UN Chicken Home to Roost

Three developments of the past month are combining to precipitate a crisis in the relation between the United States and the UN. In the Panama affair the United States is getting a strong dose of the decolonization demagogy that it has dished out so carelessly to others in the course of UN debates. De Gaulle’s decision to recognize Peking will inevitably shift a sufficient number of Assembly votes to produce the two thirds majority required for admitting Communist China to UN membership. The bloody shambles in East and Central Africa makes it impossible to conceal any longer the real nature of a considerable proportion of the UN members.

What is the U.S. Government going to do, now, about the UN? Lyndon Johnson is a man who has made his way by sliding around, between, over and under problems rather than by meeting them squarely. But some problems are too stubborn, thorny or massive to evade. Besides, Mr. Johnson now has the country’s interests as well as his own political career to think of.

JB

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James Burnham

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Three developments of the past month are combining to precipitate a crisis in the relation between the United States and the UN. In the Panama affair the United States is getting a strong dose of the decolonization demagogy that it has dished out so carelessly to others in the course of UN debates. De Gaulle’s decision to recognize Peking will inevitably shift a sufficient number of Assembly votes to produce the two thirds majority required for admitting Communist China to UN membership. The bloody shambles in East and Central Africa makes it impossible to conceal any longer the real nature of a considerable proportion of the UN members.

What is the U.S. Government going to do, now, about the UN? Lyndon Johnson is a man who has made his way by sliding around, between, over and under problems rather than by meeting them squarely. But some problems are too stubborn, thorny or massive to evade. Besides, Mr. Johnson now has the country’s interests as well as his own political career to think of.