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The United Nations in the Era of Total Diplomacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

William T. R. Fox
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Extract

In George Orwell's Animal Farm all that finally remains of the animals' plans for a brave new world, a farm without Farmer Jones, a farm to be run by and for the animals themselves, is the slogan “Four feet good; two feet bad.” As one reads the reports from Lake Success and Flushing Meadows one is tempted to say of the brave new world projected five years ago at San Francisco, the world of sovereign equality and greatpower unanimity, that all that is left is the slogan “United Nations good; power politics bad.” But here the analogy ends; for there is no agreement in the United Nations as to who is being good by supporting the spirit and the language of the Charter and who is being bad by playing power politics.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , May 1951 , pp. 265 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1951

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References

1 “Total diplomacy” is an expression which Secretary Acheson first used in a speech, February 16, 1950. For the text, see Strengthening the Forces of Freedom, Selected Speeches and Statements of Secretary of State Acheson, Department of State Publication 3852, p. 15–19. It is noteworthy that in this discussion of total diplomacy there is not a single reference to the United Nations. By September 1950, Secretary Acheson was in his “Uniting for Peace” proposals urging that the United Nations play a critical role in mobilizing for “total diplomacy.”

3 In the United States effort to brand com munist China as an aggressor, for example, the General Assembly resolution which finally accomplished that result reflected many concessions to those governments which had misgivings lest the United Nations seem to be used simply as the tail on an American kite.

3 The proliferation of activities in the fields of health, welfare, statistics, etc., may have a long-range indirect consequence for the promotion of peace; but these activities are justified as good things in themselves, whether or not they contribute fundamentally to solving the problems of peace and war,

4 Burma, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Republic of the Philippines, Syria and Yemen are sovereignties of recent origin who are Members of the United Nations. European states who were members of the League but who are not Members of the United Nations include Austria, Bulgaria, Eire, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

5 Cf. Buehrig, Edward H., “The United States, the United Nations and Bi-Polar Politics,” International Organization, IV, p. 573–584Google Scholar.

5a This article was written before General Ridgway's assumption of the United Nations command.

6 Document S/1588, July 7, 1950.

7 Birdsall, P., Versailles Twenty Years After, Reynal and Hitchcock, 1941, p. 72Google Scholar; quoted in Chambers, F. B., Harris, C. P. and Bayley, C. C., This Age of Conflict, rev. ed. Brace, Harcourt, 1950, p. xviiGoogle Scholar.

8 Senators from the South are not likely to look with favor on a Covenant of Human Rights which might provide a legal or a moral basis for condemning the practices of southern states in regard to the civil rights of negroes. Further-more, any elaboration of economic and social rights is likely to disturb the more conservative members of the Senate.

9 See the Draft Resolution on Uniting for Peace submitted by Canada, France, Philippines, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and Uruguay to the fifth session of the General Assembly, October 7, 1950 (Document A/C.l/576); reprinted in International Organization, IV, p. 721.

10 War or Peace, Macmillan, 1950Google Scholar, Chapter 5.

11 Ibid., p. 36.

12 Ibid., p. 59.