Telling It Like It Is

Soldiering For Peace, by Major General Carl von Horn. McKay, $6.95

OF ALL MAJOR political institutions outside the Communist world, none escapes public scrutiny more successfully than the United Nations Secretariat. It is ironic that this institution, intended to carry out the wishes of all mankind, should remain so far beyond the checks and balances imposed by an inquiring public, on whose behalf it supposedly acts. Not only the inquiring public. Even all those self-important, beturbaned, sandaled, and-berobed UN delegates (as well as those in more conventional dress) apparently have precious little influence, beyond their ability to add cousins and fellow nationals to the already swollen payrolls. Conor Cruise O’Brien observed that the Secretary General’s Congo Advisory Committee was “much less like an advisory body than a group of innocent outsiders being taken for a guided tour.”

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James Burnham

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Soldiering For Peace, by Major General Carl von Horn. McKay, $6.95

OF ALL MAJOR political institutions outside the Communist world, none escapes public scrutiny more successfully than the United Nations Secretariat. It is ironic that this institution, intended to carry out the wishes of all mankind, should remain so far beyond the checks and balances imposed by an inquiring public, on whose behalf it supposedly acts. Not only the inquiring public. Even all those self-important, beturbaned, sandaled, and-berobed UN delegates (as well as those in more conventional dress) apparently have precious little influence, beyond their ability to add cousins and fellow nationals to the already swollen payrolls. Conor Cruise O’Brien observed that the Secretary General’s Congo Advisory Committee was “much less like an advisory body than a group of innocent outsiders being taken for a guided tour.”