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The United Nations and Its Public

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Richard N. Swift
Richard N. Swift
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Government at New York University. He is the author of World Affairs and the College Curriculum.
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Extract

No governmental functions are traditionally more suspect than those relating to public information. National legislators always demur at the public relations work of civil servants. They inevitably assume (at times, with good reason) that appropriating funds to inform people about the performance of government agencies only helps to preserve the bureaucracy and to create and nurture a public which ultimately will bring pressure to bear upon the legislature itself.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , Winter 1960 , pp. 60 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1960

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References

1 The original principles were prepared by a Technical Advisory Committee on Information established by the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations and appended to Resolution 13 (I), February 13, 1946. A special subcommittee of the General Assembly's Fifth (Administrative and Budgetary) Committee revised the principles, and the Assembly accepted the revisions in Resolution 505 (VI), February 4, 1952. For other comments on the Department of Public Information (as OPI was known before July 1, 1958), see the following documents: General Assembly Official Records (7th session), Supplement No. 5, Budget Estimates for the Financial Year 1953; ibid., Supplement No. 7, First Report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions to the Seventh Session of the General Assembly; ‘Organization of the Secretariat, Report of the Secretary-General's Survey Group on Overseas Offices and the Technical Assistance Administration, 15 November 1955,” together with the comments on it by the Secretary-General (Document A/3041), the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (Document A/3031), as well as the report of the Fifth Committee (Document A/3103)—all in General Assembly Official Records (10th session), Annexes, agenda items 58 and 47; Documents A/3550 and A/3522, Reports of the Fifth Committee and the Advisory Committee on Budgetary and Administrative Questions, in ibid, (11th session), Annexes, agenda item 43. In general, see General Assembly Official Records (7th to 14th sessions). Supplements No. 5, Budget Estimates …, and No. 7, Reports of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. See also The United States Public and the United Nations, New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1958, p. 24–27, 37–38, 51.Google ScholarPubMed

2 Document A/3928, ‘Report of the Expert Committee on United Nations Public Information,” September 20, 1958, cited hereinafter as Experts' Report.

3 Resolution 1177 (XII), November 26, 1957, and Document A/3624, “Report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions,” pars. 35–38. See also Document A/3550, pars. 58–66, for the Fifth Committee report on the budget estimates.

4 Document A/3741, “Public Information Activities of the United Nations, Report of the Fifth Committee,” General Assembly Official Records (12th session), Annexes, agenda item 41, p. 55–56.

5 Ibid., par. 3. The Secretary-General had in mind the Advisory Committee on the UN Emergency Force, which the General Assembly established in Resolution 1001 (ES-I), November 7, 1956, a seven-nation group of representatives from Brazil, Canada, Ceylon, Colombia, India, Norway, and Pakistan, with the Secretary-General as chairman. The Advisory Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, which the Assembly established in Resolution 810 (IX), December 4, 1954, as the Advisory Committee on the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, was continued under its present name in Resolution 912 (X), December 3, 1955. Its members also came from seven states: Brazil, Canada, France, India, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

6 Ibid., par. 12.

7 Resolution 1177 (XII), November 26, 1957. See Document A/C.5/L.468 and Add.1 for the original version. The sponsors were Australia, Canada, Ceylon, Denmark, France, India, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

8 Document A/C.5/L.472, whose sponsors were Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.

9 Resolution 1177 (XII), November 26, 1957.

10 Document A/3741, par. 19.

11 The Secretary-General outlined the problems for the experts in his Memorandum, published as Annex I to the Experts' Report; the remainder of this section is based upon it.

12 Resolution 1086 (XI), December 21, 1956.

13 Experts' Report, Annex I, p. 7.

14 Robert A. P. Bevan (United Kingdom), member of the Council of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and Acting Chairman of the Advertising Advisory Committee to the Independent Television Authority; Ahmed M. el-Messiri (United Arab Republic), lawyer, representative of Egypt at the Assembly since 1948, sometime Vice-Chairman of the Fifth Committee and member of the UN Salary Review Committee; Enrique Rodriguez Fabregat (Uruguay), Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Uruguay to the UN since 1947, member of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary (1957), former senator and professor; P. N. Haksar (India), lawyer. Director of the External Publicity Division of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs since 1955; Louis Paul Lochner (United States), winner of 1939 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished service as a foreign correspondent, Chief of the Berlin Bureau of the Associated Press (1928–42), news analyst and commentator, author of Always the Unexpected—A Book of Reminiscences; and Alexey F. Sokirkin (Soviet Union), Assistant Chief of the Department of American Countries in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, former (1950–55) First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in the United States —UN Press Release ORG/364, March 13, 1958. It is perhaps worth noting that only three of the experts were intimately acquainted with public information matters.

15 Experts' Report, p. 18–21.

16 Ibid., p. 18. The next quotation is also from this page.

17 Ibid., p. 89. The experts' recommendations appear on p. 87–105, and those mentioned in this paragraph and the next on p. 88–91.

18 He had transferred units from the Division of Public Liaison to the Division of External Relations and to the Press and Publications Division, joining the Sales and Circulation Section with the latter and placing in the former the Visitors' Service, the NGO Section, the Education Section, the Interne and Fellowship Unit, and the Overseas Desk of the Press and Publications Division. See Document A/3945, “Comments and recommendations of the Secretary-General [on the Expert Committee's Report],” October 16, 1958, p. 7.

19 Ibid., p. 6.

20 See Document A/4062, “Report of the Fifth Committee [on Public Information],” December 10, 1958, pars. 19–20.

21 Experts' Report, p. 88.

22 Ibid., p. 91.

23 Document A/3945, P. 8. The ACC consists of the Secretary-General of the UN, as Chairman, and the executive heads of the specialized agencies.

24 Experts' Report, p. 89.

25 Ibid., p. 90.

26 Ibid., p. 92–94 and Document A/3945, p. 7–8, whence the Secretary-General's comments reported below are drawn as well.

27 Document A/4062, par. 24.

28 Document A/3928, pars. 226 and 214.

29 Document A/3945, pars. 2–3.

30 Ibid., par. 7. The preceding quotations are from pars. 3 and 7.

31 Few members endorsed all parts of the Report, but the more favorable comments came primarily from the Communist and Middle Eastern states and Belgium, Burma, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. See General Assembly Official Records (13th session), Fifth Committee, p. 175–224, 231–240, 294–295. See also Document A/4062, pars. 14–16, and Experts' Report, pars. 213 and 227.

32 Attacks on the Report came primarily from the Latin American and Scandinavian states and Austria, China, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Israel, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Turkey. See also Document A/4062, pars. 17–18.

33 Experts' Report, p. 50. The experts discussed publications in pars. 118–140.

34 Document A/3945, par. 12 and Experts' Report, par. 122.

35 Loc. cit.

36 Document A/4062, par. 23.

37 Resolutions 217 D (III), December 10, 1948, and 423 (V), December 4, 1950.

38 Experts' Report pars. 129–134, 137, and 252–257.

39 Document A/3945, par. 12 and Experts' Report, par. 210.

40 Experts' Report, pars. 88–89, 267, 268, and Document A/3945, par. 11.

41 See Provisional Document A/C.5/SR.73O, p. 8–9.

42 Experts' Report, pars. 113–115, 270, and 271.

43 Experts' Report, par. 108. The experts discussed films in pars. 100–112 and 272–274. The quotation below is from par. 274.

44 Pars. 61–80 and 259–261.

45 Of the 392 hours there were 132 in Arabic at the rate of 30 minutes daily, five days a week, and an additional ten-minute weekly broadcast during the Assembly; 108 hours in Russian: 25 minutes daily five days a week all year; Chinese: 130 hours, 30 minutes daily, five days a week all year; and Hungarian: 22 hours, five minutes a day, five days a week.

46 Document A/3945, p. 4.

47 Experts' Report, par. 260. The broadcasts of meetings take up 660 hours annually in English/French (in which English and French speakers broadcast in their own voices and all others are broadcast in English translation) and Spanish.

48 Document A/4062, pars. 21–22; see also Assembly Resolutions 137 (II), November 17, 1947, and 290 (IV), December 1, 1949.

49 Experts' Report, par. 260.

50 Experts' Report pars. 278–279; Document A/3945, par. 18 and Annex, p. 1–7. One may, of course, have to allow for the fact that those who prepared the estimates were probably not eager to demonstrate great savings.

51 Document A/C.5/764, “Statement by the Secretary-General at the 682nd Meeting of the Fifth Committee,” November 13, 1958.

52 Ibid., par. 6.

53 Ibid., pars. 7 and 9.

54 Document A/C.5/757, “… Letter … to the Secretary-General,” October 28, 1957.

55 See, for example, statement of the United Kingdom, General Assembly Official Records (13th session), Fifth Committee, p. 195

56 Resolution 1335 (XIII), December 13, 1958. The vote in Committee Five was 57–0–11, with the Soviet bloc, Ireland, and Liberia abstaining. See General Assembly Official Records (13th session), Fifth Committee, p. 239–240. For the vote in the plenary meetings which was 68–0–10, see General Assembly Official Records (13th session). Plenary Meetings, p. 596.

57 See General Assembly Official Records (13th session). Fifth Committee, p. 179–180, 204, and 223. See also p. 201 for the views of Indonesia, which, although it has an information center, endorsed this position.

58 Ibid., p. 203.

59 Ibid., p. 193, 201, 207, 208–209.

60 Ibid., p. 222. See also the comments of Albania (p. 217), Byelorussia (p. 223), Czechoslovakia (p. 212–213), Hungary (p. 219), Poland (p. 200–201), Romania (p. 214–215), the Ukraine (p. 222–223), and the USSR (p. 193–195).

61 Experts' Report, par. 227 and General Assembly Official Records (13th session), Fifth Committee, p. 196.

62 General Assembly Official Records (13th session), Fifth Committee, p. 193–195.

63 Ibid., p. 191–193 and p. 175–224, passim.

64 Ibid., p. 195.

65 Ibid., p. 184–185, 212.

66 Ibid., p. 211, par. 5.

67 Mr. Andrew W. Cordier, Executive Assistant to the Secretary-General; Colonel Alfred G. Katzin, Acting Head, Office of the Under-Secretary for Public Information; Mr. Anatoly F. Dobrynin, Under-Secretary for Political and Security Council Affairs; and M. Philippe de Seynes, Under-Secretary for Economic and Social Affairs.

68 For the “Report of the Secretary-General [on Public Information Activities],” June 16, 1959, see Document A/4122. See also Documents A/C.5/782, “Statement by the Secretary-General [on Budget Estimates for 1960],” September 29, 1959, p. 8–9; A/C.5/790. “Statement made by the representative of the Secretary-General [Colonel Katzin],” October 21, 1959; A/C.5/792, “Statement made by the Secretary-General [on public information activities],” October 23, 1959; A/C.5/793, “Statement made by the representative of the Secretary-General,” October 23, 1959; and the statements by Colonel Katzin in Provisional Documents A/C.5/SR.723, p. 13–15 and A/C.5/SR.730, p. 7–12. Unless otherwise noted, the account of changes made in OPI during 1959 draws on these documents.

69 See chart on next page for present organizational structure of OPI.

70 The six films included “Exposure” (ten minutes long) about refugees. It cost $9,000, one-third of which came from funds allocated for the World Refugee Year. National committees had undertaken to distribute the film. “In Our Hands”, a ten-minute film about the International Labor Organization, also cost $9,000, two-thirds of which was borne by ILO. A popular science film (thirty minutes) on the peaceful uses of the atom cost $14,000, and the International Atomic Energy Agency paid $9,000 of this amount. Other specialized agencies, whose work may ultimately be depicted in the finished film, will also contribute proportionately. Another thirty-minute film about water resources, produced jointly with the World Health Organization, cost $60,000, one-third of which came from OPI funds and the funds of other interested agencies, and the balance from WHO. “Workshop for Peace”, originally produced in 1952, was revised at a cost of $5–6,000. “Power Among Men”, a ninety-minute feature depicting a struggle between forces of creativity and destruction, was also finished in 1959 and received film prizes in New York, Moscow, and Venice. OPI also worked on four films for TV and group showings on UN activities in Asia, and especially on the work of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East; here too the specialized agencies are cooperating substantively and financially. See statement by Colonel Katzin in Document A/C.5/SR.723, p. 13–14.

71 The Consultative Committee, established in 1946, consists of the chief public information officers, or their representatives, of the UN and the specialized agencies. It operates as a sub-group of the Administrative Committee on Coordination.

72 The Secretary-General plans to continue reorganizing OPI as its program demands. The External Relations Division is to develop regional “desks”. Within the Radio and Visual Services Division, the now separate Services for films, television, and photographic and exhibition work, will ultimately become one Visual Services, responsible for the work of the present three Services. The two remaining Services will keep their present titles. See Documents A/4112, par. 48, and A/C.5/790. P. 4.

73 For the debate see Provisional Documents A/C.-5/SR. 722–732, 748, 749. See also Document A/4301, “Public Information Activities… Report of the Fifth Committee,” November 25, 1959.

74 Provisional Document A/C.-5/SR.722, p. 12.

75 Provisional Document A/C.5/SR.723, p. 3. See also Provisional Documents A/C.-5/SR.728, p. 5 (USSR), and A/C-5/SR.724, P. 5 (Cuba).

76 Provisional Document A/C.5/SR.723, p. 5–6.

77 See, for instance, the remarks of Austria (Provisional Document A/C.5/SR.725, p. 15); Colombia (A/C.5/SR.723, p. 2); Ethiopia (A/C.5/SR.726, p. 4–5; Ghana (A/C.5/SR.725, p. 9–12); India (A/C-5/SR.729, p. 5); Peru (A/C.5/SR.724, p. 10); Tunisia (A/C.5/SR.727, p. 3–4); and Venezuela (A/C.5/-SR.725, p. 17).,

78 Document A/C.5/73O, p. 11.

79 Document A/C.5/792, p. 2–3.

80 Loc. cit. See also the Cuban statement in Document A/C.5/SR.724, p. 5.

81 The principal relevant documents in addition to those previously noted are A/C.5/L.573, the Soviet draft resolution; A/C.5/L.576 and Revs. 1–3, the joint draft resolution with its several amendments; A/C.5/-L.578, a proposal by the United States; and A/C.5/-L.579, the British proposal.

82 See Document A/C.5/L.578. The final resolution is 1405 (XIV), December 1, 1959, adopted at the Assembly's 845th plenary meeting.

83 For general comments on what is known about communications, see Millikan, Max F., “Foreword,” in Alfred O. Hero, Americans in World Again, Boston, World Peace Foundation, 1959, p. ii.Google Scholar

84 Experts' Report, par. 75, and statements by the delegates of Canada (Provisional Document A/C.5/-SR.725, p. 10–11), India (A/C.5/SR.728, p. 8), and the United Kingdom (A/C.5/SR.722, p. 7).

85 See Uruguay's forthright statement on these twogroups of delegates, Provisional Document A/C5/SR.-727, p. 4–6.

86 The appropriation for the United States Information Agency for fiscal 1959, for instance, was $105,039,-049. See U.S. Information Agency, 11th Review of Operations, July 1–December 31, 1958, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1959, p. 26.

87 Almond, Gabriel, The American People and Foreign Policy, New York, Harcourt Brace and Company, 1950. P. 81Google Scholar, 139–141. See also Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The United States and the United Nations, New York, The Endowment, 1958, p. 18–19Google Scholar; Scott, William A. and Withey, Stephen B., The United Nations and the United States: The Public View, New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1958Google Scholar; and the “Studies in Citizen Participation in International Relations,” Boston, World Peace Foundation, 1959 and 1960.

88 Cf., for example. Experts' Report, par. 214 and Hero, Alfred O., Opinion Leaders in American Communities, Boston, World Peace Foundation, 1959.Google Scholar

89 Deutsch, Karl W., Burrcll, Sidney A., Kann, Robert A., Lee, Maurice Jr, Lichterman, Martin, Lindgren, Raymond E., Loewenheim, Francis L., and Van Wagenen, Richard W., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1957. P. 200–201Google Scholar

90 Hero, Alfred O., Mass Media and World Affairs, Boston, World Peace Foundation, p. 8, 14.Google Scholar

91 Almond, op. cit., p. 5–6, 139. On expanding elite groups, see World Peace Foundation, “Studies in Citizen Participation in International Relations.”

92 Survey data made available to the World Peace Foundation. See also Mass Media and World Affairs, Chap. V.

93 Mass Media and World Affairs, p. 23–25.Google Scholar

94 Documents A/3945, p. 5 and A/4122, par. 30.

95 In world affairs, as in politics generally, mass communications have this important role to play. See Mass Media and World Affairs, p. 18–21.Google Scholar

96 Ibid., p. 2–5, 11.

97 Experts' Report, par. 51.

98 Document A/C.5/757.

99 Experts' Report, pars. 51–52.

100 Provisional Document A/C.5/SR.730, p. 8, and Documents A/4122, par. 39, and A/C.5/790, par. 13.

101 See statement by Colonel Katzin in Document A/C.5/790, par. 16.

102 Document A/4122, pars. 5–8 and passim.

103 Experts' Report, par. 260.

104 See Assembly Resolutions 137 (II), November 17, 1947, and 290 (IV), December 1, 1949, and ECOSOC Resolution 731 (XXVIII), 07 31, 1959Google Scholar, which accepted the draft text of the Declaration and transmitted it to governments for comment.

105 Experts' Report, par. 152.

106 Mass Media and World Affairs, p. 10Google Scholar, and Americans in World Affairs, p. 6–21Google Scholar, 101.

107 Document A/C. 5/790, par. 5.

108 See Scott and Withey, op. cit., p. 179; Americans and World Affairs, p. 21–26Google Scholar, 107; and Mass Media and World Affairs, p. 13Google Scholar, on the importance of education in determining the people's attitudes to world affairs in general.