INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS The dramatic highlight of the work of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs in the past year-as with more than one sister bureau in the State Department-was its involvement in the Cuba crisis. From mid-October on, lights burned late every night, 7 days a week, as the bureau worked to take advantage of the ways in which the United Nations could forward U.S. interests at this critical moment. For example, the United Nations was used as an international forum— when Ambassador Stevenson in the Security Council presented the case against the Russian buildup of offensive weapons in Cuba. To an overwhelming majority of those who listened and looked, the facts and photographs he offered were convincing proof. The United Nations also served as a "third man" for purposes of mediation and proved to be a useful channel of information between the two sides. The good offices of U.N. Secretary-General U Thant helped avoid a confrontation of military forces at sea, and his exchanges with the U.S., U.S.S.R., and Cuba helped to bring about the agreement on removing weapons from Cuba. The United Nations also facilitated the further negotiations over Cuba between the U.S. special representatives headed by John J. McClov and the Soviet special representative, V. V. Kuznetsov. President Kennedy has said many times that he is willing to make use of the United Nations as an action agency, as in his proposal to have it inspect and verify the removal of offensive weapons in Cuba. Premier Khrushchev has also shown willingness to use the United Nations in the same way, including acceptance of the United Nations as agent for verification of the removal of weapons from Cuba. While the Cuban crisis was demanding urgent attention at the United Nations, the Bureau of International Organization Affairs was simultaneously proceeding with its regular work of furthering the interests of the United States in the rest of the vast kaleidoscope of world forums. This bureau is charged with seeing to it that U.S. interests are properly represented-promoted when possible, protected when necessary-in the 73 international organizations and programs to which the U.S. Government makes annual contributions. In 1962 it contributed more than $300 million for these activities (these figures do not include the five international banking institutions to which the United States belongs). The responsibilities of the bureau have grown tremendously since 1946, when the number of international organizations and programs was 41 and U.S. contributions to them amounted to only $10.5 million. The largest international organization to which the United States belongs today is the United Nations with its total of 110 members-more than twice the number of nations which founded the Organization in San Francisco in 1945. Exemplifying the smaller international organizations of which the United States is a member are the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (other members: Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama), the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission (other members: Canada, Japan, U.S.S.R.), and the Caribbean Commission (other members: France, the Netherlands, United Kingdom). One of the most famous international bodies to which the U.S. belongs-at least among the readers of "whodunits"-is certainly INTERPOL, the International Criminal Police Organization. The range of activities of all the international organizations added together is encyclopedic: atomic energy, children's welfare, civil aviation, coffee, cotton, cultural affairs, disarmament, economic development, education, fish, furs, geography, history, health, hydrology, labor, lead, malaria, medical research, monetary affairs, navigation, narcotics control, nuclear weapons, pollution of oceans with oil, postal matters, radio frequencies, refugees, rubber, science and technology, seed testing, sugar, telecommunications, travel, weights and measures, whales, wheat, yellow fever, and zinc. The largest U.S. contribution to an international program in 1962 came to more than $100 million, for the U.N. operation in the Congo. The smallest contribution was slightly more than $1,000-our assessment for the International Seed Testing Association. Although over the years the actual amount of the U.S. contributions has gone up, our relative share of the total contributions has gone down for many organizations. For example, in 1946 our share of the total contributions to the United Nations was almost 40 percent. Today it is down to 32.02 percent. Our share of the contributions to the U.N. Expanded Technical Assistance Program has declined from a high of almost 61 percent down to the present 40 percent. No matter how large or how small, each of the international organizations or programs to which we belong is of value to the United States or we would not belong. |