Queens College Forum; What Has the U.N. Accomplished in 1948?; Part 1

[narrator] These are the closing days of 1948. In Paris, the world's last, best hope for peace, the United Nations is winding up its affairs before moving back to New York. During the year that has passed, the third year the U.N.'s existence, the question arises, what has the U.N. accomplished in 1948? That's the question. And this is The Queen's College Forum, the regular Wednesday evening meeting of minds for a cooperative answer to the questions that make up the news for tomorrow's headlines. And now here is your moderator, Dr John Meng, chairman of the Department of Political Science, to introduce the speaker. [Meng] Ladies and gentlemen, we have as our guest tonight Miss Pauline Frederick, news commentator for the American Broadcasting Company covering the United Nations, and Mr. Brian Meredith with the radio division, the Department of Public Information of the United Nations. And now to our problem. What has the U.N. accomplished in 1948? The problem of the Organization of Peace is not one which can be solved in a single year or perhaps in a single decade or even in a single century. Looking at the world, we live in understanding the greatness of its ideals,

the diversity of its problems, and the practical difficulties which confront its peoples and their search for peace. We must realize that any organization for permanent peace has many problems to solve, not only political problems, but technical problems that require all sorts of coordination and cooperation. This, in brief, is a problem that is presented to our roundtable. Now, before we round out our table with crosstalk, I would like listeners to hear for two or three minutes, from our guests, that you may get to know them first. First, our friend Pauline Frederick. [Frederick] Well, Dr. Meng, I visited the site of the permanent headquarters of the United Nations on East River. I talked to a young laborer of Italian extraction as we watch the thing double scooping out the earth for the foundation. I asked the young man if he was [inaudible] of the United Nations. He said he wasn't, the trouble is. He explained, people expect too much too soon. You don't start building a building with the roof. You start with building the foundation. Of course, the young labor was right and they didn't go far enough, far enough back.

If I may be permitted the idiom. The United Nations today is spiritually in the position that was in physically last spring, then you remember, of course. But the plan was for the permanent headquarters, had their blueprints already and knew what needed to be done, but they did not have the money with which to do it. The United States made available 65 million dollars and the steam shovels were able to begin operating. Today the planners of the United Nations, it seems to me, have in the charter the blueprint for making it a vital instrument for keeping the peace. But the construction of an effective organization is at a standstill. The trouble is, with a bank of goodwill and with the United Nations must draw if it is to operate is empty of faith, courage and cooperation. And the nations that could be the biggest depositors of these fail to ?ask? that the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom are making the smallest contributions in proportion to their power to do otherwise. The United Nations. Therefore, it seems to me is little more than an international

company to which its members every so often make a concession in order not to be too self conscious in the pursuit of their own nationalist policy. [Meng] That's a subject that deserves a little further consideration in a few minutes Mrs. Frederick. now for Brian Meredith, the U.N. radio division. I remember the secretariat. You should have the inside track on international affairs. [Meredith] Well, don't forget, the people on an inside track are laughing at going in circles, even in concentric circles maybe. Frankly and more seriously, we feel sometimes too close to U.N. matters in the secretariat to have perspective. It's people like yourselves and like you beside me here in the studio and the millions and millions who I hope are still listening to this program, who should have perspective and an unique perspective, you know. [Meng] Well, we may have perspective that finding U.N. matters, little remote gives one perspective, but we haven't always information. And you are in the division of public information. And I think you should talk about your job on the information angle. U.N. [Meredith] Well, perhaps I should and perhaps as I'm in the radio

division, as you explained, and that is talk comes over our station that has done more than perhaps any of it or certainly more than most others to help keep information about new and available. It's appropriate that we can bring it up here on WNYC. The Freedom of Information I'm getting and passing it on is one of the basic rights of men to judge. One must know how to operate a civilized, progressive democracy. People must be informed to keep this world together instead of flying apart like like a disintegrated atom or maybe because of a disintegrating atom. We must know and understand more of one another. We must make health more cooperative action based on what we learn. But first we must learn to get along. And radio helps us to get the lowdown on ?one?. It does and this station and the many other stations like it helps get the low down in this station, when the United Nations first moved to New York and called up a public college in the Bronx in the spring and summer of '46. This station here considers it a kind of civic duty to keep its listeners

informed about the United Nations. And they took no half measures. They put the whole proceedings on the air. And as a result, I think that New Yorkers through this and through every other broadcast, on many other stations and networks, and the very poor treatment given by many distinguished ?a lot? of New York newspapers should be about as well informed as any group in the world. [Meng] You said should be. Would you change that to are as well informed? Well, I'll fight that. But by saying that if you people here in New York really were the best informed, it would be a miracle because you've got so much on your plate here. The papers are so big and full and the air, so crowded. Well, if you're reading all the time and listening all the time, ?you see well?, [Meng] More of that a little later. Let's turn to Mrs. Frederick now. Mrs. Frederick, you referred to the U.N. as an international conscience. How would you inventory the state of this international consciousness as of today, December the 22nd, 1948? Well, let me do what I can do about that Dr. Meng, the assembly with a ?Dr. Jango?

eloquent expression to the rights, freedoms and dignity with real democratic human beings. The ?Umali? certainly belong to all human beings. The adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights is a statement of principle that should guide nations in their relations with their own people. But it's the doctrine, I must say, does not mean that tomorrow when the United States ? discriminating against certain minority groups will be repealed, ?not a bit mean? that tomorrow ?Francoism? Soviet Union, anyone can criticize Joseph Stalin publicly or that any of the other members of the United Nations will change overnight their practices which infringe on human rights. But it does mean that the conscience of mankind as represented in the U.N. recognizes what is right, even though it may move toward that goal by slow, imperfect steps. Then there's the convention to outlaw genocide, the murder of nationalities or racial or religious group that's part of the family. Now, the very thought of genocide is revolting to a normal human being who has been nurtured on democratic principles.

The nations agreeing to the outlawry of genocide know that by every precept of humanity they must be against genocide. But that doesn't rule out the possibility that in the heat of another war, one of them might not be brought to it again. Another gesture to our conscience that carried in 1948 and the United Nations was the resolution calling on the Big Five to compose their differences and redouble their efforts in a spirit of solidarity and mutual understanding, to secure in the briefest possible time a final settlement of the war and a conclusion of all peaceful settlement. In spite of subscribing to this view, there's been no noticeable change, as far as I can see, and the effort of the Big Five to compose their differences. But they and everyone else know they must if there is to be peace and everyone's in favor of peace. It seems to me that in the annunciating, therefore, of high minded principle, the United Nations has made progress in 1948, but that remains in implying principles to definite political cases that come before it.

It seems to me that the current bankruptcy in faith, courage and cooperation have limited the United Nations to a class of national interest. [Meng] That's why this program is not devoted solely to considering the accomplishments of the U.N.. We want an objective picture. You say that there are there is evidently a black side to the picture. What would you - what do you mean by that? Could you give us some specific examples? [Frederick] Well, I'd look at the of the application of principle to the definite political cases to see how those cases came up during 1948. I realize that Palestine is a very controversial subject. But I would like to say this. If there's any peace in Palestine today, it's not so much because there was a definite sustained drive in the U.N. from the beginning to find a just and permanent solution to the Palestine problem, regardless of which side it's in the favor, but rather on overtaken by events of the struggle among interested parties, the Arabs, the Jews, the British, the Americans, the Russians and others all had particular causes to

espouse. Frequently the arguments advanced in committees in the assembly and the Security Council, for one plan or another, were aimed at blocking rather than revealing two purposes. And when the U.N. became so enmeshed in ?interest? over Palestine that it was unable to move It reached out and selected an individual to bring to the situation objectivity and goodwill it was not able to muster. When Count Bernadotte tried to carry out his mission. He was criticized when he would not champion one side completely at the expense of the other. Eventually, he was shot down by the same lack of faith, lack of courage, lack of cooperation that hampered the U.N. itself. Now and almost all other issues before the United Nations, seems to me the spiritual bankruptcy that has hampered its work stems from the fact that the Cold War between the East and the West has been projected into the World Organization and intensified in 1948. The Soviet Union would not cooperate with the Balkan Commission, and ending the great

guerrilla war with Soviet satellites are accused of aiding and abetting the United States as part of the Balkan Commission. But it wouldn't tolerate any interference in its outside aid to Greece which was designed to condone communism. Korea has been cut in half because the Soviet Union, the United States, in pursuit of opposing policies in the Cold War, have not been able to unite a country they set free free in a hot war. The Atomic Energy Commission is still deadlocked because the Cold War does not permit the United States and the Soviet Union to work out their differences. The United Nations still does not have a police power to enforce its will because the major nations which have that power to supply to the world Organization cannot reach a formula for its contribution because they fear one another. The veto, which is not so much a cause of the United Nations stalemate as a symptom of it, would become a weapon in the hands of the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The United States so far has not needed to use the veto in each case when it was necessary to prevent action that the Soviet Union favored, with

the possible exception, steps relating to Palestine. There have been sufficient American friends on the Security Council to vote the matter down. That the United States and the United Kingdom have no desire to do away with the veto, in spite of the arguments against it was demonstrated when both abstained from voting to prevent a Soviet veto of a commission to look into the communist crisis in Czechoslovakia. And so I could go on. The accomplishments of the U.N. in 1948 looked very small in comparison with the World Organization's potential. It's a disservice not only to the United Nations, but to public opinion, it seems to me, not to call attention to the situation realistically. I agree with former undersecretary of state Sumner Welles when he said recently the environment that was necessary for the United Nations to operate with full success does not exist. We have fear and conflict, not security and cooperation. [Meng] That, Mrs. Frederick, is a very dark picture and it sounds strangely familiar to me. Having read and heard much about the League of Nations in the past, we were told, as I

recall, that the league had failed because the league was unable to solve the political problems presented to us. The league however, was worth all of the money and all of the care spent on it because of the technical advantages and the technical cooperation that it elicited. Now, in the United Nations, you paint for us a picture of political failure quite similar to the history of the league as I recall it. The details are different, but the results seem to be very much the same, and they're not encouraging. I wonder if for a moment we might look at the other side of the picture. Has the U.N., a record anywhere near equivalent to that of the league? On the technical side, I suspect that Mr. Meredith may have some ideas on that subject. [Meredith] Well, yes, I have, because naturally, the United Nations is carrying on what the league began in the field of social and economic affairs and ?just? a great deal further. And I would also like to say that in the political field, you both of you are describing and agreeing it's rather dark, but it undoubtedly has its dark side, but I think it has

a bright side. And the very fact that you people here are discussing it and a lot of people outside are worrying about it and that people throughout the world are aware of the various problems that I think does indicate that I certainly am much more knowledgeable attention is being given to the affairs of the world than ever before, because the citizens of the world today must know what he is arguing about, must know what he's talking about, and if he has prejudices that, well, they must be intelligently based. And I think that programs like ?their own these? discussions, the fact that people are concerned is a very healthy sign. So these political situations are at least out in the open and people are not getting away with murder as in many cases they did in history. And if murder will out now, get out very quickly. Anyway, Doctor Meng to get back to the [Meng] specialized agencies, you could mention. [Meredith] Quite, well, I do think that the score on the specialized agencies provided a very good one.

I think that the United Nations, through giving very specialized agency, through the economic commissions associated with them.