining the terms on which
the agency concerned shall be brought into relationship with the United
Nations. Such agreements shall be subject to approval by the General
Assembly.
2. It may coordinate the activities of the specialized agencies through
consultation with and recommendations to such agencies and through
recommendations to the General Assembly and to the Members of the
United Nations.
Article 64
1. The Economic and Social Council may take appropriate steps to
obtain regular reports from the specialized agencies. It may make arrange-
ments with the Members of the United Nations and with the specialized
agencies to obtain reports on the steps taken to give effect to its own
recommendations and to recommendations on matters falling within its
competence made by the General Assembly.
2. It may communicate its observations on these reports to the General
Assembly.
CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 187
Article 65
The Economic and Social Council may furnish information to the
Security Council and shall assist the Security Council upon its request.
Article 66
1. The Economic and Social Council shall perform such functions as
fall within its competence in connection with the carrying out of the
recommendations of the General Assembly.
2. It may, with the approval of the General Assembly, perform services
at the request of Members of the United Nations and at the request of
specialized agencies.
3. It shall perform such other functions as are specified elsewhere in
the present Charter or as may be assigned to it by the General Assembly.
Voting
Article 67
1. Each member of the Economic and Social Council shall have one
vote.
2. Decisions of the Economic and Social Council shall be made by a
majority of the members present and voting.
Procedure
Article 68
The Economic and Social Council shall set up commissions in eco-
nomic and social fields and for the promotion of human rights, and for
such other commissions as may be required for the performance of its
functions.
Article 69
The Economic and Social Council shall invite any Member of the
United Nations to participate, without vote, in its deliberations on any
matter of particular concern to that Member.
Article 70
The Economic and Social Council may make arrangements for repre-
sentatives of the specialized agencies to participate, without vote, in its
deliberations and in those of the commissions established by it, and for
its representatives to participate in the deliberations of the specialized
agencies.
188 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBROW
Article 71
The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements
for consultation with non-governmental organizations which axe con-
cerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be
made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with
national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United
Nations concerned.
Article 72
1. The Economic and Social Council shall adopt its own rules of
procedure, including the method of selecting its President.
2. The Economic and Social Council shall meet as required in
accordance with its rules, which shall include provision for the convening
of meetings on the request of a majority of its members.
Chapter XI
DECLAKATION KEGAKDING NON-SELF-GOVERNING TEKRTTOBIES
Article 73
Members of 'the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities
for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained
a full measure of self-government recognize the principle that the interests
of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a
sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system
of international peace and security established by the present Charter,
the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories, and, to this end:
a. to ensure, with due respect for the culture of the peoples con-
cerned, their political, economic, social, and educational advancement,
their just treatment, and their protection against abuses;
b. to develop self-government, to take due account of the political
aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive
development of "their free political institutions, according to the par-
ticular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and their vary-
ing stages of advancement;
c. to further international peace and security;
d. to promote constructive measures of development, to encourage
research, and to cooperate with one another and, when and where
appropriate, with specialized international bodies with a view to the
CHABTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 189
practical achievement of the social, economic, and scientific purposes
set forth in this Article; and
e. to transmit regularly to the Secretary-General for information
purposes, subject to such limitation as security and constitutional
considerations may require, statistical and other information of a tech-
nical nature relating to economic, social, and educational conditions
in the territories for which they are respectively responsible other
than those territories to which Chapters XII and XIII apply.
Article 74
Members of the United Nations also agree that their policy in respect
of the territories to which this Chapter applies, no less than in respect of
their metropolitan areas, must be based on the general principle of good-
neighborliness, due account being taken of the interests and well-being
of the rest of the world, in social, economic, and commercial matters.
CHAPTER XII
INTERNATIONAL TRUSTEESHIP SYSTEM
Article 75
The United Nations shall establish under its authority an international
trusteeship system for the administration and supervision of such terri-
tories as may be placed thereunder by subsequent individual agreements.
These territories are hereinafter referred to as trust territories.
Article 76
The basic objectives of the trusteeship system, in accordance with the
Purposes of the United Nations laid down in Article 1 of the present
Charter, shall be:
a. to further international peace and security;
b. to promote the political, economic, social, and educational
advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their
progressive development towards self-government or independence
as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each terri-
tory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples
concerned, and as may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship
agreement;
c. to encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental
freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or re-
190 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
ligion, and to encourage recognition of the interdependence of the
peoples of the world; and
d. to ensure equal treatment in social, economic, and commercial
matters for all Members of the United Nations and their nationals,
and also equal treatment for the latter in the administration of
justice, without prejudice to the attainment of the foregoing objec-
tives and subject to the provisions of Article 80.
Article 77
1. The trusteeship system shall apply to such territories in the follow-
ing categories as may be placed thereunder by means of trusteeship
agreements:
a. territories now held under mandate;
b. territories which may be detached from enemy states as a result
of the Second World War; and
c. territories voluntarily placed under the system by states respon-
sible for their administration.
2. It will be a matter for subsequent agreement as to which territories
in the foregoing categories will be brought under the trusteeship system
and upon what terms.
Article 78
The trusteeship system shall not apply to territories which have be-
come Members of the United Nations, relationship among which shall
be based on respect for the principle of sovereign equality.
Article 79
The terms of trusteeship for each territory to be placed under the
trusteeship system, including any alteration or amendment, shall be
agreed upon by the states directly concerned, including the mandatory
power in the case of territories held under mandate by a Member of
the United Nations, and shall be approved as provided for in Articles 83
and 85.
Article 80
1. Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agree-
ments, made under Articles 77, 79, and 81, placing each territory under
the trusteeship system, and until such agreements have been concluded,
nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in
any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the
CHABTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 191
terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the
United Nations may respectively be parties.
2. Paragraph 1 of this Article shall not be interpreted as giving grounds
for delay or postponement of the negotiation and conclusion of agree-
ments for placing mandated and other territories under the trusteeship
system as provided for in Article 77.
Article 81
The trusteeship agreement shall in each case include the terms under
which the trust territory will be administered and designate the authority
which will exercise the administration of the trust territory. Such authority,
hereinafter called the administering authority, may be one or more states
or the Organization itself.
Article 82
There may be designated, in any trusteeship agreement, a strategic
area or areas which may include part or all of the trust territory to
which the agreement applies, without prejudice to any special agree-
ment or agreements made under Article 43.
Article 83
1. AH functions of the United Nations relating to strategic areas,
including the approval of the terms of the trusteeship agreements and of
their alteration or amendment, shall be exercised by the Security Council.
2. The basic objectives set forth in Article 76 shall be applicable to
the people of each strategic area.
3. The Security Council shall, subject to the provisions of the trustee-
ship agreements and without prejuolice to security considerations, avail
itself of the assistance of the Trusteeship Council to perform those func-
tions of the United Nations under the trusteeship system relating to
political, economic, social, and educational matters in the strategic areas.
Article 84
It shall be the duty of the administering authority to ensure that
the trust territory shall play its part in the maintenance of international
peace and security. To this end the administering authority may make
use of volunteer forces, facilities, and assistance from the trust territory
in carrying out the obligations towards the Security Council undertaken
in this regard by the administering authority, as well as for local defense
and the maintenance of law and order within the trust territory.
192 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Article 85
1. The functions of the United Nations with regard to trusteeship
agreements for all areas not designated as strategic, including the approval
of the terms of the trusteeship agreements and of their alteration or
amendment, shall he exercised by the General Assembly.
2. The Trusteeship Council, operating under the authority of the
General Assembly, shall assist the General Assembly in carrying out
these functions.
Chapter XIII
THE TRUSTEESHIP COUNCIL
Composition
Article 86
1. The Trusteeship Council shall consist of the following Members of
the United Nations:
a. those Members administering trust territories;
b. -such of those Members mentioned by name in Article 23 as
are not administering trust territories; and
c. as many other Members elected for three-year terms by the
General Assembly as may be necessary to ensure that the total num-
ber of members of the Trusteeship Council is equally divided between
those Members of the United Nations which administer trust terri-
tories and those which do not.
2. Each member of the Trusteeship Council shall designate one specially
qualified person to represent it therein.
Functions and Powers
Article 87
The General Assembly and, under its authority, the Trusteeship
Council, in carrying out their functions, may:
a. consider reports submitted by the administering authority;
b. accept petitions and examine them in consultation with the
administering authority;
c. provide for periodic visits to the respective trust territories at
times agreed upon with the administering authority; and
d. take these and other actions in conformity with the terms of
the trusteeship agreements.
CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 193
Article 88
The Trasteesliip Council shall formulate a questionnaire on the political,
economic, social, and educational advancement of the inhabitants of each
trust territory, and the administering authority for each trust territory
within the competence of the General Assembly shall make an annual
report to the General Assembly upon the basis of such questionnaire.
Voting
Article 89
1. Each member of the Trusteeship Council shall have one vote.
2. Decisions of the Trusteeship Council shall be made by a majority
of the members present and voting.
Procedure
Article 90
1. The Trusteeship Council shall adopt its own rules of procedure,
including the method of selecting its President.
2. The Trusteeship Council shall meet as required in accordance with
its rules, which shall include provision for the convening of meetings
on the request of a majority of its members.
Article 91
The Trusteeship Council shall, when appropriate, avail itself of the
assistance of the Economic and Social Council and of the specialized
agencies in regard to matters with which they are respectively concerned.
Chapter XIV
THE INTEBNATIONAL COXJBT OF JUSTICE
Article 92
The International Court of Justice shall be the principal judicial
organ of the United Nations. It shall function in accordance with the
annexed Statute, which is based upon the Statute of the Permanent
Court of International Justice and forms an integral part of the present
Charter.
Article 93
1. All Members of the United Nations are ipso facto parties to the
Statute of the International Court of Justice.
194 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBROW
2. A state which is not a Member of the United Nations may become
a party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice on condi-
tions to be determined in each case by the General Assembly upon the
recommendation of the Security Council.
Article 94
1. Each Member of the United Nations undertakes to comply with the
decision of the International Court of Justice in any case to which it is
a party.
2. If any party to a case fails to perform the obligations incumbent
upon it under a judgment rendered by the Court, the other party may
have recourse to the Security Council, which may, if it deems necessary,
make recommendations or decide upon measures to be taken to give effect
to the judgment
Article 95
* Nothing in the present Charter shall prevent Members of the United
Nations from entrusting the solution of their differences to other tribunals
by virtue of agreements already in existence or which may be concluded
in the future.
Article 96
1. The General Assembly or the Security Council may request the
International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on any legal
question.
2. Other organs of the United Nations and specialized agencies, which
may at any time be so authorized by the General Assembly, may also
request advisory opinions of the Court on legal questions arising within
the scope of their activities.
Chapter XV
THE SECRETARIAT
Article 97
The Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary-General and such staff as
the Organization may require. The Secretary-General shall be appointed
by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security
Council. He shaE be the chief administrative officer of the Organization.
CHABTER OF THE "UNITED NATIONS 195
Article 98
The Secretary-General shall act in that capacity in all meetings of
the General Assembly, of the Security Council, of the Economic and
Social Council, and of the Trusteeship Council, and shall perform such
other functions as are entrusted to him "by these organs. The Secretary-
General shall make an annual report to the General Assembly on the
work of the Organization.
Article 99
The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security
Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance
of international peace and security.
Article 100
1. In the performance of their duties the Secretary-General and the
staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or
from any other authority external to the Organization. They shall
refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as inter-
national officials responsible only to the Organization.
2. Each Member of the United Nations undertakes to respect the
exclusively international character of the responsibilities of the Secretary-
General and the staff and not to seek to influence them in the discharge
of their responsibilities.
Article 101
1. The staff shall be appointed by the Secretary-General under regula-
tions established by the General Assembly.
2. Appropriate staffs shall be permanently assigned to the Economic
and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, and, as required, to other
organs of the United Nations. These staffs shall form a part of the
Secretariat,
3. The paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and
in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity
of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.
Due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as
wide a geographical basis as possible.
196 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Chapter XVI
MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
Article 102
1. Every treaty and every international agreement entered into by
any Member of the United Nations after the present Charter comes
into force shall as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat
and published by it
2. No party to any such treaty or international agreement which has
not been registered in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1
of this Article may invoke that treaty or agreement before any organ of
the United Nations.
Article 108
In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of
the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under
any other international agreement, their obligations under the present
Charter shall prevail.
Article 104
The Organization shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members
such legal capacity as may be necessary for the exercise of its functions
and the fulfillment of its purposes.
Article 105
L Hie Organization shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members
such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the fulfillment of
its purposes.
2. Representatives of the Members of the United Nations and officials
of the Organization shall similarly enjoy such privileges and immunities
as are necessary for the independent exercise of their functions in con-
nection with the Organization.
3. The General Assembly may make recommendations with a view to
determining the details of the application of paragraphs 1 and 2 of this
Article or may propose conventions to the Members of the United Nations
for this purpose.
CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS 197
Chapter XVII
TRANSITIONAL SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS
Article 106
Pending the coming into force of such special agreements referred to
in Article 43 as in the opinion of the Security Council enable it to begin
the exercise of its responsibilities under Article 42, the parties to the
Four-Nation Declaration, signed at Moscow, October 30, 1943, and
France, shall, in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 5 of that
Declaration, consult with one another and as occasion requires with
other Members of the United Nations with a view to such joint action
on behalf of the Organization as may be necessary for the purpose of
maintaining international peace and security.
Article 107
Nothing in the present Charter shall invalidate or preclude action, in
relation to any state which during the Second World War has been an
enemy of any signatory to the present Charter, taken or authorized as a
result of that war by the Governments having responsibility for such
action.
Chapter XVIII
AMENDMENTS
Article 108
Amendments to the present Charter shall come into force for all
Members of the United Nations when they have been adopted by a vote
of two thirds of the members of the General Assembly and ratified in
accordance with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds
of the Members of the United Nations, including all the permanent mem-
bers, of the Security Council.
Article 109
1. A General Conference of the Members of the United Nations for the
purpose of reviewing the present Charter may be held at a date and
place to be fixed by a two-thirds vote of the members of the General
Assembly and by a vote of any seven members of the Security Council.
Each Member of the United Nations shall have one vote in the conference.
198 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
2. Any alteration of the present Charter recommended by a two-
thirds vote of the conference shall take effect when ratified in accordance
with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds of the Mem-
bers of the United Nations including all the permanent members of the
Security Council.
3. If such a conference has not been held before the tenth annual
session of the General Assembly following the coming into force of
the present Charter, the proposal to call such a conference shall be
placed on the agenda of that session of the General Assembly, and the
conference shall be held if so decided by a majority vote of the mem-
bers of the General Assembly and by a vote of any seven members
of the Security Council.
Chapter XIX
RATIFICATION AND SIGNATURE
Article 110
1. The present Charter shall be ratified by the signatory states in
accordance with their respective constitutional processes.
2. The ratifications shall be deposited with the Government of the
United States of America, which shall notify all the signatory states of
each deposit as well as the Secretary-General of the Organization when
he has been appointed.
3. The present Charter shall come into force upon the deposit of rati-
fications by the Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
and the United States of America, and by a majority of the other signatory
states. A protocol of the ratification deposited shall thereupon be drawn
up by the Government of the United States of America which shall com-
municate copies thereof to all the signatory states.
4. The states signatory to the present Charter which ratify it after
it has come into force will become original Members of the United
Nations on the date of the deposit of their respective ratifications.
Article 111
The present Charter, of which the Chinese, French, Russian, English,
and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall remain deposited in the
archives of the Government of the United States of America. Duly
CHARTER OF THE TJNTTEI) NATIONS 199
certified copies thereof shall be transmitted by that Government to the
Governments of the other signatory states.
IN FAITH WHEREOF the representatives of the Governments of the
United Nations have signed the present Charter.
DONE at the city of San Francisco the twenty-sixth day of June, one
thousand nine hundred and forty-five.
STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
Article 1
The INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE established by the Charter
of the United Nations as the principal judicial organ of the United
Nations shall be constituted and shall function in accordance with the
provisions of the present Statute.
Chapter I
ORGANIZATION OF THE COURT
Article 2
The Court shall be composed of a body of independent judges,
elected regardless of their nationality from among persons of high moral
character, who possess the qualifications required in their respective
countries for appointment to the highest judicial offices, or are juriscon-
sults of recognized competence in international law.
Article 3
1. The Court shall consist of fifteen members, no two of whom may be
nationals of the same state.
2. A person who for the purposes of membership in the Court could
be regarded as a national of more than one state shall be deemed to be
a national of the one in which he ordinarily exercises civil and political
rights.
Article 4
1. The members of the Court shall be elected by the General Assembly
and by the Security Council from a list of persons nominated by the
national groups in the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in accordance with
the following provisions.
2. In the case of Members of the United Nations not represented in
the Permanent Court of Arbitration, candidates shall be nominated by
national groups appointed for this purpose by their governments under
the same conditions as those prescribed for members of the Permanent
200
STATUTE OF THE INTTSBNAHONAL COURT OF JUSTICE 201
Court of Arbitration by Article 44 of the Convention of The Hague of
1907 for the pacific settlement of international disputes.
3. The conditions under which a state which is a party to the present
Statute but is not a Member of the United Nations may participate in
electing the members of the Court shall, in the absence of a special
agreement, be laid down by the General Assembly upon recommendation
of the Security Council.
Article 5
1. At least three months before the date of the election, the Secretary-
General of the United Nations shall address a written request to the
members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration belonging to the states
which are parties to the present Statute, and to the members of the
national groups appointed under Article 4, paragraph 2, inviting them
to undertake, within a given time, by national groups, the nomination
of persons in a position to accept the duties of a member of the Court.
2. No group may nominate more than four persons, not more than two
of whom shall be of their own nationality. In no case may the number of
candidates nominated by a group be more than double the number
of seats to be filled.
Articled
Before making these nominations, each national group is recommended
to consult its highest court of justice, its legal faculties and schools of
law, and its national academies and national sections of international
academies devoted to the study of law.
Article 7
1. The Secretary-General shall prepare a list in alphabetical order of
all the persons thus nominated. Save as provided in Article 12, para-
graph 2, these shall be the only persons eligible.
2. The Secretary-General shall submit this list to the General Assembly
and to the Security Council
Article 8
The General Assembly and the Security Council shall proceed inde-
pendently of one another to elect the members of the Court.
Article 9
At every election, the electors shall bear in mind not only that the
persons to be elected should individually possess the qualifications re-
202 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
quired, but also that in the hody as a whole the representation o the
main forms of civilization and of the principal legal systems of the
world should be assured.
Article 10
1. Those candidates who obtain an absolute majority of votes in the
General Assembly and in the Security Council shall be considered as
elected.
2. Any vote of the Security Council, whether for the election of judges
or for the appointment of members of the conference envisaged in
Article 12, shall be taken without any distinction between permanent
and non-permanent members of the Security Council.
3. In the event of more than one national of the same state obtaining
an absolute majority of the votes both of the General Assembly and
of the Security Council, the eldest of these only shall be considered as
elected.
Article 11
If, after the first meeting held for the purpose of the election, one or
more seats remain to be filled, a second and, if necessary, a third
meeting shall take place.
Article 12
1. If, after the third meeting, one or more seats still remain unfilled,
a joint conference consisting of six members, three appointed by the
General Assembly and three by the Security Council, may be formed
at any time at the request of either the General Assembly or the Security
Council, for the purpose of choosing by the vote of an absolute majority
one name for each seat still vacant, to submit to the General Assembly
and the Security Council for their respective acceptance.
2. If the joint conference is unanimously agreed upon any person
who fulfils the required conditions, he may be included in its list, even
though he was not included in the list of nominations referred to in
Article 7.
3. If the joint conference is satisfied that it will not be successful in
procuring an election, those members of the Court who have already
been elected shall, within a period to be fixed by the Security Council,
proceed to fill the vacant seats by selection from among those candidates
who have obtained votes either in the General Assembly or in the Security
Council.
STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE 203
4. In the event of an equality of votes among the judges, the eldest
judge shall have a casting vote.
Article 13
1. The members of the Court shall be elected for nine years and may
be re-elected; provided, however, that of the judges elected at the first
election, the terms of five judges shall expire at the end of three years
and the terms of five more judges shall expire at the end of six years.
2. The judges whose terms are to expire at the end of the above-
mentioned initial periods of three and six years shall be chosen by lot to
be drawn by the Secretary-General immediately after the first election
has been completed.
3. The members of the Court shall continue to discharge their duties
until their places have been filled. Though replaced, they shall finish
any cases which they may have begun.
4. In the case of the resignation of a member of the Court, the
resignation shall be addressed to the President of the Court for trans-
mission to the Secretary-General. This last notification makes the place
vacant.
Article 14
Vacancies shall be filled by the same method as that laid down for the
first election, subject to the following provision: the Secretary-General
shall, within, one month of the occurrence of the vacancy, proceed to
issue the invitations provided for in Article 5, and the date of the
election shall be fixed by the Security Council.
Article 15
A member of the Court elected to replace a member whose term
of office has not expired shall hold office for the remainder of his
predecessor's term.
Article 16
1. No member of the Court may exercise any political or administrative
function, or engage in any other occupation of a professional nature.
2. Any doubt on this point shall be settled by the decision of the
Court.
Article 17
1. No member of the Court may act as agent, counsel, or advocate in
any case.
204 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
2. No member may participate in the decision of any case in which
he has previously taken part as agent, counsel, or advocate for one of the
parties, or as a member of a national or international court, or of a com-
mission of enquiry, or in any other capacity.
3. Any doubt on this point shall be settled by the decision of the Court.
Article 18
1. No member of the Court can be dismissed unless, in the unanimous
opinion of the other members, he has ceased to fulfil the required condi-
tions.
2. Formal notification thereof shall be made to the Secretary-General
by the Registrar.
3. This notification makes the place vacant.
Article 19
The members of the Court, when engaged on the business of the Court,
shall enjoy diplomatic privileges and immunities.
Article 20
Every member of the Court shall, before taking up his duties, make
a solemn declaration in open court that he will exercise his powers
impartially and conscientiously.
Article 21
1. The Court shall elect its President and Vice-President for three
years; they may be re-elected.
2. The Court shall appoint its Registrar and may provide for the
appointment of such other officers as may be necessary.
Article 22
1. The seat of the court shall be established at The Hague. This, how-
ever, shall not prevent the Court from sitting and exercising its functions
elsewhere whenever the Court considers it desirable.
2. The President and the Registrar shall reside at the seat of the Court.
Article 23
1. The Court shall remain permanently in session, except during the
judicial vacations, the dates and duration of which shall be fixed by the
Court.
STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE 205
2. Members of the Court are entitled to periodic leave, the dates and
duration of which shall be fixed by the Court, having in mind the distance
between The Hague and the home of each judge.
3. Members of the Court shall be bound, unless they are on leave or
prevented from attending by illness or other serious reasons duly ex-
plained to the President, to hold themselves permanently at the disposal
of the Court.
Article 24
1. If, for some special reason, a member of the Court considers that
he should not take part in the decision of a particular case, he shall so
inform the President.
2. If the President considers that for some special reason one of
the members of the Court should not sit in a particular case, he shall
give him notice accordingly.
3. If in any such case the member of the Court and the President
disagree, the matter shall be settled by the decision of the Court.
Article 25
1. The full Court shall sit except when it is expressly provided other-
wise in the present Statute.
2. Subject to the condition that the number of judges available to
constitute the Court is not thereby reduced below eleven, the Rules of
the Court may provide for allowing one or more judges, according to
circumstances and in rotation, to be dispensed from sitting.
3. A quorum of nine judges shall suffice to constitute the Court.
Article 26
1. The Court may from time to time form one or more chambers,
composed of three or more judges as the Court may determine, for
dealing with particular categories of cases; for example, labor cases and
cases relating to transit and communications.
2. The Court may at any time form a chamber for dealing with a
particular case. The number of judges to constitute such a chamber shall
be determined by the Court with the approval of the parties.
3. Cases shall be heard and determined by the chambers provided
for in this Article if the parties so request.
Article 27
A judgment given by any of the chambers provided for in Articles 26
and 29 shall be considered as rendered by the Court.
206 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Article 28
The chambers provided for in Articles 26 and 29 may, with the consent
of the parties, sit and exercise their functions elsewhere than at The
Hague.
Article 29
With a view to the speedy despatch of business, the Court shall form
annually a chamber composed of five judges which, at the request of the
parties, may hear and determine cases by summary procedure. In addi-
tion, two judges shall be selected for the purpose of replacing judges
who find it impossible to sit.
Article SO
1. The Court shall frame rules for carrying out its functions. In par-
ticular, it shall lay down rules of procedure.
2. The Rules of the Court may provide for assessors to sit with the
Court or with any of its chambers, without the right to vote.
Article 31
1. Judges of the nationality of each of the parties shall retain their
right to sit in the case before the Court.
2. If the Court includes upon the Bench a judge of the nationality
of one of the parties, any other party may choose a person to sit as
judge. Such person shall be chosen preferably from among those persons
who have been nominated as candidates as provided in Articles 4 and 5.
3. If the Court includes upon the Bench no judge of the nationality
of the parties, each of these parties may proceed to choose a judge as
provided in paragraph 2 of this Article.
4. The provisions of this Article shall apply to the case of Articles 26
and 29. In such cases, the President shall request one or, if necessary,
two of the members of the Court forming the chamber to give place to
the members of the Court of the nationality of the parties concerned, and,
failing such, or if they are unable to be present, to the judges specially
chosen by the parties.
5. Should there be several parties in the same interest, they shall, for
the purpose of the preceding provisions, be reckoned as one party only.
Any doubt upon this point shall be settled by the decision of the Court.
6. Judges chosen as laid down in paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 of this Article
shall fulfil the conditions required by Articles 2, 17 (paragraph 2), 20,
STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE 207
and 24 of the present Statute. They shall take part in the decision on
terms of complete equality with their colleagues.
Article 82
1. Each member of the Court shall receive an annual salary.
2. The President shall receive a special annual allowance.
3. The Vice-President shall receive a special allowance for every day
on which he acts as President.
4. The judges chosen under Article 31, other than members of the
Court, shall receive compensation for each day on which they exercise
their functions.
5. These salaries, allowances, and compensation shall be fixed by the
General Assembly. They may not be decreased during the term of office.
6. The salary of the Registrar shall be fixed by the General Assembly
on the proposal of the Court.
7. Regulations made by the General Assembly shall fix the condi-
tions under which retirement pensions may be given to members of the
Court and to the Registrar, and the conditions under which members of
the Court and the Registrar shall have their traveling expenses refunded.
8. The above salaries, allowances, and compensation shall be free of
all taxation.
Article S3
The expenses of the Court shall be borne by the United Nations in
such a manner as shall be decided by the General Assembly.
Chapter II
COMPETENCE OF THE COURT
Article B4
1. Only states may be parties in cases before the Court.
2. The Court, subject to and in conformity with its Rules, may request
of public international organizations information relevant to cases before
it, and shall receive such information presented by such organizations
on their own initiative.
3. Whenever the construction of the constituent instrument of a public
international organization or of an international convention adopted
thereunder is in question in a case before the Court, the Registrar shall
208 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
so notify the public international organization concerned and shall com-
municate to it copies of all the written proceedings.
Article 85
1. The Court shall be open to the states parties to the present Statute.
2. The conditions under which the Court shall be open to other
states shall, subject to the special provisions contained in treaties in
force, be laid down by the Security Council, but in no case shall such
conditions place the parties in a position of inequality before the Court.
3. When a state which is not a Member of the United Nations is a
party to a case, the Court shall fix the amount which that party is to
contribute towards the expenses of the Court. This provision shall not
apply if such state is bearing a share of the expenses of the Court.
Article 86
1. The jurisdiction of the Court comprises all cases which the parties
refer to it and all matters specially provided for in the Charter of the
United Nations or in treaties and conventions in force.
2. The states parties to the present Statute may at any time declare
that they recognize as compulsory ipso facto and without special agree-
ment, in relation to any other state accepting the same obligation, the
jurisdiction of the Court in all legal disputes concerning:
a. the interpretation of a treaty; \
b. any question of international law;
c. the existence of any fact which, if established, would constitute
a breach of an international obligation;
d. the nature or extent of the reparation to be made for the breach
of an international obligation.
3. The declarations referred to above may be made unconditionally
or on condition of reciprocity on the part of several or certain states,
or for a certain time.
4. Such declarations shall be deposited with the Secretary-General
of the United Nations, who shall transmit copies thereof to the parties
to the Statute and to the Registrar of the Court.
5. Declarations made under Article 36 of the Statute of the Permanent
Court of International Justice and which are still in force shall be
deemed, as between the parties to the present Statute, to be acceptances
STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE 209
of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice for the
period which they still have to run and in accordance with their terms.
6. In the event of a dispute as to whether the Court has jurisdiction,
the matter shall be settled "by the decision of the Court.
Article 87
Whenever a treaty or convention in force provides for reference of a
matter to a tribunal to have been instituted by the League of Nations, or
to the Permanent Court of International Justice, the matter shall, as
between the parties to the present Statute, be referred to the International
Court of Justice.
Article 38
1. The Court, whose function is to decide in accordance with inter-
national law such disputes as are submitted to it, shall apply:
a. international conventions, whether general or particular, estab-
lishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states;
b. international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted
as law;
c. the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations;
d. subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and
the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various
nations, as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law.
2. This provision shall not prejudice the power of the Court to decide
a case ex aeqtto et bono > if the parties agree thereto.
Chapter III
PROCEDURE
Article 39
1. The official languages of the Court shall be French and English.
If the parties agree that the case shall be conducted in French, the
judgment shall be delivered in French. If the parties agree that the case
shall be conducted in English, the judgment shall be delivered in English.
2. In the absence of an agreement as to which language shall be
employed, each party may, in the pleadings, use the language which
it prefers; the decision of the Court shall be given in French and English.
In this case the Court shall at the same time determine which of the two
texts shall be considered as authoritative.
210 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
3. The Court shall, at the request of any party, authorize a language
other than French or English to be used by that party.
Article 40
1. Cases are brought before the Court, as the case may be, either by
the notification of the special agreement or by a written application
addressed to the Registrar. In either case the subject of the dispute and
the parties shall be indicated.
2. The Registrar shall forthwith communicate the application to all
concerned.
3. He shall also notify the Members of the United Nations through the
Secretary-General, and also any other states entitled to appear before the
Court.
Article 41
1. The Court shall have the power to indicate, if it considers that cir-
cumstances so require, any provisional measures which ought to be taken
to preserve the respective rights of either party.
2. Pending the final decision, notice of the measures suggested shall
forthwith be given to the parties and to the Security Council.
Article 42
1. The parties shall be represented by agents.
2. They may have the assistance of counsel or advocates before the
Court.
3. The agents, counsel, and advocates of parties before the Court shall
enjoy the privileges and immunities necessary to the independent exer-
cise of their duties.
Article 43
1. The procedure shall consist of two parts: written and oral.
2. The written proceedings shall consist of the communication to the
Court and to the parties of memorials, counter-memorials and, if neces-
sary, replies; also aU papers and documents in support.
3. These communications shall be made through the Registrar, in the
order and within the time fixed by the Court.
4. A certified copy of every document produced by one party shall be
communicated to die other party.
STATUTE OF THE INTEBNATIONAX, COURT OF JUSTICE 211
5. The oral proceedings shall consist of the hearing by the Court of
witnesses, experts, agents, counsel, and advocates.
Article 44
1. For the service of all notices upon persons other than the agents,
counsel, and advocates, the Court shall apply direct to the government
of the state upon whose territory the notice has to be served.
2. The same provision shall apply whenever steps are to be taken
to procure evidence on the spot.
Article 45
The hearing shall be under the control of the President or, if he is
unable to preside, of the Vice-President; if neither is able to preside, the
senior judge present shall preside.
Article 46
The hearing in Court shall be public, unless the Court shall decide
otherwise, or unless the parties demand that the public be not admitted.
Article 47
1. Minutes shall be made at each hearing and signed by the Registrar
and the President.
2. These minutes alone shall be authentic.
Article 48
The Court shall make orders for the conduct of the case, shall decide
the form and time in which each party must conclude its arguments, and
make all arrangements connected with the taking of evidence.
Article 49
The Court may, even before the hearing begins, call upon the agents
to produce any document or to supply any explanations. Formal note
shall be taken of any refusal.
Article 50
The Court may, at any time, entrust any individual, body, bureau,
commission, or other organization that it may select, with the task of
carrying out an enquiry or giving an expert opinion.
Article 51
During the hearing any relevant questions are to be put to the wit-
nesses and experts under the conditions laid down by the Court in the
rules of procedure referred to in Article 30.
212 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Article 52
After the Court has received the proofs and evidence within the
time specified for the purpose, it may refuse to accept any further
oral or written evidence that one party may desire to present unless
the other side consents.
Article 53
1. Whenever one of the parties does not appear before the Court,
or fails to defend its case, the other party may call upon the Court to
decide in favor of its claim.
2. The Court must, before doing so, satisfy itself, not only that it has
jurisdiction in accordance with Articles 36 and 37, but also that the claim
is well founded in fact and law.
Article 54
1. When, subject to the control of the Court, the agents, counsel, and
advocates have completed their presentation of the case, the President
shall declare the hearing closed.
2. The Court shall withdraw to consider the judgment.
3. The deliberations of the Court shall take place in private and remain
secret.
Article 55
1. All questions shall be decided by a majority of the judges present.
2. In the event of an equality of votes, the President or the judge
who acts in his place shall have a casting vote.
Article 56
1. The judgment shall state the reasons on which it is based.
2. It shall contain the names of the judges who have taken part in
the decision.
Article 57
If the judgment does not represent in whole or in part the unanimous
opinion of the judges, any judge shall be entitled to deliver a separate
opinion.
Article 58
The judgment shall be signed by the President and by the Registrar.
It shall be read in open court, due notice having been given to the agents.
STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE 213
Article 59
The decision of the Court has no binding force except between the
parties and in respect of that particular case.
Article 60
The judgment is final and without appeal. In the event of dispute as
to the meaning or scope of the judgment, the Court shall construe it
upon the request of any party,
Article 61
1. An application for revision of a judgment may be made only when
it is based upon the discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be
a decisive factor, which fact was, when the judgment was given, un-
known to the Court and also to the party claiming revision, always pro-
vided that such ignorance was not due to negligence.
2. The proceedings for revision shall be opened by a judgment of
the Court expressly recording the existence of the new fact, recogniz-
ing that it has such a character as to lay the case open to revision, and
declaring the application admissible on this ground.
3. The Court may require previous compliance with the terms of the
judgment before it admits proceedings in revision.
4. The application for revision must be made at latest within six months
of the discovery of the new fact.
5. No application for revision may be made after the lapse of ten years
from the date of the judgment.
Article 62
1. Should a state consider that it has an interest of a legal nature
which may be affected by the decision in the case, it may submit a re-
quest to the Court to be permitted to intervene.
2. It shall be for the Court to decide upon this request.
Article 63
1. Whenever the construction of a convention to which states other
than those concerned in the case are parties is in question, the Registrar
shall notify all such states forthwith.
2. Every state so notified has the right to intervene in the proceedings;
but if it uses this right, the construction given by the judgment will be
equally binding upon it.
214 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
Article 64
Unless otherwise decided by the Court, each party shall bear its own
costs.
Chapter IV
ADVISORY OPINIONS
Article 65
1. The Court may give an advisory opinion on any legal question at the
request of whatever body may be authorized by or in accordance with
the Charter of the United Nations to make such a request.
2. Questions upon which the advisory opinion of the Court is asked
shall be laid before the Court by means of a written request containing
an exact statement of the question upon which an opinion is required,
and accompanied by all documents likely to throw light upon the ques-
tion.
Article 66
1. The Registrar shall forthwith give notice of the request for an ad-
visory opinion to all states entitled to appear before the Court.
2. The Registrar shall also, by means of a special and direct communi-
cation, notify any state entitled to appear before the Court or interna-
tional organization considered by the Court, or, should it not be sitting,
by the President, as likely to be able to furnish information on the ques-
tion, that the Court will be prepared to receive, within a time limit to
be fixed by the President, written statements, or to hear, at a public sit-
ting to be held for the purpose, oral statements relating to the question.
3. Should any such state entitled to appear before the Court have
failed to receive the special communication referred to in paragraph 2 of
this Article, such state may express a desire to submit a written statement
or to be heard; and the Court will decide.
4. States and organizations having presented written or oral statements
or both shall be permitted to comment on the statements made by other
states or organizations in the form, to the extent, and within the time
limits which the Court, or, should it not be sitting, the President, shall
decide in each particular case. Accordingly, the Registrar shall in due
time communicate any such written statements to states and organiza-
tions having submitted similar statements.
STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COUBT OF JUSTICE 215
Article 67
The Court shall deliver its advisory opinions in open court, notice hav-
ing been given to the Secretary-General and to the representatives of
Members of the United Nations, of other states and of international or-
ganizations immediately concerned.
Article 68
In the exercise of its advisory functions the Court shall further be
guided by the provisions of the present Statute which apply in conten-
tious cases to the extent to which it recognizes them to be applicable.
Chapter V
AMENDMENT
Article 69
Amendments to the present Statute shall be effected by the same
procedure as is provided by the Charter of the United Nations for amend-
ments to that Charter, subject however to any provisions which the
General Assembly upon recommendations of the Security Council may
adopt concerning the participation of states which are parties to the
present Statute but are not Members of the United Nations.
Article 70
The Court shall have power to propose such amendments to the
present Statute as it may deem necessary, through written communica-
tions to the Secretary-General, for consideration in conformity with the
provisions of Article 69.
Universal Declaration
of Human Rights
Adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly, December 10, 1948
PREAMBLE
WHEREAS recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and
inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation
of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
WHEREAS disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted
in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and
the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of
speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed
as the highest aspiration of the common people,
WHEREAS it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have
recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression,
that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
WHEREAS it is essential to promote the development of friendly re-
lations between nations,
WHEREAS the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter re-
affirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women
and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of
life in larger freedom,
217
218 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
WHEREAS Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in
co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect
for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
WHEREAS a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is
of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
NOW, THEREFORE,
The General Assembly
Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common
standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that
every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration
constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote
respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, na-
tional and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition
and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves
and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
ARTICLE 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
another in a spirit of brotherhood.
ARTICLE 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this
Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
property, birth or other status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political,
jurisdictional or international status of the county or territory to which
a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing
or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
ARTICLE 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
ARTICLE 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade
shall be prohibited in all their forms. ,
ARTICLE 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment.
UNIVERSAL DECLABATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 219
ARTICLE 6.
Everyone "has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before
the law.
ARTICLE 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimina-
tion to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection
against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against
any incitement to such discrimination.
ARTICLE 8.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent na-
tional tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by
the constitution or by law.
ARTICLE 9.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile.
ARTICLE 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an
independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and
obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
ARTICLE 11.
1. Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be pre-
sumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at
which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.
2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of any
act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national
or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a
heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time
the penal offense was committed.
ARTICLE 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy,
family, home or correspondence nor to attacks upon his honor and repu-
tation.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such inter-
ference or attacks.
220 UN: TODAY AND TOMOBBOW
ARTICLE 13.
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence
within the borders of each state.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own,
and to return to his country.
ARTICLE 14.
1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries
asylum from persecution.
2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely
arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes
and principles of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 15.
1. Everyone has the right to a nationality,
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied
the right to change his nationality.
ARTICLE 16.
1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race,
nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.
They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at
its dissolution.
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent
of the intending spouses.
3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society
and is entitled to protection by society and the state.
ARTICLE 17.
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in associa-
tion with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
ARTICLE 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief , and freedom,
either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to
manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and ob-
servance.
UNIVERSAL DEOtABATION OF HUMAN BIGHTS 221
ARTICLE 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, re-
ceive and impart information and ideas through any media and regard-
less of frontiers.
ARTICLE 20.
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and asso-
ciation.
2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
ARTICLE 21.
1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his coun-
try, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his
country.
3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of govern-
ment; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which
shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote
or by equivalent free voting procedures.
ARTICLE 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and
is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-
operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each
state, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his
dignity and the free development of his personality.
ARTICLE 23.
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to
just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unem-
ployment.
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for
equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remunera-
tion ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human
dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social pro-
tection.
222 UN: TODAY AND TOMORROW
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the pro-
tection of his interests.
ARTICLE 24.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limita-
tion of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
ARTICLE 25.
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the
health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, cloth-
ing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the
right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond
his control.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assist-
ance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same
social protection.
ARTICLE 26.
1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at
least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education
shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made
generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all
on the basis of merit.
2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human
personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and
friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further
the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall
be given to their children.
ARTICLE 27.
1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of
the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement
and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material
interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or artistic production of
which he is the author.
UNIVERSAL DECLAKAHON OF HUMAN BIGHTS 223
ABTICLE 28.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the
rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
ABTXGLE 29.
1. Everyone has duties to the community, in which alone the free and
full development of his personality is possible.
2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be sub-
ject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the pur-
pose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms
of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order
and the general welfare in a democratic society.
3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to
the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any
state, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform
any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set
forth herein.
PRINCIPAL ORGANS AND SUBSIDIARY BODIES
MILITARY STAFF COMMITTEE
DISARMAMENT COMMISSION
INTERIM COMMITTEE
OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
PEACE OBSERVATION
COMMISSION
COLLECTIVE MEASURES
COMMITTEE
UNITED NATIONS
INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S
EMERGENCY FUND
INTERNATIONAL LAW
COMMISSION
OFFICE OF THE
UNITED NATIONS HIGH
COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES
COMMITTEE ON INFORMATION
FROM NON-SELF-GOVERNING
TERRITORIES
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON
ADMINISTRATIVE AND
BUDGETARY QUESTIONS
COMMITTEE ON
CONTRIBUTIONS
TECHNICAL ASStf ANCE
BOARD
ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE
ON CO-ORDINATION
UNITED NATIONS
EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC
AND CULTURAL
ORGANIZATION
INTERN/ ftONAL
CIVI1 Al 1ATION
ORGAN! NATION
INTERNATIONAL BANK
FOR RECONSTRUCTION
AND DEVELOPMENT
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
ORGANIZATION OF
THE UNITED NATIONS
INTERNATIONAL
MONETARY FUND
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR
ORGANISATION
INTER-GOVERNMENTAL
MARITIME CONSULTATIVE
ORGANIZATION
(Preporotory Commiflee)
INTERNATIONAL
TRADE ORGANIZATION
(Interim Commission)
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL
ORGANIZATION
UNIVERSAL
POSTAL UNION
INTERNATIONAL
TELECOMMUNICATION UNION
WORLD HEALTH
ORGANIZATION
TRANSPORT AND
COMMUNICATIONS
COMMISSION
F1SCAI
COMMISSION
STATISTICAL
COMMISSION
ECONOMIC COMMISSION
FOR EUROPE
ECONOMIC COMMISSION
FOR ASIA AND THE FAR EAST
ECONOMIC COMMISSION
FOR LATIN AMERICA
POPULATION
COMMISSION
SOCIAL
COMMISSION
COMMISSION ON
NARCOTIC DRUGS
COMMISSION ON
HUMAN RIGHTS
COMMISSION ON
THE STATUS OF WOMEN
Members of the UN
(Dates indicate entry into the
Afghanistan (Nov. 19, 1946)
Argentina
Australia
Belgium
Bolivia
Brazil
Burma (Apr. 19, 1948)
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Re-
public
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
Czechoslovakia
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Ethiopia
France
Greece
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Iceland (Nov. 19, 1946)
India
Indonesia (Sept 28, 1950)
Iran
UN of non-charter members. )
Iraq
Israel (May 11, 1949)
Lebanon
Liberia
Luxembourg
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Norway
Pakistan (Sept. SO, 1947)
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Saudi Arabia
Sweden (Nov. 19, 1946)
Syria
Thailand (Dec. 16, 1946)
Turkey
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Union of South Africa
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland
United States of America
Uruguay
Venezuela
Yugoslavia
227
Abbreviations
UN, United Nations
Bank, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
ECAFE, Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East
ECE, Economic Commission for Europe
ECLA, Economic Commission for Latin America
ECOSOC, Economic and Social Council
FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization
Fund, International Monetary Fund
GA, General Assembly
GATT, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
ICAO, International Civil Aviation Organization
ICJ, International Court of Justice
ILC, International Law Commission
ILO, International Labour Organisation
IMCO, Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization
IPPC, International Penal and Penitentiary Commission
ITO, International Trade Organization
ITS, International Tracing Service
ITU, International Telecommunication Union
NGO^s, Non-Governmental Organizations
NSG, Non-self-governing Territories
SC, Security Council
SG, Secretary-General
TAA, Technical Assistance Administration
TAB, Technical Assistance Board
UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organiza-
tion
UNICEF, United Nations International Children's Fund
UNKRA, United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency
UNRWA, United Nations Relief and Works Agency
UPU, Universal Postal Union
WHO, World Health Organization
WMO, World Meteorological Organization
229
Ind
ex
Abbreviations, 229
Administrative and Financial Services,
39, 56-62
Administrative Tribunal, Staff Coun-
cil, 69
Afghanistan, 77, 81-83, 111, 129
Africa, climatological survey, 129
Air-conditioning plant, UN, 34-35
Air-mail service, 123
Air Navigation Commission, ICAO,
137
Air Transport Command, 134
Air Transport Committee, ICAO, 135-
136
Alaska, 147
Albania, 12
Altiplano survey, 111-12
American Association for the United
Nations, 33, 65-66
Amusements, 68
Appeals Board, Staff Council, 69
Archives, UN, 49
Arneberg, Amstein, 34
Atlantic City, New Jersey, 132
Attendance by visitors, UN, 151-52
Auditorium, General Assembly, 32
Australia, 89, 90
Aviation, civil, UN activities for, 133-
137
Baghdad, 128
Bafice, Ole, 15
Bangkok, 87
Bell, Alexander Graham, 48
Benes, Eduard, 14
Benevolent Fund, UN Staff, 68
Bennett, A. A., 114-15
Benneyan, Aroos, 66, 67
Berlin blockade, 13
Bermuda Sky Queen, 136
Bernadotte, Count Folke, 15, 16, 26
Berne, Switzerland, 123, 124, 131
Bibb, U.S. Guard Cutter, 136
Black, Eugene R., 120-21
Blood-grouping standards, 78-79
Bodet, Jaime Torres, 102
Bokar-Konar project, 119-20
Bolivia, 111
Bookshop, retail, UN, 62-63
British Civil Service Registry system,
107
Brooklyn, New York, 104
Budget, UN, 53, 155-56
Building Management Service, UN,
49
Bulgaria, 14
Cablegrams, 49
Caesar, Julius, 122
Cafeteria, UN, 52
Camp Nawakwa, Lake Sebago, New
York, 67-68
Cannon, Carl, 33
Carnegie Hall, 68
Carpenter Shop, UN, 49-50
Castro, Julio, 103
Ceylon, 78
Charter, UN, 6, 8, 42-43, 141-42, 157-
158, 169-199
Chiang Kai-shek, 20
Chicago, Illinois, 135
Children, UN activities for, 91-96
231
232
INDEX
Chile, 80, 85-86
China, 78, 85
Chinese Nationalist Government, 9
Chisholm, Brock, 74
Churchill, Winston, 141
Civil aviation, UN activities for, 133-
137
Cloud atlas, international, 129
Cohen, Benjamin V., 36, 54
Coleridge, Samuel, 147
Commonwealth Economic Conference,
London, 120
Communications, UN, 48-49
Conference and General Services, 38,
40-41, 48-53
Conference Building, UN, 29, 34-35,
50
Congress, U.S., 31, 65
Coolidge, Calvin, 7
Co-operative, UN, 33, 52, 64-65
Corfu Channel affair, 12
Correspondence, UN, 49
Credit Union, UN,^66, 68
Cruz, Claudia, 54 *
Cuba, 148
Cucuchuco, Mexico, 102
"Cup of milk" program, 93-94, 96
Customs, American, 30
Czechoslovakia, 13-14
Daily Report, 55
Damodar Valley, India, 119-20
Damodar Valley Corporation, 119
Darius the Persian, 122
Darling, Sir Malcolm, 113
Detroit, Michigan, 77
DeWalt, Dan, 40, 42-43
Dickinson, W. W., 81-83
Diet deficiency campaign, 93-94
Dining room, UN, 52
Dodd, Norris E., 84, 88
Drug control, 79
Economic Affairs Department, UN, 39
Economic and Social Council
(ECOSOS), 22, 24-25, 34, 142,
143, 144, 184-88
Economic Commission for Europe
(ECE), 88
Ecuador, 111
Education, UN activities for, 96-105
Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, UN (UNESCO), 72,
97-105, 114, 125, 128, 138, 139
"E" in UNESCO, 97
Elevator transportation, UN, 52
Emergency Food Reserve, 90-91
Employees, regular, UN, 57
Entomologists, FAO, 89-90
Epidemiological Intelligence Service,
73-74, 79-80
Eritrea, 18
Ethiopia, 75
Eucalyptus trees, 89
Everyman's United Nations, 56
Executive Assistant to the Secretary-
General, 60
Expanded Technical Assistance Pro-
gram, UN, 84, 109
Fall web worm (Hyphan tria cunea),
89-90
Fellowships established, 77, 90
Field Service, UN, 14-15, 16
Filing system, UN, 49
Finns, 55, 56
Fire departmenet, UN, 35, 50
Fisheries Council, 85
Fishing activities, FAO, 85-87
Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO), 24, 72, 73, 80-81, 95, 102,
114, 129, 139, 145
Food production, UN activities, 80-91
Food survey, world, 81
Formosa, 9, 85
Fort Knox, 116
Franco, Francisco, 11-12
Franklin, Benjamin, 127
Freedom of Association Committee,
ILO, 108-9
Frencn National Record Library,
Paris, 104
Frequency assignments, radio, 132-33
Fridthjof, John, 85
Garage, UN, 35, 52, 64
General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT), 138
General Assembly (GA), 8, 19, 22-25,
91, 133, 151
INDEX
233
General Assembly Affairs and Admin-
istrative Section, 60
General Assembly Building, 29, 31-34,
62
General Postal Union, 123
Geneva, Switzerland, 49, 57, 61, 74,
79, 113, 132
Ghund Valley, India, 75
Gift Coupons, UNESCO, 104
Gift Shop, UN, 63-64
Greece, 14, 76, 84, 108-09, 111
Guards, UN, 50-51
Guided tours, UN, 1, 33-34
Haifa, 17
Haiti, 76, 111, 128
Hammarskjold, Dag, 6, 60
Harrison, WaUace K., 31
Health activities, UN, 72-80
Hitler, Adolph, 11
Hogan, Willard N., 11
Housekeeping service, UN, 49, 52
Hungary, 14
Hunter College, 43, 61
Iceknd, 96
Illiteracy, 98-99
India, 14, 18, 75, 77, 80, 85, 112-13,
119-20
"Indigenous Population Survey," 111-
112
Indonesia, 12-13, 86-87
Information bureau, UN, 48
Information Centers, 55, 56, 57
Insecticide campaigns, 73, 76, 89-90
Inter-Governmental Maritime Consul-
tative Organization (IMCO), 138
Internal Reproduction Plant, UN, 40-
44
International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, 72, 115, 117-22,
138
International Board of Design, 31
International Bureau, UPU, 124-25,
126
International Chamber of Commerce,
142, 144
International Children's Fund, UN
(UNICEF), 24, 72, 73, 76, 91-96
International Civil Aviation Organiza-
tion (ICAO), 72, 129, 133-37, 138,
139
International Co-operative Alliance,
142
International Court of Justice (ICJ),
12, 25-26, 160, 200-15
International Labour Organisation
(ILO), 72, 102, 105-15, 138, 139
International Meteorological Organiza-
tion (IMO), 128
International Monetary Fund, UN, 72,
115-17, 138
International organizations, 143
International Pharmacopoeia, WHO,
79
International Postal Convention, 123,
125
International Radiotelegraph Union,
131
International Telecommunication Un-
ion (ITU), 72, 106, 130-33, 145
International Telegraph Union, 130,
131
International Trade Union (ITO),
138
International Transport Workers Fed-
eration, 108
Interpretation system, UN, 44-47, 154-
155
Iran, 11
Iraq, 128
Israel, 15-18, 111, 129, 130
Italy, 84, 88, 135
Izvestia, 61
Java, 93
Jeannel, 15
Jerusalem, 15, 16
Joint Staff Pension Fund, UN, 58-59
Joint Support Committee, ICAO, 136
Jordan, 113
Juhl, Finn, 34
Konar River, India, 119
Korea, 1-6, 18
Korean war, 1, 5-6
KowarsM, Dora, 68, 69
Kwong, Victor, 66
234
INDEX
Labarriere, 15
Labor, UN activities for, 105-15
La Guardia, Fiorello, 46
Lake Success, 16, 45
Land reform, 114
Language difficulties, 30, 41, 45-47,
66, 83, 129-30
Laubach, Frank Q, 99-101, 139
Layman's Movement for a Christian
World, 33
League of Nations, 22, 29, 31, 61, 105-
110, 141
Lebanon, 12
Lecture service, UN, 56
Legal Department, UN, 40
Lewis, Dorothy, 144, 145
Library, UN, 49, 60-62
Lie, Trygve, 20, 60
Life magazine, 104
Lloyd George, David, 105, 141
London, England, 106
London Times, 61
Los Angeles, California, 97
Louisiana Purchase, 147
Loyalty investigations, 59
Loyalty oath, 59-60
Lyons, France, 123
MacArthur, Douglas A., 5
Mail, UN activities about, 122-26
Mail service, UN, 48-49
Malaria control, 73, 76, 92, 93
Markelius, Sven, 34
Marshall Plan, 118
Medical clinic, UN, 69
Meditation Room, General Assembly
Building, 33
Meetings, mechanics, 152-54
Membership, UN, 162-63, 227
Meteorology, UN activities, 126-30
Mexico, 90, 102-04, 113
Mimeographing plant, UN, 41-43
Mindanao, P.I., 100-01
Mindszenty, Cardinal, 14
Money, UN activities about, 115-22
Moros, 100-01
Morse, David A., 108
Morse, Samuel, 130
Mozambique, 86
Mussolini, Benito, 11
Near East, 85
Netherlands, 13
News features service, UN, 55
New York City Housing Authority, 60
New York Public Library, 61
New York Times, 53, 61
Non-Governmental Organizations
(NGO's), 141-45
Non-Self-Governing Territories
(NSG), 23, 39-40, 188-89
Oberwager, Jerome, 103
Organization, UN, 44-45, 157-58
Organization of American States, 102
Outings, UN, 67-68
Pakistan, 113
Palestine, 15-16, 18
Panama, 74, 108
Pan American Airways, 134
Pan American Convention (1929),
134
Papanek, Jan, 13
Paris, France, 104, 123
Paris Air Convention, 134
Paris Peace Conference, 134
Patzcuaro Lake, Mexico, 90, 102-04,
113
People's Republic of China, 9
Personnel, UN, 57
Peru, 111
Phelan, E. J., 107-08
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 31
Philippine Islands, 78, 94, 100-01, 148
Playground, UN, 50
Point Four Program, U.S., Ill
Poland, 11
Political and Security Council Affairs
Department, UN, 40
Pony Express, 122
Population, world, 80, 102
Postage stamps, 65, 126
Post Office, UN, 33, 65
Potsdam conference, 11
President of the General Assembly, 60
Press services, UN, 55
Printing establishment, UN, 35, 40-44
Protocol and Liaison Section, 60
Publications, UN, 62-63
INDEX
235
Public Information Department
(DPI), 36, 38, 53-56, 63, 144
Pulp industry, 88-89
Quera, 15
Questions and answers, UN, 151-68
Radio, UN activities for, 130-33
Radio City, New York, 33
Radio coverage, UN, 54
Reedman, John, 17
Reforestation, FAO, 87-89
Relief and Works Agency, UN, 113
Reporters, accredited, 54
Rhee, Syngman, 2, 4, 7
Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 29, 31
Rome, Italy, 84, 88
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 99, 141
Rotterdam, 75
Rumania, 14
Russia, see Soviet Russia
Russo-Japanese War, 3
Salaries, UN, 58
San Francisco conference, 8, 11, 31,
141
Santiago, Chile, 85-86
Scarsdale, New York, 67
Schuster, W. H., 86-87
Secretariat, UN, 37-38, 160-61, 194-95
Secretariat Building, 29, 31, 35-40,
51, 52, 61, 69
Secretariat News, 68
Secretary-General, 37, 59, 60, 65, 69,
143
Security Council (SC), 8, 11, 34,
151, 158, 176-78
Seed Fund, FAO, 84-85
Sender, Tony, 142
Short-wave radio, 132
Singapore, 74
SHdmore, Pennsylvania, 67
Social Affairs Department, UN, 39
Somaliland, 18
Soviet Russia, 114, 124, 127, 132, 148
Spain, 11-12, 135
Sparkinan, Senator, 142
Speaker service, UN, 56
Specialized Agencies, UN, 72-140,
148
Spraying and dusting campaign, 90
Staff Council, UN, 69
Staff Counselor, 68-69
Stalin, Joseph, 148
Stamps, UN, 65
State Department, U.S., 141
Stoddard, Alexander, 97
Structure, UN, 157-58
Sudan, 78
Syphilis control, 74-76, 92-93
Syria, 12, 128
Table of Organization, UN, 44-45
Technical Assistance Administration
(TAA), 39, 74, 81, 84, 99, 113,
133, 138, 148
Telecommunication, UN activities for,
130-33
Telegraphy, 130
Telephone service, UN, 48
Teletype service, UN, 55
Television coverage, UN, 54-55
Temporary Committee on Korea, 4
Tent caterpillars, 89-90
Terminology, 44
Thailand, 78, 85, 87
Thomas, Albert, 105, 107, 141
Thunderstorm frequency, 129
Tilapia, 86-87
Tito, Marshal, 109-11
Translation, 43-47
Trieste, Italy, 8
Truce Commission, UN, 16
Truman, Harry S* 5
Trusteeship and Information from
Non-Self-Governing Territories De-
partment, 23, 39-40, 66, 188-89
Trusteeship Council, 22-23, 34, 159,
192-94
Trusteeship system, 189-92
Trust Territories, 22
Tuberculosis campaign, 77
Turkey, 104
Twain, Mark, 126
Unification and Rehabilitation Com-
mission, UN, 7
Union Congregational Church, Upper
Montclair, N.J., 100
"United Action for Peace" plan, 9-10
236
INDEX
United Nations, New York, 28, 65
United Nations Bulletin, 55-56
United Nations Reporter* 56
United States Post Office Department,
65
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, 217-23
Universal Postal Convention, 104
Universal Postal Union (UPU), 72,
106, 122-26, 145
University of Chile, 86
Vacations, UN, 58
Vaccination program, 74, 76-77, 92
Vandenbosch, Amry, 11
Venereal disease campaign, 74-76, 92-
93
Veto power, 8-9, 19-22
Vishinsky, Andrei, 46-47, 72
Visitors, attendance by, 151-52
Visits to American homes, 66-67
Volunteer Services, UN, 66-69
Voting, 161-62, 175
Warner, Edward, 136
Washington, D.C., 84
Wasson, Thomas, 15
Waugh, Evelyn, 111
Weather, UN activities about, 126-30
Weekly Summary, 55
What Is Race? 104
White, Lyman, 145
Wilson, Woodrow, 107, 147
Window cleaning, 51
Witherings, Thomas, 123
Woll, Matthew, 142
Woodrow Wilson Memorial Library,
61
World Health Organization (WHO),
24, 72-80, 81, 92, 93, 95, 102, 114,
138, 144-45
World Meteorological Organization
(WMO), 72, 126-30, 138
World War II, 8, 57, 75, 76, 88, 92,
127, 134
Yalden-Thomson, William, 109
Yearbook of United Nations, 56
You Chan Yang, 7
Young Men's Christian Association,
142
Your United Nations, 62
Yugoslavia, 90, 109-11
,'om front flap)
the b;, , "he various services
it of" i specific instances
what dp workers from
sixty "eel at home in
Arne.
The . : alphabetic
hieroglyphic die UN's
long list of sp 'cs. In a
series of dramatic iu* , stories,
it describes what groups ^SCO,
the World Health Organization, the In-
ternational Children's Emergency Fund,
and the Food and Agricultural Organiza-
tion are doing to fight disease, improve
crops, train workers and reduce illiteracy
in backward areas all over the world. It
tells what other agencies are doing in the
field of international finance, in labor,
and what has been accomplished in terms
of communication and transportation
toward bringing the people of the world
closer together.
The book also deals with a little-known
aspect of the UN. It explains how Non-
Governmental Organizations, such as the
YMCA and the Chamber of Commerce,
help the private citizen to share in the
United Nations program.
Mrs. Roosevelt's foreword deals espe-
cially with the work of the UN in the
field of Human Rights an area in which
she herself has played a leading part.
The book includes a Question and
Answer Supplement which covers a wide
range of subjects, from the complicated
problem of voting procedure to the lan-
guage requirements for a UN interpreter.
Reprinted in full are the UN Charter, the
Declaration of Human Rights, the Or-
ganization Chart of the UN, a list of its
members, and a glossary of abbreviated
titles which will provide readers with a
helpful source for ready reference.
No. 0801
1 34 263
I
