Слике страница
PDF
ePub

and setbacks philosophically and the tail-tweaking with good humor. When opposed, we pick up our marbles and go off to play by ourselves, making the situation only worse.

STRIVING FOR CONSENSUS

I am also favorably impressed by the advice of Harlan Cleveland in the recent article that we should strive for consensus in place of putting every question to a vote.

SOLVING PROBLEMS IN POLITICAL ARENA THROUGH U.N.

The change in attitude is all the more important now that the U.S. Government, or at any rate the legislative branch of it, is looking toward the United Nations to help deliver humanitarian assistance to Southeast Asia. This should be the first step in turning to the United Nations for the solution of other problems in the political arena, such as the Middle East, as I have long advocated.

The hour is most appropriate for a return to greater reliance on multilateral institutions and processes for easing the world's growing pains and bringing about peaceful change. The United States should seize the opportunity positively, constructively, and with a sensitive appreciation of other nations' needs and yearnings. After all, 200 years ago we were revolutionaries ourselves, committed to undoing the status quo.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I apologize for such a long statement but it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

The CHAIRMAN. That was a very fine statement. We thank you for it.

PANEL OF FORMER PERMANENT U.N. REPRESENTATIVES HEARD

I suppose you know the panel we had before us yesterday, Ambassador Yost, Justice Goldberg, Governor Stassen, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, they were the ones who had served in the U.N. as our permanent representatives over the years.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. Yes, sir.

ACTION AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA AND ISRAEL UNCONSTITUTIONAL

The CHAIRMAN. You make reference in here to the action taken against South Africa. Justice Goldberg said that was contrary to the Charter.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. I agree with that, yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And he also criticized the action that UNESCO took. He said that was contrary to the UNESCO constitution, too. But, generally there was strong support by the whole panel for the United Nations. I think they made a very fine presentation and a very fine argument along the line that you make.

I gather from oblique reference in your statement that you feel there has been a loss of regard for the U.N. by the American people over the past few years.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. Yes; I do. There have been many statements by some public officials and others of disillusionment with it and there are people who advocate our getting out of the U.N.

SLOGANS REFERRING TO U.S. MEMBERSHIP IN U.N.

The CHAIRMAN. What do they say, "get the United States out of the U.N. and the U.N. out of the United States."

Mr. FULBRIGHT. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a slogan they have developed.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. There are some slogans. This I think is a very shortsighted view, and this has grown from the frustrations that you have already mentioned.

When we dominated the U.N. in the early days when there were 51 members and could count on about 30 votes on nearly everything, we thought it was a better institution. This, of course, is a very childish attitude toward any institution. I think we can make it work if we give it the respect that it is entitled to.

CONSENSUS APPROACH APPLAUDED

May I say I mentioned only in passing the article by Mr. Cleveland. He is a very, very experienced man, and it appealed to me as purely a matter of conduct the way you approach the problems in the U.N. rather than putting everything to a vote, to seek a concensus, which is a very tiresome and troublesome approach but often much more rewarding. It doesn't happen to be the kind of procedure we have followed here in the Congress but it is a procedure that many countries follow-many more, I suspect, than follow our procedure.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Symington has to go to an Armed Services Committee meeting. I yield to him at this time.

U.S. RELATIONSHIP WITH OIL COUNTRIES URGED

Senator SYMINGTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Fulbright, it is a great pleasure seeing you, sir, and I am sorry I do have to leave. We are marking up the arms budget presentation this morning and that is why I was late and that is why I have to leave now.

Because of my great respect for you and the fact that you have been a true prophet about so many things that occurred in the development of our foreign policy, and in the relationship that policy has to the United Nations, and because I was, along with my distinguished colleague from Illinois, a delegate to the U.N. this year, I just have one question to ask you at this point.

As you know, for sometime I have worried that the billions upon billions of dollars being poured into previously relatively poor oilproducing countries will enable them to either barter their oil for plutonium or buy it-and possibly become a nuclear power; and whatever the reasons for the United Nations in the past, would you not agree that today it is vitally important that we have a relationship with oil countries, regardless of size or gross national product?

Mr. FULBRIGHT. Yes; you are quite right. I appreciate the comments in the beginning and, of course, it is a privilege to appear here to discuss this. I was very pleased that you were at the U.N. this last year and understand how it works.

You are quite right. The basic concept of the universality of the U.N., if reduced to our concepts of votes is ridiculous, if we applied to that the same concept we applied to the Senate. That is what I mentioned. It is very important that we think of other ways to utilize that body. What you are suggesting is the significance of keeping them there.

SIGNIFICANCE OF SMALLER COUNTRIES U.N. MEMBERSHIP

Some people say it was ridiculous to have them there at all. They are not significant, these smaller countries. They ought to be there and they are there. It is now up to us to find ways to operate the machinery with them there and I think it can be done. We just haven't bothered to do it. We are impatient about procedures which other people not accustomed to our system have always engaged in.

I remember, if the Senator will allow me, during the war we had a monk from South Vietnam here to lunch. There were a number of Senators there, and we were discussing the fact that they didn't seem to appreciate our desire to give them self-determination, by which we meant elections. We asked, "Why aren't you more interested in elections?" He said, "The only elections they had to do with had all been rigged and they weren't interested in elections." I said, "How do you resolve things? How do you make decisions?" "We just get together," he said, "we just get together and talk about it." There are various groups, Buddhist monks, and they got together and did what Mr. Harlan Cleveland suggested. They arrived after a time at a

consensus.

Many of these questions are so complex they can't be reduced to a simple yes or no proposal. All of you Senators, I am sure, have had my experience. When we vote on the Senate floor we rarely vote on something we are entirely in agreement with. We simply have to choose between the lesser of two evils. Much of that is because many of the problems do not lend themselves to being reduced to a simple proposition to which it is very easy to say yes, I am 100 percent for that. We can't make the U.N. work that way either. I think much can be done. We can be and are very persuasive if we allow ourselves to be. We should try to persuade rather than force people to do our will. When we try to force them, we become just as we have in Southeast Asia. I am not just referring to our physical resources, material reSources. We have great prestige in the world that we have inherited. from our history and from the nature of the society we have. This can be put to very good use if we do take the trouble and the time to use it. And it is worth doing it when we consider what the cost of the alternative is. We are just now recognizing the cost in Southeast Asia.

COMMENDATION OF SENATOR FULBRIGHT

Senator SYMINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the Committee for yielding to me. I have been in the Government 30 years next month and of all of the true prophets I have known since I have been here, I would say the No. 1 prophet has been the distinguished Senator from Arkansas. If we had listened to him, we would be tens of billions

of dollars better off from the standpoint of our financial position as a country, and what is more important, there would be tens of thousands of young Americans who would still be alive.

I thank the Senator.

WOULD LONGER SECRETARY OF STATE PRESENCE STRENGTH U.S./U.N.

RELATIONSHIP?

Senator PERCY. Before you leave I wonder if I could put to the Chairman the question you raised in your excellent report on your experience at the United Nations and get his judgment on it?

Senator Symington took the position that the Secretary of State, whoever he might be, might well spend more time in New York during the General Assembly session to show a real U.S. interest and to assure that important decisions are made by him and not by some bureaucrat down the line. It would lend greater prestige to the U.S. Mission in dealing with 127 other nations.

Would you concur that the presence of the Secretary, to the extent that he can be in New York during the General Assembly session, would help to strengthen our relationship with the U.N.?

Mr. FULBRIGHT. I do concur with what I am confident is the thrust of his suggestion. The Secretary would be most useful there and it is of such importance that I think his presence would be warranted whenever he can. But to go one step further, and I don't mean any reflection upon Mr. Scali, but Mr. Scali was not a man with a great political basis of his own comparable, say, to people such as I have already mentioned. I mean no reflection on Mr. Scali but he has been a journalist and journalists have their role, but they have not been of the same prestige in the area in which this organization operates as people like Cabot Lodge or Justice Goldberg or Adlai Stevenson. These are men of great stature in their own right and would to a great extent fulfill the purpose that the Senator from Missouri is suggesting that the Secretary would do. Of course, the Secretary would be best but second best would be someone who approaches him in prestige as being capable of speaking for the Government of the United States, someone who would be considered to be very close to the President and to the power of the country.

That is what I mean by my earlier statement, and I certainly agree with what I believe to be the purpose of the Senator from Missouri's

statement.

Senator PERCY. Thank you.

Senator SYMINGTON. Thank you.

FOREIGN MINISTERS ATTEND OPENING OF U.N. SESSIONS

The CHAIRMAN. Right along that same line, it is customary, isn't it, for foreign ministers from different countries to come to the opening of the United Nations and stay perhaps 2 or 3 days?

Mr. FULBRIGHT. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Then go back home?

Mr. FULBRIGHT. That is correct. But, of course, since we are the host country, there is a little difference in that it is here and, normally, in the old days Secretaries of State weren't always in the Middle East

or somewhere else. They were usually here in the early days. They spent a great deal of time in the country and in Washington. It was no problem going back and forth to New York. I gather from reading Senator Symington's report, it is a part of what I am trying to say. We ought to upgrade the significance of the U.N. and not denigrate it and make it appear we don't care anything about it. I agree with you. The Secretary can't stay there all the time but I don't think that is what Senator Symington meant. I do think he ought to stay here and be present to indicate our interest in making it an effective organization.

U.S. REPRESENTATIVES INDEPENDENT OF STATE DEPARTMENT POSITION

The CHAIRMAN. I have heard this complaint though from some people who have represented us in the different meetings of the General Assembly, that every word they said had to be approved by officials in the State Department here in Washington, so generally they are "yes men." I believe Senator Symington broke away from that when you were all there this past fall.

Senator PERCY. He did and I followed his precedent.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. I think you were both right. I had that experience. The State Department can be extremely irritating in their concern about commas and words and distinctions without a difference. You have to be independent, and I think that is why Senators are put there. They are not dependent upon the State Department for their position. They have a right to say what they like and the State Department can't do anything about it. I am very glad you did.

The CHAIRMAN. When were you there?

Mr. FULBRIGHT. 1954, I believe.

The CHAIRMAN. I was there in 1950. I will say this. My experience was that while we had advice from the State Department, they never supplied me with a speech. I had quite a free hand. I was serving on the Economic Committee and I don't believe I ever had a word from them as to what I should or should not say, but I have heard that complaint made.

Mr. FULBRIGHT. Yes, sir. I don't think this is peculiar to our State Department. I think all governments tend to do that.

The CHAIRMAN. I can remember when some government representative had to postpone a speech because he hadn't heard from home. Mr. FULBRIGHT. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. There are lots of questions I could ask, but I know the other members want to ask questions.

By the way, I mentioned some of the things awhile ago that Senator Fulbright is renowned for, but I didn't mention that he was an outstanding football player in college. [Laughter.] A Rhodes Scholar, and later, I believe, you taught law, didn't you?

Mr. FULBRIGHT. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Then became president of the university and got into a fight with the Governor. Did he fire you?

Mr. FULBRIGHT. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Then you had the pleasure of defeating him for the Senate?

Mr. FULBRIGHT. That is right.

« ПретходнаНастави »