States and British Governments, Mehmet Shehu had received in Tirana the enterprising foreign correspondent of The New York Times, Harrison E. Salisbury. As the first American newspaperman to enter Albania in ten years, Salisbury owed that honor to Mehmet Shehu himself. Despite this small token of goodwill toward one individual, amplified obliquely to include the United States itself in comments made by Mehmet Shehu, reported by Mr. Salisbury in the series of articles he wrote to describe a week's visit in Albania, officials of the Department of State were quoted in The New York Times of September 13, 1957, as saying that there was "no present prospect of any change in United States relations with Albania.”

On March 16, 1967 it became less inappropriate for Americans to seek to enter the People's Republic of Albania as far as the United States Government was concerned. On that date the Department of State published in the Federal Register a revision of Section 51.72 Passports invalid for travel to restricted areas, of the Code of Federal Regulations. On the same date, in the Federal Register, four public notices, Nos. 256-259. emanating from the Office of the Secretary of State, pursuant to the authority of Executive Order 11295 and in accordance with 22 CFR 51.72, were published. These public notices for United States citizens set forth a restriction on travel to, in, or through Mainland China, Cuba, North Korea and North Viet-Nam.

The restriction on travel to Albania was not published, indicating that the Secretary of State had not determined, as he could have, that in addition to the aforementioned restricted areas or countries, Albania was now a "country or area to which travel must be restricted in the national interest because such travel would seriously impair the conduct of U.S. foreign affairs." Therefore, the restriction on travel to Albania is no longer in effect as of March 16, 1967. However, this does not mean that the United States Government is in a position to afford normal protection to its citizens traveling there; it only means that United States passports no longer need to be specially validated for travel to Albania.

“Study the Past" and "What is Past is Prologue"

On the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the National Archives Building in Washington there are impressive statues, each bearing one of these inscriptions. It is evident from the within detailed account of diplomatic and legal ramifications with respect to the policies of de jure recognition and non-recognition, as applied by the United States Government to Albanian Governments over the past fifty years, that the facts are now available upon which to develop in 1972, a new and far more constructive policy

The People's Republic of Albania 739

toward the present Maoist-oriented Albanian Government still controlled by those two comrades in arms of World War II-Colonel General Enver Hoxha and Major General Mehmet Shehu.

One of the facts which can be documented in the files reposing in the National Archives is the very close relationship between Albanians in the United States of America, and their kinfolk in the southern part of Albania, mainly in the prefectures along the Greek frontier. Although cut off from their American kinfolk from 1939 to 1945, and again from 1946 to 1971, they undoubtedly remain, as in June 1945, "highly pro-American" and unaffected by anti-American propaganda.

A report on southern Albania based on personal observation. May 31-June 3, 1945, contained the sentence: "There are still hundreds of people in the South who depend wholly on their husbands, parents, or close friends in America." The truth of this statement can be seen in such newspaper reports as the recent one entitled "Four Weeks in Albania," by an Albanian American, Bill Gounaris. His personal account was serialized throughout most of 1971 in Liria, one of the two Albanian-language weekly newspapers published in Boston, the undisputed center of Albanian American activities in the United States.

The Gounaris account of his travels in southern Albania during his stay in Albania from November 3 to December 1, 1970, provides current support for the recommendation of July 1, 1945 made by Foreign Service Officer Joseph Jacobs to the Secretary of State. Jacobs urged that, irrespective of recognition, communications between the United States and Albania should be reopened for, according to his best estimates from the vantage point of Tirana, "about 25% of Albania's population have either been in US or have friends and relatives who have been there."

The Peking Precedent: From Confrontation to
Negotiation - An Historic First Step

Now that President Richard Nixon has made his historic journey to Peking, the saying attributed to the Chinese that a long journey begins with a single, first step should enjoy even more currency. From the day (October 26, 1970) when President Nixon in a toast to visiting President Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania at the White House, deliberately used Peking's official title - the People's Republic of China, the first time an American President had ever done so, to the day of his arrival in Peking (February 20, 1972) is a long time, almost sixteen months.

Inasmuch as the People's Republic of China and the People's Republic of Albania, through public expressions of mutual respect and joint assis

tance by their respective Party leaders, Chairman Mao and First Secretary Enver Hoxha, e.g., in the exchange of telegrams between Peking and Tirana dated September 9 and 17, 1968, within the context of an everlasting and a "great and unbreakable militant friendship between the peoples of China and Albania," do indeed form a sort of big and baby brother combination, little (2 million population) Albania should not be overlooked as a result of the awesome size of China (over 700 million population) and the long distance from Peking to Tirana.

Moreover, President Nixon, in moving beyond the watershed year of 1971, has reasserted in his Third Annual Report on the State of United States Foreign Policy dated February 1972, the continuing validity of the American approach toward all potential adversaries as set forth in his Inaugural Address of January 20, 1969, which contained these statements: Let all nations know that during this Administration our lines of communication will be open.

We seek an open world - open to ideas, open to the exchange of goods and people - a world in which no people, great or small, will live in angry isolation.

If, when he spoke those lines, President Nixon did not have in mind, besides the great People's Republic of China the small People's Republic of Albania, he should be reminded of the statement he made July 15, 1971 to explain his Journey for Peace to Peking, in which he expressed the conviction "that all nations will gain" from an improved relationship between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China.

Recommendations in Conclusion

It is respectfully submitted that the approach promised by President Nixon in his Inaugural Address contemplating entry now into an era of negotiation has proved to be valid with respect to the People's Republic of China. Accordingly, the approach should be pursued without delay with respect to the People's Republic of Albania which, under the leadership and control of Enver Hoxha, has engaged in continuous confrontation with the United States of America for almost five years longer than the People's Republic of China and as recently as the autumn of 1971-when it sponsored the resolution for "Restoration of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations."

Moreover, in view of the statesmanship he has exhibited by visiting two crucially pivotal Balkan nations, one would hope that President Nixon will seek and find an appropriate occasion, as with Ceausescu at the White House, for deliberately using as President of the United States, Tirana's official title - the People's Republic of Albania. From this new start we

may find it possible to discard the sterile formula invariably utilized in connection with the existing Albanian authorities, for almost three decades and as recently as March 1971 in Secretary of State Rogers' detailed report United States Foreign Policy 1969-1970, to the effect that because the United States does not recognize the Government of Albania it has no diplomatic relations with it.

Postponement of the opening of official bilateral channels of communication between the two countries only serves to perpetuate errors and shortcomings exhibited on both sides, in such matters as the diplomatic and legal issues connected with the existing pre-war bilateral treaties and especially the bilateral agreements. Having written personal letters requesting recognition to President Roosevelt (December 21, 1944) and President Truman (July 25, 1945), which went unanswered, Enver Hoxha can with some justification expect President Nixon to take the initiative in resuming the dialogue.

Hon. JOHN J. SPARKMAN,

U.S. Senate, Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee,
Capital Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR SPARKMAN:

ANTONOW & FINK,
August 6, 1975.

*

I thought you might be interested in the enclosed prepublication entitled “The United Nations Revisited! Should the United States Quit the Organization?” which will appear in the fall issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist. Perhaps this can be made part of the proceedings of the Committee recently held. Very truly yours,

Enclosure.

BENJAMIN M. BECKER.

"THE UNITED NATIONS REVISITED! SHOULD THE UNITED STATES
QUIT THE ORGANIZATION?"

(By Benjamin M. Becker 1)

During the last days of the 29th session of the United Nations General Assembly, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Scali warned the General Assembly that Americans are deeply disturbed by actions of the world body and that U.S. support is eroding; that the unrealistic resolutions passed by the U.N. had become a "clear and present danger" to its usefulness; that "if the U.N. ceases to work for the benefit of all its members, it will become increasingly irrelevant. It will fade into the shadow world of rhetoric, abandoning its important role in the real world of negotiation and compromise"; that "they (Americans) are concerned by moves to convert humanitarian and cultural programs into tools of political reprisal", and that neither the American people nor the American Congress believe that such actions can be reconciled with the spirit or letter of the U.N. charter.

It is appropriate for Americans and the United States Congress to take another look at the U.N.

In 1969 this writer authored a book entitled "Is the United Nations Dead?" and therein considered whether or not despite its failures and general disenchantment with the U.N. whether in fact the continued American support was warranted. The conclusion was reached that despite the ineptness of the United Nations, it was the only nearly-universal international organization which possibly someday could provide the framework for international cooperation to tackle many of the pressing global problems which faced all of humanity. It was concluded that the U.N. participation in ceasefire and peacekeeping operations in the Mideast and elsewhere and its extensive work in the social and economic field were sufficient justification for continued U.S. support. Much has happened since that book was published. China was substituted for Taiwan as a member. Many more nations have been admitted. The membership grew from 111 to 138 at the last count. The United Nations has involved itself in many more areas of economic concern to member nations. The U.S. has lost influence among member states and begun to use its veto in the Security Counsel. The Afro-Asian-Arab-communist bloc have developed an over-whelming majority in the General Assembly. On the positive side, thrice in the past two years the U.N. has been called upon to supervise ceasefires and keep the peace, twice in the Mideast and once in Cyprus. It appeared as if the United Nations had come alive.

But nothing in recent years has so greatly diminished the U.N. in the view of many people as some totally irresponsible actions taken in the last two months of the 1974 session.

1. There was the General Assembly's invitation to terrorist Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasar Arafat to present his appeal to the General Assembly. Arafat, with gun in holster, pleaded for the creation of a Palestinian state and to eliminate the State of Israel to which the U.N. had given birth some 26 years before. Arafat was the man who was and is the commander of

1 Chicago lawyer; author "Is the United Nations Dead?" Whitmore Press, Phila., Pa. (1969), 163 pp.; "The Myth of Arms Control and Disarmament, "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, April, 1971. Vol. XXVII, No. 4, p. 5, and books and numerous articles in the legal field.