1. “The Indispensable Role of the United Nations,” United Nations Review, vol. 4 (Oct. 1957), p. 16.

2. The UN political process has been described in greater detail elsewhere, but a brief recapitulation seems appropriate here. For fuller discussion see Robert E. Riggs, Politics in the United Nations (Urbana: U. of Illinois Press, 1958), pp. 11–44 and passim; James N. Hyde, “United States Participation in the United Nations,” International Organization, vol. 10 (Feb. 1956), pp. 22–34; Benjamin H. Brown and Joseph E. Johnson, “The U.S. and the UN,” Foreign Policy Association Headline Series, no. 107 (Sept.–Oct. 1954), esp. pp. 41–43.

3. Since 1953, when Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., became Permanent Representative, the precise administrative status of the mission has been somewhat anomalous. According to the organization chart, the mission head should be responsible to the Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the International Organization Bureau in the Department of State. However, because of Mr. Lodge’s special personal and political relationship with President Eisenhower, he was given quasi-cabinet status along with the UN job. Thus, while being nominally and for administrative purposes responsible to the bureau head, he has had a direct pipeline to the President as well.

4. UN Charter, Art. 2, sec. 7.

5. Ibid., Art. 12, sec. 1.

6. This was done in 1952 and again in 1956.

7. The first two special sessions, in 1947 and 1948, were “regular” special sessions called to discuss the fate of the British Palestine mandate. The last three have been “Special Emergency Sessions” convened by the Security Council under the terms of the Assembly’s 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution which makes the Assembly subject to call on 24 hours’ notice on a “procedural” vote of the Security Council. The first and second Special Emergency Sessions were held concurrently in November, 1956, to deal with the Suez and Hungarian crises. The most recent met in August, 1958, to discuss U.S. military intervention in Lebanon and other problems of the Middle East.

8. An example is the now-defunct United Nations Commission on Korea, which was performing an observational assignment in Korea at the time of the North Korean invasion. A more ambitious, but largely abortive, attempt, the Interim Committee of the Assembly, first established in 1947 as a general purpose committee of the full membership, remains officially in existence but still abortive, owing to a Soviet boycott. The Soviet Union regarded it, quite correctly, as an attempt to circumvent the veto-bound Security Council.

9. The committees are commonly designated numerically, e.g., First Committee, Second Committee, etc. By subject matter classification they are (1) the Political and Security Committee; (2) the Economic and Financial Committee; (3) the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee; (4) the Trusteeship Committee; (5) the Administrative and Budgetary Committee; and (6) the Legal Committee. The seventh committee is known as the Special Political Committee (prior to 1956 the Ad Hoc Political Committee).

10. Abstentions and absences are not counted in the computation of a two-thirds majority. Some types of “important” matters are specified in the Charter. The Assembly may designate others by a simple majority.

11. General Assembly Resolution 1143 (XII). See Official Records of the General Assembly, 12th sess., Plenary Meetings, pp. 369–70. South Africa was boycotting the Assembly in its annual protest against alleged interference in her internal affairs.

12. UN Yearbook, 1957, p. 76.

13. Official Records of the General Assembly, 12th sess., Plenary Meetings, p. 547.

14. One vote was lost to this bloc in 1958 when Syria and Egypt merged in the United Arab Republic.

15. The points at issue and the proposed resolutions were not precisely the same each year with each of the four questions, as the occasional unanimous agreement indicates. These four were selected, however, because they were perennial in which the issues did to a large extent remain homogeneous from year to year.

16. In 1956 the Hungarian representative was absent—hence the 8 opposing votes instead of 9.

17. UN Charter, Art. 28.

18. Ibid., Art. 25.

19. Issues not so vital to the United States might find different alignments. On admission of some new members and other issues, the United States has abstained, while friends and allies have voted with the Soviet Union.

20. Official Records of the General Assembly, 5th sess. 2d Committee, p. 61.

21. Only a simple majority is required for an ECOSOC decision.

22. Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 24th sess., p. 203.

23. See James N. Murray Jr., The United Nations Trusteeship System (Urbana: U. of Illinois Press, 1957), pp. 241–43.

Robert E. Riggs

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