THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED NATIONS WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1975 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room 4221, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John Sparkman [chairman] presiding. Present: Senators Sparkman, Humphrey, Clark, Case, Javits, Percy, and Baker. Also present: Senator Buckley. The CHAIRMAN. Let the committee come to order, please. Nine Senators have indicated they will be here. I suppose they will be coming in. I think we had better get started. We today are continuing the hearings on the United States and the United Nations by discussing the impact of the détente and the impact of the Third World on the United Nations. For the first topic the committee has invited Mr. William F. Buckley, Jr., who is not only a writer and editor-in-chief of the National Review but also a former U.S. delegate to the United Nations and Prof. Alexander Dallin of Stanford University, a distinguished authority on the Soviet Union, including author of a book on the Soviet Union at the United Nations. We welcome you, gentlemen here and I invite you to take a seat at the table and we will begin with Mr. Buckley. I understand you composed your statement on a flight from Israel and Greece yesterday and copies are now being made and should be available to the committee shortly; is that correct? STATEMENT OF WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR., EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE NATIONAL REVIEW Mr. BUCKLEY. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. We would be very glad to hear from you. The CHAIRMAN. I may say, I ask you the question rather facetiously, if we were going to hear some firing line material this morning. Mr. BUCKLEY. That depends on whether you provoke me, Mr. Chairman. tee Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, a communication from your commit The CHAIRMAN. May I interrupt. I believe you refer every once in a while to your sainted brother. Mr. BUCKLEY. Sainted junior Senator. He is here in case things get out of hand. A communication from your committee, signed by the chairman, advises me in language most civil, but tilting rather toward sternness than permissiveness, that I am to address you for 10 minutes in a prepared statement. Last night I gave some thought as to how I might best serve your purposes under these circumstances. Needless to say, I should be happy to answer any questions you subsequently put to me. But to compress an analysis of the impact of détente on the policy of the United States in the United Nations is taxing, and requires a most stringent economy of language. I have decided therefore to give you a pastiche. In order to introduce it I need very little commentary. In order to give you the connective tissue that brings the narrative together, I require only a sentence or two. WITNESS' EXPERIENCE ON U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE Accordingly, I begin. The preliminary data are that in 1973 I was appointed a public member of the U.S. Delegation to the 28th General Assembly during that summer in which, it is recorded, President Nixon made other, perhaps even graver, mistakes. I was induced to accept this appointment by being advised that I would represent the United States in the so-called Third Committeethe Human Rights Committee. I move without further ado in medias res. There I am, at my first Third Committee meeting. I go back to my office and address a memorandum to the U.S. Ambassador, copy to the Secretary of State. I excerpt from that memorandum. The policy of détente with the Soviet Union and with China governs the activity of the State Department, and the State Department obviously will move in ways consistent with that policy. United States participation in the United Nations is in part a direct expression of United States foreign policy, in part it is an expression of the United States' contribution to strategic ideals of peace, justice, and freedom. It is not, in my opinion, inconsistent for the United States to express itself cordially to the representatives of the Soviet Union in Washington and in Moscow-while at the same time representatives of the United States, in public debates on strategic questions having to do with human rights, maintain a dogged position seeking to reaffirm the ideals of the United Nations. The purpose of the extra political agencies of the U.N. is ultimately diplomatic. When the Committee talks about the necessity for freedom of information, it votes for improved communications, which in turn should lead to the encouragement of democratic and libertarian impulse. When the Committee talks about the right of emigration, or the right to practice one's religion, it argues for preassures upon totalitarian entities which lure them towards the open society which is the most reliable friend of stability and equilibrium. The genius of the committee system, and of the public member conception, lies surely in the effort slightly to distinguish between the direct agents of the State Department and the slightly detached agents that constitute the delegation. Accordingly, unless I am instructed to do otherwise, I plan, as the U.S. member in the Committee on Human Rights, to feel free to discuss human rights even if the inference can be drawn from what I say that I also believe in human rights within the Soviet Union. I concluded the memorandum with vows to a most tactful performance of my duties as I saw them, and was advised most tactfully the next day by the U.S. Ambassador, for whom I have the highest respect, that any such approach would in fact stand in the way of the tactical demands of détente. EFFECT OF DÉTENTE ON HUMAN RIGHTS DISCUSSION A second act-I choose arbitrarily from a number that would serve. I am, as public delegate, instructed to deliver a short speech on how the United Nations might appropriately celebrate the 25th anniversary of the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I wrote, attempting to conform to the State Department cabled instructions, a few paragraphs, the relevant ones of which I quote: Mr. Chairman, on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, what is there to say this side of the cant which I hope to spare you? I plead inexperience in the art of saying nothing with much wind, and surely if we find, on meditating the thirty Articles in the Declaration, that there ought to be thirty-one, we should consider recommending an Article that declares that all men were born free of the weight of political rhetoric, but everywhere, man is, in respect of this freedom in chains. My government desires to make one or two observations, some of them concrete, some ceremonial. The Human Rights document is the best-known and therefore the preeminent catalogue of human rights in the world today. The Declaration has been useful to several countries that have sought to devise bills of rights of their own. By consulting the UN Declaration of Human Rights, they can at least count those rights they have left out. My government desires to call attention, on the 25th Anniversary of the Declaration, to a few of the enumerated rights which are conspicuously transgressed upon [I proceeded to enumerate these, as suggested in the telegram from the State Department. And I concluded:] Now, Mr. President, the world is divided not between those who say they do not believe in torture and those who say that they do believe in torture. Rather it is divided between those who practice torture and those who do not practice torture. Indeed, the world is divided not between those who say they believe in human rights and those who say they do not believe in human rights, but between those who grant human beings human rights and those who do not grant human beings human rights. . . So that this organization is committed, for instance, to the proposition that there is a right to leave one's country. And yet we have not heard more profuse compliments paid to the Declaration of Human Rights than by some who maintain huge fortifications calculated to prevent precisely the exercise of that right. The United Nations was not designated as a military juggernaut at the service of the Human Rights Committee to ensure that signatories practice those rights they praise. But, Mr. President, surely it would mark the solemnity of the occasion if, on the 25th Anniversary of the Declaration next December 10th, those nations that systematically deny the human rights associated with the United Nations Declarations should gracefully absent themselves from this chamber for one day? I was advised, most gracefully and warmly, that my short analysis, whatever its great philosophical merits to the contrary notwithstanding, were inconsistent with détente and, accordingly, pleading the urgency of business elsewhere, I arranged for an aide to read a speech recalling in copious detail the exhalted oratory that had celebrated the promulgation of the United Nations Declaration 25 years ago. UNITED NATIONS FANTASY Mr. Chairman, the time having elapsed, I close with a paragraph, a fantasy from a journal I wrote. At the end of that I am at your disposal to draw out the implications of this statement. I wrote: Wednesday. While sitting at the chair of the plenary, attending to a few administrative details in the session following the day of the formal closing, a bulletin came in, and the place was in pandemonium. It appears that the military attached to the U.N. to give technical advice on world disarmament have staged a successful coup and have taken over the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the Secretariat. In due course the U.N. colonels will issue their instructions, but already it is disclosed that the Soviet Union will not be permitted to talk about disarming, without disarming; the Chinese may not speak about human rights without granting human rights; the Arabs will not be permitted to speak about the plight of the Less Developed Countries without forswearing the cartelization of their oil; the Africans may not talk about racism until after subduing the leaders of Uganda, the Central African Republic, and Burundi, for a starter; and just to prove that the colonels are not above a bill of attainer, Jamil Baroody may not speak at all, on any subject, for ninety days after which he will be put on probation and permitted to increase the length of his speeches by one minute per month, until he reaches the maximum of ten minutes, except that at the first mention of Zionist responsibility for World War I, he has to start all over again. The countries of East Europe must wear red uniforms when they appear on the floor and before rising to speak, must seek explicit and public permission from the delegate of the Soviet Union. A scientific tabulation will be made, under the colonels' supervision, of the compliance of individual countries with the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and each country's delegate will be required to wear on his lapel his national's ranking on that scale, which will range from 100 to 0. Any country with a ranking of less than 75 will not be permitted to speak on the subject of human rights. Mr. Chairman, please forgive the unorthodox testimony. I hope you will see the purpose in my electing to address you in this form. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. All right, Mr. Dallin, we will be very glad to hear from you. [Biographical sketch of Alexander Dallin follows:] BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF ALEXANDER DALLIN Professor of History and Political Science, Stanford University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Born May 21, 1924; married, three children; Ph. D., Columbia University, 1953. Research Associate, Russian Research Center, Harvard University, 1950-51; Associate Director, Research Program on the USSR, 1951-54; Director of Research, War Documentation Project, Alexandria, Va., 1954-55; Faculty member, Columbia University: Assistant Professor, 1956-58; Associate Professor, 1958-61; Professor, 1961-65; Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Relations, 196571; Director, Russian Institute, 1962-67; Acting Director, Research Institute on Communist Affairs, 1966–68; Visiting Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, 1970; Professor of History and Political Science, Stanford University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, 1971-. Publications include: German Rule in Russia, 1941-45 (1957); ed., Soviet Conduct in World Affairs (1960); The Soviet Union at the United Nations (1962); ed., Diversity in International Communism (1963); The Soviet Union and Disarmament (1965); ed. (with Alan F. Westin), Politics in the Soviet Union (1966); co-ed. (with Thomas B. Larson), Soviet Politics Since Khrushchev (1968); (with George Breslauer) Political Terror in Communist Systems (1970); and approximately 50 articles, chapters, and monographs. Home address: 607 Cabrillo Avenue, Stanford, California 94305. Telephone: (415) 328-4885; office: (415) 497-4514. STATEMENT OF ALEXANDER DALLIN, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT AND HISTORY, STANFORD UNIVERSITY Mr. DALLIN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation to appear before your committee. Mr. Buckley's is a hard act to follow. I have submitted a more comprehensive statement and will as instructed limit myself to 10 minutes orally. The CHAIRMAN. Your entire statement will be printed in the record. Mr. DALLIN. Thank you, sir. [Mr. Dallin's prepared statement follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF ALEXANDER DALLIN, STANFORD UNIVERSITY THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE SOVIET-AMERICAN RELATIONSHIP The change in Soviet-American relations which is suggested by the term, détente, did not come about thanks to the United Nations. Nor has it fundamentally affected the functioning of the UN. It is, however, one among several trends which have produced a new situation and new attitudes at the United Nations. The following statement attempts to sketch the evolution of, first, United States, and second, Soviet attitudes and policies toward the UN; and then to identify some elements of symmetry and some major divergencies in the two powers' approach to the United Nations. THE U.S. AND THE UN American attitudes toward the UN have drifted from elation to frustration. The initial expectation that the United Nations would be an essential instrument for the maintenance of peace, seemed to be reinforced by the comfortable sense, during the early years, that the United States had the support of the majority of member states. Though even then the U.S. chose not to go through the UN with significant political initiatives (such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan), in its first decade the UN was a welcome instrument-first and foremost, in the pursuit of the "cold war." UN action in the Korean War was but the most dramatic example of this function. It also marked the end of an era in which the U.S. had a clearcut preponderance among the members of the General Assembly, the sympathy of the Secretary-General, and a majority of Security Council members-stymied only from time to time by the use, or the prospect of the use, of the veto by the Soviet Union. From the mid-fifties on, American attitudes were affected by important changes on the world scene. Many of these-such as decolonization, development, and disarmament-were issues that found reflection at the UN. The balance of votes gradually became more uncertain, as new states were admitted to membership in considerable numbers, and some of the erstwhile followers of the American lead began to assert a more independent foreign policy. American disillusionment was due perhaps, most of all, to the failure of the UN to play a part it had never been intended to perform. Its effectiveness as a collective security and peacekeeping organ was always predicated on agreement among the Permanent Members of the Security Council. It was not intended as an instrument that either superpower could wield against the other. It had no effective force of its own, and only modest authority. As crisis after crisis arose, the UN proved unable to articulate-let alone enforce its collective will; it was not centrally involved in the resolution of these crises; it served at times as a convenient forum, an intermediary, or a scapegoat for the protagonists. Thus, no meaningful action ensued from the UN debates on Soviet intervention in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968). Similarly, American intervention in Cuba (the Bay of Pigs incident) and the Dominican Republic led to no UN action. In the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the United Nations had only a marginal role. In the Middle East, it was unable to secure implementation of its Resolution of November 22, 1967. In the Indochina fighting, the role of the United Nations was nil. On the other hand, the major accomplishments of recent years in reducing International tensions, resolving great-power conflicts, and reaching agreements to limit the arms race and reduce the risks of war, have been achieved almost entirely outside the framework of the UN. The easing of the troublesome German problem (including the Soviet and Polish treaties with the FRG, and the Berlin accords) was the result of bilateral contacts. Similarly, the shift in United States policy toward the People's Republic of China came about without reference to the UN; the U.S. effort to seat the Republic of China, Taiwan) as a second Chinese delegation failed (1971). The setback sustained by the United States in this connection illustrates the general weakening of American influence at the United Nations. Since 1970 the U.S. has occasionally chosen to use its veto power. The still unfamiliar role of 54-738-75-9 |