Senator JAVITS. And I did not find it a bit unreceptive; everybody had their say, made their declaration. Interestingly enough it seems generally agreed that no company and no investor is going to go in or stay out of a country because of its expropriation prospects, because if they think they are going to be expropriated, as you have said, they are not going to go in at all. So, it is strictly academic.

DEALING POSITIVELY WITH ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

One last thing, and that is the negative side. We need a positive side, too, do you not agree, in terms of what we are prepared to do in the world to close the gap, which is widening instead of closing, between the developing and developed, and how to deal with the fourth world problems of those who have no resources, no bauxite, no copper, no manganese, no oil-about 40 nations, with a billion people-and also to deal with the threat to world commerce of an engrossment of particular commodities on the OPEC model, a threat thereafter, of shattering the world's economy, enormously increased over what it already is because of the OPEC trust operation.

Would you not, one, agree that that is your major problem of the affirmative side, and two, any other thought you wish to express realizing, as Senator Case has so properly said, that you are the servant essentially of the President and that you should not in any way prejudice your opportunity to serve him faithfully.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Thank you for saying that, Senator. If I were to ask what the most pressing problems the U.N. faces I would always end up with nuclear proliferation. I start out with nuclear proliferation. I think it is such a great problem we perhaps do not want to think about. Yet it is there and the International Atomic Energy Agency is important to the Security Council as far as I am concerned. But on this other matter, which is certainly the matter we will be talking about most, could I cite a comment which Ambassador Scali made to the committee in the hearings on the U.N. when he said that it is possible to mistake what is said at the United Nations for what is caused by the United Nations. United Nations did not cause those things to be said. It is a forum in which they are said. So why get mad at the U.N.? People go there and say things they think and come to conclusions they have reached elsewhere. We easily overlook things the U.N. has done.

NO COMPROMISE ON FACTS

One of the great problems we have in reaching international agreement is that while people can compromise on principles, it is very hard to compromise on facts. I mean you can give a little on what you think is right and I can give a little on what I think is right. But the question is whether it is the 10:30 in the morning or 4 o'clock in the afternoon; if we do not agree on that, we have nowhere to go.

Now, a year ago the head of UNCTAD appointed a committee of economists headed by a colleague of mine, Henry Houthakker of the Department of Economics at Harvard. It had representatives from Britain, from Nigeria, from Jamaica, from Algeria, from many such countries. Such list of people, economists, sat down to take on this issue of the deterioration of the terms of trade as between manu

factured and primary products in the world, a fundamental issue on which so much of the argument such as this charter of rights and duties is based, the argument that the terms of trade are working against the primary producers, that there has been a long run deterioration, that as a consequence the poor get poorer and so forth and so on.

That report is not yet made official and whether in that present form it will be made official I do not know. But the findings have been published in England, and published in the United States. What did these economists find? There was no such deterioration-and they exclude oil from their consideration as a special case. That is where there is obviously not a market system. With the other commodities they went down the list. Do the prices of primary products deteriorate in the postwar era? Has there been such a trend? And the answer was a unanimous no. The facts do not suggest it. If you put oil into it there has indeed been a trend but it has been the opposite direction.

Well, sir, I would say that that is a very important finding and in that context it seems to me that the case for extending commodity agreements and rigidifying endlessly is not so strong as it may have been thought to be. Which is not to say we should not talk about it. It certainly is not to say that the short-term fluctuations in commodities are not great. I am not an economist. I do not understand the fluctuations. How can copper be at 100 in July and 50 in August and 140 in September. I mean there are problems here and clearly they cannot help the longrun increase of production. And I think we should talk about that kind of thing.

In some of these commodities I think probably there is too much speculation because there is not a big enough market. Prices do fluctuate, erratically. In the main my point would be that now that we have learned some facts that we did not necessarily know, we can now agree on, I think this will change the climate in which this issue is discussed. You would agree; where do we learn those facts? We learned them in the U.N. setting.

RESIGNATION IN CASE OF BASIC DISAGREEMENT

Senator JAVITS. Mr. Moynihan, just one other question, if I may, which is almost like asking you to swear allegiance to the Constitution, which you would do in due course, and that is the question I always like to ask of a high official.

Do you feel morally secure in your own heart that if you find yourself in basic disagreement with the President on a major question, you would feel you would rather resign rather than carry out an order which you did not believe?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I have no problem with that, sir, in the terms that you have stated. I agree. I have served three Presidents, four really, because I served President Ford. But I do not have to say to you that I wish those questions came in as clear cut a form. But they did not.

Senator JAVITS. Thank you very much.

Senator CLARK. Senator Baker.

Senator BAKER. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I have great admiration for this nominee. I fully intend to support his nomination, and I will not prolong the hearings with questions at this time. Mr. MOYNIHAN. Thank you.

Senator CLARK. Thank you very much.

DESIRE FOR THE POSITION

Mr. Moynihan, I have a few questions. The first question, the most basic one is, Why do you want the job?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am not sure I want the job, Senator. I will be very proud to accept the job, the President having nominated me, if the Senate confirms me.

Senator CLARK. You are not sure whether you want the job?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Did you have to ask that question?

POSITIVE PROGRAM FOR THE FUTURE

Senator CLARK. Well, let me try to be more specific. Many of the witnesses that came before this committee in recent weeks, when we had a series of hearings on the United Nations, talked about why the United States had to play a more positive role in the United Nationsthat we should have a positive program that we put forward in the United Nations, kind of innovative proposals on commodity pricing, South Africa, and other key issues.

Do you agree that the United States should come forward with such positive proposals in the next General Assembly session?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I absolutely agree. I mean this is a place to be used, this is a place where things of the utmost importance take place.

I do not want to make a speech about the International Atomic Energy Agency but that is a very important place. The Inspector General of the IAEA is probably the most important international civil servant the world has known. That is the man you depend on and I depend on and our grandchildren depend on, that man is seeing that plutonium is not slipped away from the atomic energy plants the world over. In the far reaches of the world that man's job is to see that inspection works, I absolutely agree. I think that is a question reasonably men can disagree on, about what is positive, what is helpful, and what is not helpful. But in terms of, ought this country stay in there and make our case and propose our alternatives when we have not got a majority, we think the majority is not right, my view is yes. We do. We do not walk away from the place. We do not settle for damage limitation, which is what you can do if you get sort of depressed about it. My view is just the opposite, that you make use of this institution. It is indispensable.

A colleague of mine once described the United Nations as the only institution that became indispensable before it became possible. But all right, we will find out. Certainly you do not want to walk away and do not hunker down. You play a part.

54-738-75-24

POSITIVE POSITION ON ECONOMIC ISSUES

Senator CLARK. I do not expect you to say things about the President's position, our Government's position in the next session. But, as I recall, the three issues that the U.N. is going to have to face most directly are the whole question of the new economic order, the question of South Africa, particularly mandatory sanctions, and the question of Israel.

Now, as you look at those three problem areas, what kind of positive proposals, what possible proposals might we put forth at the U.N.? What do you see as some of our alternatives?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Well, in the first area I think the Secretary's speech at the OECD was a first rate speech. It was full of specifics and that is an agenda right there. As I am sure you know we have a special session of the Assembly coming up the first of September that is very much going to be involved with this. Just what setting, what is to be the setting in which you proceed on commodity suggestions and so forth is optional. It does not have to be the U.Ñ. But the U.N. is as good a place as any.

You do know, sir, that there is now a report to the Secretary General of a committee established by him-the rapporteur was Richard Gardner of Columbia Law School-on a complete restructuring of the United Nations in its economic activities. My personal impression is it is a good report. A very responsible middle ranking sort of a person in the State Department, where I called him, to ask what do you think about this report said: "We think it is a pretty good report." But he said, "We do not want to say so because if people got the idea we thought it was a good report they might be against it." That is silly when you get to where people, knowing where is the United States, will be on the other side. That is no way to help out. But I fear there is a lot of truth in his remarks.

Can I say to you that there has been too much of a tendency to take interesting subjects out of the General Assembly, if it is interesting, if it is attractive, take it to another place, get a whole new set of political actors, who are not going to meet each other to talk about something else the next day. You almost ask for extreme positions when you take environment to Stockholm and population to Bucharest and food to Rome and the delegates are not the same people who the next day are going to be talking about something else together, and the way you gentlemen do in the Senate. You know you are going to have to see each other the next day so you act today with some in that moderation.

I think that this general idea is a good one.

On the second point you raised, I think beside saying I thought Ambassador Scali's statement yesterday was a wise one, I think I had better stay and wait to be instructed.

SITUATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

I hope I may be permitted to say that I have been reading a report that Mr. Barton of the staff has made on a trip to the southern part of Africa. I am only about a third of the way through it, but I was very impressed with the things he had to say, and it seems to me that as we think of some of the horrors of that part of the world, we ought

not to exclude some of the progress. I mean some of the things that Barton is being told by people down there about, as for example will we have majority rule this year, or must we wait 3 years?

Well, I can only read that as progress in terms of 10-years ago, when it was majority rule never. As a matter of fact, one can compromise between today and 3 years from today. That is not impossible for people. That is within the human capacity.

It may be things there are moving in a better direction than we think.

Senator CLARK. But it seems to me that you are saying that our positive proposal on South Africa ought to be to look at how much progress we have made in the past rather than talking about sanctions for the future.

What are the positive proposals we can make to the United Nations in regard to South Africa?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I say I should like not to speak to what we should do because I will be instructed. But it seems to me you can propose measures in a much more hopeful and much more positive posture if you accept, you know, that things are happening, that that deadlock, that intransigent absolute total unyielding position of 10 years ago is no more. That is the kind of progress you look for in the world. You welcome it, and I think you welcome it as a measure of the influence the United Nations has had. There is scarcely a more abominable social condition than apartheid. It is horrible, it is shameful, it is wrong. And yet, obviously, the people who impose it do not necessarily think that, and if they do not know that other people do, they are not much likely to change. Obviously exposure to the world view on this has had an effect.

Senator CLARK. I think you are quite right about that. To frame the question in a broader perspective, I am thinking of a way in which the United States could take a positive position on these issues that would find some acceptance by the majority. It seems to me that the issue before us right now is Namibia-whether or not the U.N. is going to take a stronger position and what the United States is going to do in relationship to that.

If we rule out mandatory sanctions-which may be wise, I am not sure if all we are prepared to do is talk about how much we have done in the past, then it seems to me we will again be on the tail end.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. It seems to me that is not enough and I agree, sir. Senator CLARK. Good.

EFFECT OF POSITION ADVOCATED IN COMMENTARY ARTICLE

Let us talk about the Commentary article which several Members have mentioned. If we are going to make constructive proposals on commodity issues, if we are going to take a positive position with regard to South Africa, if we are going to try to take a leadership role in the General Assembly, wouldn't taking a position similar to what you have outlined in the Commentary article really make such efforts more difficult?

Let me state it another way, Mr. Moynihan.

Doesn't a position of confrontation, which it seems to me you have outlined in that article, in effect make it more difficult for us to take a leadership role with the nonalined majority?