An important requirement for getting results from international organizations is effective participation in their conferences and meetings. At the United Nations in 1962 there were 100 items on the agenda. Since there were 110 members, each with one vote, these agenda items called for a minimum of 11,000 votes. It was the job of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, supported in Washington by the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, to see to it that as many as possible of those votes were consistent with U.S. interests.

Last year the U.S. Government was sending out working delegations to new international conferences at the rate of more than one every day. Assistant Secretary Harlan Cleveland has said that "without the international conference modern diplomacy would be as clumsy as mathematics without the zero."

The 2,786 persons who represented the United States at these conferences were drawn from the following

sources:

State Department and Foreign Service...

Other Government Depart

ments

Congress Public

Preparing for and carrying on conferences presents real challenges to efficient administration, with a vast multitude of detailed arrangements to be made. Our record on this score is good. Although the total number of conferences and delegates

"At a minimum, it would seem that we in the United States should continue the policy of preserving and strengthening the United Nations unless and until a tenable alternative is invented."

-From a report on the 17th U.N. General Assembly by U.S. delegates Senator Albert Gore (Democrat, Tenn.) and Senator Gordon Allott (Republican, Colo.).

HARLAN CLEVELAND, Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, 45; dean of Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 1956-61; executive editor and publisher of The Reporter magazine; assistant director, Mutual Security Agency; executive assistant, Economic Cooperation Administration; director of China program of U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Agency, UNRRA deputy chief of mission in Rome; Allied Control Commission in Rome; Rhodes scholar; graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Princeton; born New York City.

Bipartisan Report

". . . All too often the United Nations is attacked as if it were a creator, and not a reflector, of world realities. All too often the U.N. Secretariat erroneously is condemned as if it were wholly independent of the views and control of the member countries. All too often the critics in this country use the U.N. as a means of disguising the fact that they are really assaulting the policies of the U.S. Government.

ADLAI E. STEVENSON, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, 63; Democratic candidate for President in 1952 and 1956; Governor of Illinois, 1949-53; appointed special assistant to Secretary of State to assist in preparation of the U.N. Organization, 1945; senior adviser to U.S. delegation at the first meeting of the General Assembly in 1946; delegate to the General Assembly, 1946 and 1947; special assistant to Secretary of Navy, 1941-44; partner, law firm, 1935-41; special counsel, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 1933– 34; assistant managing editor, newspaper, 1924-25; apprentice seaman in U.S. Naval Reserve, 1918; A.B., Princeton; J.D., Northwestern; born Los Angeles, Calif.

and few people will ever forget the embarrassed refusal of the Soviet delegate-Valerian Zorin-to answer Ambassador Stevenson's demand that he deny the existence of Soviet missiles and sites in Cuba.

There was no escape for Mr. Zorin from the evidence presented by the U.S. Mission-detailed photographs conclusively proving the existence of both missiles and sites-and the world listened attentively as Ambassador Stevenson stated:

"We know the facts and so do you, sir, and we are ready to talk about them. Our job is not to score debating points. Our job, Mr. Zorin, is to save the peace. And if ready to try, we are."

you are

Then followed protracted discussion by President Kennedy's team of negotiators, headed by Ambassador Stevenson, with special Soviet envoys-Mikoyan, Kuznetsov, and Zorin-that resulted in the removal of the offensive weapons whose existence threatened not only the United States but all of the Americas.

DISARMAMENT AND TESTING

A notable achievement of the 16th General Assembly (1961-62) was endorsement of an agreement on a set of principles for general and complete disarmament in a peaceful world. But while some progress was made, not enough progress was made toward translating these agreed principles into an agreed plan of action for moving in stages toward these objectives.

At that General Assembly session

the United States outlined its approach to general and complete disarmament in a peaceful world. It introduced subsequently to the 18nation disarmament conference at Geneva an elaborated version of this program. Among other things, this plan called for international inspection by a U.N. agency to verify compliance with the terms of the agreement by the participating powers. So far, little progress has been made toward achieving even limited agreements with the U.S.S.R.

The United States has also directed its efforts to a halt in the testing of all nuclear weapons. Again we urged, along with our negotiating partner, the United Kingdom, acceptance by the Soviet Union of effective inspection safeguards to insure against secret underground testing. On this question the U.S.S.R. has been reluctant to agree.

However, during 1962 and on into the new year active discussions on disarmament and testing have been conducted in Geneva.

CHINESE REPRESENTATION

The annual campaign by the U.S.S.R. to bring Communist China into the United Nations and to evict the Republic of China, one of the founding members, was defeated in 1962 even more emphatically than in the previous year. The vote was 56 against, 42 for, with 12 abstentions, as compared with 48 against, 36 for, and 20 abstentions in 1961.

Representatives of eight newly independent French-speaking African

nations changed their votes from "abstention" in 1961 to "against" in 1962.

During 1962 the threat of war was averted in Southeast Asia between the Netherlands and Indonesia over West New Guinea. Negotiations to resolve the issue peaceably were facilitated by the U.N. Secretary-General with the backing of U.N. members including the United States. A distinguished American diplomat, Ellsworth Bunker, came out of retirement to aid Secretary-General U Thant by acting as intermediary in helping the two nations to settle the dispute.

The peacekeeping machinery of the United Nations was invaluable also in the Congo. The United States has been a stanch supporter of U.N. policy in that new African nation. Following requests from the Government of the Congo for help, a series of resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly had given to the U.N. Secretary-General a large mandate: to restore order, to prevent civil war, to rid the Congo of foreign mercenaries, and to assure the territorial integrity of the Congo. By the end of 1962 these jobs were well on their way to completion.

In the early days of Congolese independence, the Soviet Union hoped for a Communist takeover in the dis

ordered new nation and sought to encourage it by sending in large numbers of Soviet-bloc personnel and material. When this attempt was thwarted by U.N. action in the Congo, the U.S.S.R. determined to destroy the U.N. Secretariat which had frustrated its aims. To do this, it introduced its so-called "troika" proposal, under which the U.N. executive staff would have been headed by a three-member directorate, representing the Communist bloc, the Western alliance, and the neutrals, respectively. The Soviet action was based on the doctrinaire Communist slogan: "If you cannot dominate a parliament, destroy it." The purpose was to diffuse power, to water down the role of the Secretary-General, and to destroy the "international civil service" concept of the Secretariat.

This effort was opposed by the United States and was finally defeated. After being elected in 1961 as Acting Secretary-General-with no strings attached to his authorityto fill out the term of the late Dag Hammarskjold, U Thant was elected in 1962 as Secretary-General in his own right. Both votes were unanimous. The independence and integrity of the Office of Secretary-General and of the Secretariat-as clearly stated in articles 99, 100, and 101 of the charter-were thereby preserved.

OUTER SPACE

The 16th General Assembly's unanimous endorsement in late 1961 of President Kennedy's four-point program of space cooperation under