One other thing, obviously it need not be action directly by us. I cannot imagine national parties directly involved in the Middle East where you have just been, Senator, where the U.N. Resolutions 242, 338, are so important and I think are seen by Arab countries as being to their advantage wanting this. They want what those provisions, those resolutions carried out.

What possible advantage to those nations could there be to expel Israel? I do not know what would follow legally from expulsion, but would Irsael feel bound by a U.N. security resolution if it be thrown out of the United Nations? Probably not.

It is not in the interest of anybody who wants peace in the Middle East, and I think that if these nations would start saying so to some other nations, it would help. I think it is time for them to say, "Don't do that," "Don't do it, leave us here where we are working in the U.N. context, leave it be," and not have other peoples be more Arab than the Arabs.

That is my view, Senator, it is no more than that, and it is, of course, a personal view.

CHARTER OF ECONOMIC RIGHTS AND DUTIES

Senator PERCY. Throughout the morning session I understand you stressed the need to relate to nonalined nations in terms of specific projects and proposals. You felt that on specifics we could reach mutually satisfactory agreements, whereas we can only expect disagreement on statement of principle.

The Charter of Economic Rights and Duties was the other way around. We agreed completely on principle, but when we got to the specifics we found that we differed strikingly.

Is is possible that the view you expressed this morning does not really mesh too well with the much discussed view in Commentary magazine that we should be more open about our disagreement in principle. I wonder if that might not possibly jeopardize our chances for achieving accommodation on specifics then?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I would agree with what you have just said. I read with great interest your report on your meeting at the 29th Assembly, which was a beautiful document. I wish we could get them in town to write that much that shortly, and your description of how you went through the articles one by one and it was the case that in the largest degree we shared that charter's principles.

There were those specific principles, if you will, which we couldn't go along with. And so in the end, where there was 80- to 90-percent agreement the industrial world and the new nations on matters of general importance, you end up with the vote of 132 to 6, something like that, as if there were no agreement at all.

Well, the charter is behind us. Secretary Kissinger said in Paris; new economic order, old economic order, what does it matter, let's talk commodity prices. I think that is now the wisdom of the case, sir. It is the question of commodity prices, and what to do about the nations devastated by the oil price increase, what to do with the billion dollar fund which oil producers said they would contribute for agricultural development, how do you get on with what was agreed to at the Rome Food Conference. That is the agenda ahead of us, not charters.

POSSIBLE SUSPENSION OF ISRAEL

Could I just go back to another point on this one thing?

Senator PERCY. Yes.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I really meant to say, and I didn't say this morning, I have talked to a number of U.N. Ambassadors from major countries who are on the Bureau of Nonalined. It just happened, I was not seeking them out. One came to Harvard, for example, and talked to us at lunch. I asked, they were asked about this Israeli situation. It would surprise you and not entirely encourage you to know the degree to which they say nothing like that is going to happen, don't worry about it, you know. It is coming right down the line at them and because they would not want to be disagreeable and say something unpleasant and give you bad news, they say "Don't worry. Well, of course, they are not going to worry because they have their jobs anyway, but obviously it would be a terrible thing and it might indeed happen, and this, of course, is the whole question, I think, with respect to things like the charter as well. The U.N. is the place at which decisions can be made, of certain kinds, but they are always actually made in capitals and we should not, cannot do an effective job at the U.N. if we think about it 3 months a year, it is a year-around job.

LESSONS OF MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS

Senator PERCY. I understand that this morning you did talk about the multinationals. I serve on the Multinational Subcommittee and obviously we don't spend our time in the subcommittee looking at the good things. The subcommittee points out the ills, the problems of ITT and Chile, the problems of Gulf Oil, now the problems of Northrup in the Gulf States, and so we go.

The process that we have here is one that tries to look always at what is wrong and correct it.

Do you feel as a future Ambassador to the U.N. that you can somehow get across the story that multinationals are a means of carrying technology and scientific knowhow into developing countries? When they get public funds from the development banks, very seldom do they get the kind of technology and knowhow that flows from the MNC's. How do we get the story across that without our multinationals, which are perhaps the most efficiently organized way of doing business that has ever been developed, that we would not have the balance-of-payments surplus which finances our defense, our foreign aid program and our raw material purchases.

Is the U.N. a forum where this story can be put across? For centuries from the days of the old charter trading corporations in the 18th century, there has always been some one criticizing business organizations. There are excesses that must be dealt with, but somehow we have to get across also that we have to live with the best business organization we can develop and try to stamp out the abuses. Business has evolved over a period of centuries to its present stage and has helped to bring about a new set of forces we have favored: decolonialization, stabilization of international currencies and freer trade.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Well, sir, if there is any subject that interests me, is how do you create, how do you get a dictionary whereby you can translate the language of economic liberalism in such ways that

54-738 O-75-25

Senator BIDEN. One last question, and I am not trying to be facetious, I do not know why Egypt would want that, and I do not know why you would want the job. Would you tell me why you want the job, seriously? I am really curious.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Senator, that is the way we started out this hearing, before you came in.

Senator BIDEN. Then I will read the record, no need to repeat it. Mr. MOYNIHAN. That is very kind of you.

Senator CLARK. He avoided my question, too.

You have done a good job and we are very appreciative of your coming before this committee this morning.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Whereupon the committee proceeded to the consideration of other business.]

AFTERNOON SESSION

Present: Senator Percy (presiding).

Senator PERCY. The hearing will come to order.

Ambassador Moynihan, I would like to express to both you and Ambassador Toon my regret for this scheduling today. There was no way I could reschedule the speech I was giving this morning to the Council of the Americas at the State Department.

I appreciate very much your coming back this afternoon and I would like to make it clear that my purpose is not to question your qualifications or Ambassador Toon's. But these hearings on confirmation provide an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas, and I will ask you to express your own personal views. I know that you have never hesitated to do that in the past and it is always refreshing and helpful.

Because I was not here I did have a staff member here this morning. I would like to mention a few of the notes that staff member made. I believe you did discuss nuclear proliferation as a top priority concern, with which I thoroughly agree. We have been holding hearings on the meetings that are going on in Geneva right now. I have sent staff members there to observe those meetings. We have had private consultation and public hearings with Dr. Ikle, and a number of meetings, because of our great concern about countries competing against each other to provide nuclear knowhow and technology.

EFFECT OF THREATENING TO SUSPEND OURSELVES VOLUNTARILY

On another matter, you commented, I believe, on Dr. Goldberg's proposal that the United States announce now that if Israel were suspended from the General Assembly we would take certain actions.

I wonder if you could expand on whether you feel that such a clearcut policy by us, enunciated ahead of time, would possibly cause a reevaluation of such a movement, or would just challenge the majority to take us on on this particular issue, and then what kind of a position would it put us in?

every

I would consider such a movement abhorrent and I would do thing I could to see that we used our influence, to deter such an action, which I think would be catastrophic for the U.N.

Could you comment on whether you believe the suggested position would precipitate some action or whether it would deter it?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Senator, first, I think you would agree this comes down to a matter of judgment and of how you go about, you take a risk either way, and in either direction. There is some room for style in this.

I was asked about Justice Goldberg's statement and I said that I could not imagine, as I said, I have to give a direct answer, I could not imagine a view of Justice Goldberg that I didn't share. I was his assistant and I have edited his papers and I am devoted to him. I said I had been a speaker to the Women's Nationl Democratic Club in March where I had in effect in response to a question, said, entirely as a private person, much the same thing.

There are two things here, Senator, of which I think the United States is in the process of adapting to a new situation in the General Assembly. The basic thing is that we have commenced to see the formation of blocs in the U.N. which serve purposes. They are caucuses in a sense, much as you have in Congress. The two principal ones are the nonalined group and then the UNCTAD group, and of course, there is great overlap.

In March, as you, of course, know, they, as is beginning to be their practice, met a long way ahead of the General Assembly and begun forming positions. They debate them. They go through the process of collective judgment. They tend to arrive in New York with their opinions made up, their instructions written out, with group solidarity about these positions.

At Havana, in March, the Bureau of Nonalined met and there were other countries present as observers. I would like to note for the record that in this document that I had seen they list other countries, quote, unquote, present as observers, including the Socialist Party of Puerto Rico, which I do not think is a nation. It is not a government, not a country. But put that aside. But that is also a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, a small group like that. Or in fact a government in exile. Well, in that document, the declaration of Havana, there is a paragraph calling for sharp measures against Israel and its allies, the United States, including a consideration of expulsion of Israel from the U.N.

Now, of course, they cannot expel from the U.N. as you know, but they can in one General Assembly. It could take place.

This document begins to circulate. It goes back to governments and then there is, I think, a second meeting. I don't know that for sure, but at least there is a final ministerial meeting in Lima in August where they will get together and agree on a final position.

At that point people will be leaving Lima and coming to New York. On September 1, we meet in special session. At that time, particularly with many governments which don't have the communications we have I said this morning trying to turn the U.S. Government around on an issue it takes you months-to start asking people to go back to their capital, finding people on the East Side of Manhattan, saying "Listen, would you go back to your government and reverse your instructions." It doesn't work. It is too late. The politics of the General Assembly begin in January, and February, when these blocs begin taking their positions. I think to send them a message, not aggressively, but to any "Don't do that," the reaction might surprise you.

One other thing, obviously it need not be action directly by us. I cannot imagine national parties directly involved in the Middle East where you have just been, Senator, where the U.N. Resolutions 242, 338, are so important and I think are seen by Arab countries as being to their advantage wanting this. They want what those provisions, those resolutions carried out.

What possible advantage to those nations could there be to expel Israel? I do not know what would follow legally from expulsion, but would Irsael feel bound by a U.N. security resolution if it be thrown out of the United Nations? Probably not.

It is not in the interest of anybody who wants peace in the Middle East, and I think that if these nations would start saying so to some other nations, it would help. I think it is time for them to say, "Don't do that," "Don't do it, leave us here where we are working in the U.N. context, leave it be," and not have other peoples be more Arab than the Arabs.

That is my view, Senator, it is no more than that, and it is, of course, a personal view.

CHARTER OF ECONOMIC RIGHTS AND DUTIES

Senator PERCY. Throughout the morning session I understand you stressed the need to relate to nonalined nations in terms of specific projects and proposals. You felt that on specifics we could reach mutually satisfactory agreements, whereas we can only expect disagreement on statement of principle.

The Charter of Economic Rights and Duties was the other way around. We agreed completely on principle, but when we got to the specifics we found that we differed strikingly.

Is is possible that the view you expressed this morning does not really mesh too well with the much discussed view in Commentary magazine that we should be more open about our disagreement in principle. I wonder if that might not possibly jeopardize our chances for achieving accommodation on specifics then?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I would agree with what you have just said. I read with great interest your report on your meeting at the 29th Assembly, which was a beautiful document. I wish we could get them in town to write that much that shortly, and your description of how you went through the articles one by one and it was the case that in the largest degree we shared that charter's principles.

There were those specific principles, if you will, which we couldn't go along with. And so in the end, where there was 80- to 90-percent agreement the industrial world and the new nations on matters of general importance, you end up with the vote of 132 to 6, something like that, as if there were no agreement at all.

Well, the charter is behind us. Secretary Kissinger said in Paris; new economic order, old economic order, what does it matter, let's talk commodity prices. I think that is now the wisdom of the case, sir. It is the question of commodity prices, and what to do about the nations devastated by the oil price increase, what to do with the billion dollar fund which oil producers said they would contribute for agricultural development, how do you get on with what was agreed to at the Rome Food Conference. That is the agenda ahead of us, not charters.