Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Well, of course, first of all, that is cor-
rect; it is also the case that we are only one of 158 members of the
United Nations, and we can hardly reasonably expect that the or-
ganizations simply follow our practices. I may say that the Soviet
representative has commented to me that U.N. salaries are even
still more higher as compared to Soviet salaries than they are as
compared to American Government salaries, because our govern-
ment salaries are somewhat higher than theirs.

I think we could not expect that the United Nations would
simply follow our own programs. Initially there was a theory the
United Nations should try to attract the best people in the world to
compete with the national bureaucrats. It should pay something
above what the national bureaucracies paid. I think that most em-
ployees of the national bureaucracy today feel that the United Na-
tions pays too much more than their own national bureaucracy.
Certainly all of the nations who are the major contributors feel
that way.



71

Mr. Solomon. Well, I for one, would appreciate it if you could
furnish for the record some accurate and documented statistics
showing these salary levels. ' I think that is important for Members
of Congress to know, because there is no question but that the
Kassebaum amendment is going to come before the House, and
there are many of us who sympathize with that amendment.

However, we might want to take an approach, about which you
have mentioned several alternatives in categorizing what cuts we
might make. Certainly it is going to be a question before this
House and it is going to receive very strong consideration, not only
from myself but probably the majority of the Congress.

Let me just ask you, you were talking about a number of agen-
cies, and I don't want to put you on the spot, but we know the
problems that we have had with UNESCO and with what they are
trying to do with the press.

In your own personal opinion, not speaking for the administra-
tion, could you tell me whether or not we should withdraw from
UNESCO and could you just explain your position on that?

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Congressman Solomon, my personal
opinion is that UNESCO is today pursuing a great many policies
and programs which are in very powerful contradiction to the pur-
poses and values for which it was established and which are also
not consistent with American values.

Let me give you a single example. UNESCO was the first organi-
zation which legislated, as it were, policies that discriminated seri-
ously against Israel and decreed that Israel should not benefit, in
fact, from UNESCO programs. This is discriminatory, it violates
the principle of universality.

UNESCO has for a number of years had a range of activities
which are really very damaging to a free press, I think. And one of
its principal purposes is to promote the free exchange of ideas and
information, in other words, strengthen and promote a free press
in the world, but a great many of its activities have in fact had the
opposite effects.

Now, I don't know whether you noticed in this morning's New
York Times there is a story of an international news and editorial
group meeting in Paris, I think it was today, which has expressed
its very deep continuing concern about the extent to which
UNESCO is imposing obstacles to a free press, particularly for
news gathering in so-called Third World countries.

In addition to that, UNESCO has been really of all the United
Nations agencies the least concerned about everybody's concerns
about trying to bring the budget under control. Their budget has
grown more rapidly than almost any other agency's with less good
excuse, I may say, or reason.

I know also that when the ILO for a period — International Labor
Organization — was in its functioning essentially betraying the pur-
poses for which it was established, the American labor representa-
tives, representing AFL-CIO, took the initiative in really bringing
about United States withdrawal from the ILO. The United States
stayed out of the ILO for several years, and I think that had a
rather salutary effect, quite frankly.



1 See appendix 5.



72

So I suppose when I look at that all together, I think it might
make sense for the United States to withdraw from the UNESCO
for a while, at least, maybe forever. But as long as the functions of
UNESCO are as incompatible with the purposes for which it was
established and basic constitutional principles of the United States,
I think I guess we don't belong to there. It is hard for me to justify
in my own thinking the U.S. contributions of $50 million a year to
that organization.

Mr. Solomon. Just in closing, I thank you, Madame Ambassador.
I go back to this statement that was made that our gross national
product in comparison to other countries. You know if we look at it
across the board, we are forced to spend more on defense than we
should.

We spend a great deal more than all the other countries when it
comes to humanitarian needs of our people and, therefore, we
cannot always be the leader in everything. When we see fiscal mis-
management such as we have in the United Nations, whether we
support the concept or not, we certainly have to take actions that
will force them to be fiscally responsible, and we intend to do that.
It may not necessarily be through the Kassebaum amendment.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. May I just add there, please, that we
also have much larger bilateral economic assistance programs than
many other nations.

Mr. Solomon. I had forgotten to mention that, and I thank you
for doing it.

Mr. Yatron. The gentleman from California, Mr. Levine.

Mr. Levine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick, I would like to follow up several ele-
ments of your testimony that I am still not entirely clear on. The
first one to a certain extent falls onto some of the questions of Con-
gressman Solomon with regard to fiscal management and some of
your statements with regard to the U.N. budget being out of con-
trol, as I understand them.

It seems to me that whether the budget is out of control is a sub-
jective statement to a certain extent. There is no fixed standard for
what is in control and what is out of control.

I think it is clear that during part of that past 10 years, if not
most of it, there has been a very significant expansion of the
budget. But according to figures which we were supplied by the
State Department recently, for the next fiscal year, I understand
that the figures are as follows — and I would appreciate it if you
correct me if I am wrong — that the United Nations is slated for the
next fiscal year to have a seventh-tenths of 1 percent real growth
in its budget; the ILO less than 2 percent; FAO, one-half of 1 per-
cent, and WHO actually lower.

I guess my questions are: (a) Are those figures accurate, and (b) if
so, isn't that a good response by the United Nations and its agen-
cies to the allegation that the budget is out of control?

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Congressman Levine, I would like to
respond two ways. I hope I emphasized in my statement that we
have been trying hard in conjunction with a good many of our col-
leagues, including the Eastern bloc countries; two, that the Secre-
tary General was trying hard; three, that none of this combination
had yet succeeded.



73

The sense in which I referred to the U.N. budget being out of
control was I would like to suggest technical and literal. I meant to
suggest that it is out of control in the specific sense that nobody
controls it except the shifting majority in the General Assembly.
The reason I mentioned the budget process, the fact that there is a
budget drawn up by the Secretariat, on the basis of the recommen-
dations from the various agencies with input, it is reviewed by
member states and ACABQ [Advisory Committee on Administra-
tive and Budgetary Questions] and it goes through a multireview
process and is finally adopted in the end by a vote of the plenary
and the General Assembly.

Between the time the budget is adopted or the budget is drawn
up and recommended by the Secretariat and the time it is finally
adopted, a lot of things happen to it. One of the things that hap-
pens to it is that resolutions are adopted — as the General Assembly
develops; we are just now beginning this General Assembly.

As the General Assembly goes on, resolutions will be proposed
for a lot of activities which are not foreseen by the budget, by the
committees drawing up the budget. Those resolutions may have
fiscal implications, we call it in U.N. language.

There is a rule now that was inaugurated by the Secretary Gen-
eral that every resolution must have its fiscal implications made
manifest before it is adopted, how much it is going to cost, in other
words. Usually it costs quite a bit and very frequently nobody cares
much, and so this is what I meant by the add-on process.

There is a process, a rational budgeting, in which the Secretariat
and most of the members who are major contributors may have
made a very large effort to bring under control, but because there
is add-on budgeting, as it were, on a kind of ad hoc basis, as the GA
(General Assembly) continues, it keeps spiraling upward and
upward. Nobody has any notion at any stage in the GA what the
final total is likely to be or how what is being adopted on a Thurs-
day relates to what will be done the next Wednesday. It is just
added on.

Those figures which you have reflect the efforts of the Secretar-
iat before this add-on process begins.

Mr. Levine. This is before the add-on process, so then as I under-
stand your testimony, whatever dollar amount is arrived at, at a
particular time, is simply a floor.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. That is right.

Mr. Levine. And depending upon what happens during this add-
on process, there could be an infinite expansion of the budget.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. That is right.

Mr. Levine. Is there any budgeting within the add-on process?

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. No; then there is never any subtrac-
tion. This is literally what I mean. In political science, we regularly
describe budget processes like this as being uncontrolled budgeting
basically. There is no comprehensive look because nobody knows
what resolutions the various committees are going to recommend
finally when they report. Resolutions are first adopted in the com-
mittees, they may be amended on the floor of the plenary, and
nobody has a picture of the whole.



32-616 0-84



74

The request that every resolution have financial implications ap-
pended to it was an effort in this direction, and it was a good step
in this direction.

Mr. Levine. When did that begin?

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Some years ago. The position that we
in the United States took last year was that we would, unless there
is an overriding national interest to the contrary, we would vote
against any resolution which raised costs unless the resolution also
provided that those costs should be funded at existing program
levels.

Mr. Levine. Do you know the extent to which in the add-on proc-
ess over the course of the past 2 or 3 years the budget has been
increased?

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. We did in fact a specific analysis of
that last year at U.S. mission to the United Nations, and I am not
sure I remember the exact figures. I can supply that to you. We did
that analysis. I would rather not trust my memory.

Mr. Levine. I think it would be helpful to the committee if I
might request two things from you for the record.

One would be the extent to which the budget has been increased
through the add-on process for whatever years you have that infor-
mation available; and, second, whether you could provide for the
record a chart detailing U.N. growth over each of the last 10 years
and also personnel growth over each of the last 10 years.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. We can try.

Mr. Levine. Thank you.

[The information follows:]



75

Addons to the United Nations Budget



Millions

I. Biennuim 1978-79:

Secretary General's initial estimate $775.2

Recommended deletions by ACABQ —26.0

749.2
General Assembly changes during biennium: nondiscretionary 104.7

(13.97 percent); discretionary 39.4 (5.26 percent) 144.1

Final net appropriation 893.3

II. Biennium 1980-81:

Secretary General 993.1

Recommended deletions by ACABQ —24.2

968.9
General Assembly changes during biennium: nondiscretionary 68.5 (7.07
percent); discretionary 57.5 (5.93 percent) 126.0

Final net appropriations 1,094.9

III. Biennium 1982-83:

Secretary General's initial estimate 1,251.4

Recommended deletions by ACABQ —43.7

1,207.7
General Assembly changes during biennum: nondiscretionary —75.3

( — 6.23 percent); discretionary 83.5 (6.91 percent) 8.2

Current net appropriation ' 1,215.9

1 Additional changes may be made in course of current General Assembly.

U.N. GROWTH AND PERSONNEL GROWTH, 1974-83



Year



Number ol
members



Number of

established

posts



1974

1975.

1976

1977.

1978

1979

1980

1981.

1982.

1983



138


9,372


144


9.586


147


10,243


149


10.352


151


10,725


152


10,695


154


11,214


157


11,371


157


11.580


158


11,722



Mr. Levine. In response to the letter that the chairman read to
you from the Acting Secretary, among other things, you said that
you didn't think, or at least I thought you said you didn't think our
voting rights were likely to be jeopardized. Was I correct?

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Yes, sir.

Mr. Levine. What do you think would be the likely reaction in
the United Nations if the Kassebaum amendments were passed?

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Well, I think if it were to pass in its
current form, quite frankly, it would be very negative. That is, I
don't like to criticize proposals of Members of the Congress, least of
all Members of the Congress whom I respect and like, quite frank-
ly, but I think there is one aspect of that amendment which would



76

be particularly negative, and it is the part B that requires that any
payment we paid would be accepted as payment in full.

That really, I think, would be regarded there as a serious effort
at infringing the self-governing qualities, capacities, of the United
Nations. I think it would be regarded as fiscal blackmail of an un-
acceptable sort. I also believe it would be regarded as punitive in
that it would be regarded as punitive to the institutions, not puni-
tive, not an expression of U.S. disagreement or disapproval of this
or that activity, but as punitive to the institution, itself, because of
its across-the-board nonprogrammatic character.

Mr. Levine. You were getting into my followup question, which
is the difference in the reaction between your proposal and the
Kassebaum proposal. I take it you believe that there would be a
significant difference in the reaction at the United Nations be-
tween the proposal that is across the board dealing with the insti-
tution, and a proposal such as the one that you have outlined,
which would be programmatic?

And if you do, I assume you do feel that way, why would the re-
action differ?

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I think, first of all, if the United
States were to, if the U.S. Congress were to cut the United States
contributions to the independent agencies, the so-called voluntary
contributions, this would be regretted by our colleagues in the
United Nations, but it would be regarded first as wholly within the
right of the U.S. Government and raising no question of obligation
or legality whatever.

Now, if we were to cut, simply reject, unilaterally our 25-percent
obligation as such, that is to reject the right of the United Nations
to set levels of assessment for its members, basically that is what
that would constitute, and I think that is a very profound chal-
lenge again to the organizations, self-governing organizations
would be regarded as such and deeply resented as such by everyone
virtually.

There are, by the way, a number of fiscal and administrative
matters on which there is something called a permanent member's
convention — permanent member's convention — which includes So-
viets and Chinese and British and French, and we cooperate really
quite closely with the Soviets on a range of administrative and
fiscal matters.

So, I mentioned that to express the fact that there is broad con-
census in the United Nations on a number of these basic fiscal and
administrative questions, including the right of the United Nations
to set assessments. I think it would be widely felt that if we were
going to contest the assessments, we should do so — first at least try
it within the organization, which we have not done in recent years,
and before the Congress acted simply to arbitrarily limit our con-
tributions across the board.

I think that if we were to cut our contribution elsewhere on
grounds of principal disagreement with activities that that would
be regretted, it would be criticized, but it would be understood and
not as an attack on the organization, as such.

Mr. Levine. I think that the outrageous conduct which you have
outlined that is pursued by UNESCO and which is understood by
the broad bipartisan cross-section of Congress to be every bit as



77

outrageous as you have outlined, it is something a number of us
would like to feel we could have an impact in terms of responding
to.

Is there anything you think the Congress could do that would be
constructive in this area, and are there areas separate and apart
from the fiscal areas that might be a constructive means of pursuit
with regard to fiscal areas, with response to activities such as the
ones that you have outlined?

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Congressman, I would like to say, if I
recall, I do not have any formal responsibility for U.S. participa-
tion in UNESCO, and there is a committee inside the State Depart-
ment, I am not even certain that it is an interagency committee —
certainly it is an intradepartment committee I think — which has
been examining the question of U.S. participation in UNESCO.

I can say to you, though, since it is a U.N. agency, it is discussed
a good deal in New York, as well, and a good many of our closest
allies are as revolted virtually by the UNESCO behavior as we are,
and we have been working quite closely with them.

I think if Congress is seriously interested in this matter, first
they would be well-advised to elicit testimony from Assistant Secre-
tary Newell and whoever is chairing that committee and perhaps
from our Ambassador, Jean Girard, on it. I would like very much,
quite frankly, to see Congress take a more active interest in
UNESCO and the U.S. contribution to UNESCO. I think there is a
serious question about the morality frankly of a major contribution
which we make to the activities that that organization actually
conducts.

Mr. Levine. I have just one other question, and that is this. In
making judgments that we must make with regard to U.N. fund-
ing, I think an understanding of those judgments has to do with
our general view of the value that the United Nations continues to
have as an instrument of foreign policy for this Government and
for other governments, but obviously primarily for this Govern-
ment.

In the recent past, we have heard so much criticism and so much
condemnation, I was wondering, as our Ambassador to the United
Nations, if you might be able to spend a moment or two outlining
to this subcommittee the continuing value that you believe the
United Nations has and the positive aspects that it continues to
have over our foreign policy.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I would be happy to do that, Congress-
man.

I might preface it by saying I very often do that in public places,
too, but it never makes the news media.

Mr. Levine. It doesn't seem to, that is true.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick. But, in fact, the public record is quite
clear on it.

I believe that, first of all, that the large majority of the independ-
ent agencies of the United Nations, the humanitarian and scientif-
ic agencies — several of which I already mentioned, UNHCR,
UNDP, UNICEF, WHO— these perform very, very valuable func-
tions which the world needs performing and offer exactly the kind
of humanitarian and scientific functions which Americans and



78

American taxpayers and legislators have always been interested in
supporting and certainly should be, in my opinion, today.

And I may say that U.S. contributions to those agencies have in-
creased in the years that I have been associated with the United
Nations.

I could go into detail about the extraordinary work of the High
Commissioner on Refugees whose camps I have visited. For exam-
ple, on the Thai-Cambodia border, Pakistan-Afghanistan border,
where there is 3 million Afghanistan refugees; on the border be-
tween El Salvador and Honduras I visited a camp with 6,000 Salva-
dorian refugees.

I would like to say simply that the work of UNHCR is, as I have
seen it, just deeply effective, moving and necessary. I think that
the UNICEF success in utilizing the technology of modern nutri-
tion and medicine to virtually eradicate malnutrition and child-
hood diseases in a good many areas is stunning.

I think, by the way, that the World Health Organization, whose
work I have already mentioned several times, is a very good exam-
ple of what kinds of constructive tasks nations can accomplish if
they will cooperate with each other instead of in fact worrying
with one another. They are all kinds of historic scourges of man-
kind, like plague, TB, diptheria, and polio which have been virtual-
ly eliminated; small pox has been virtually eliminated from the
face of the Earth in significant measure through the harnessing by
WHO modern medical technology, so forth and so on.

I think that with regard to basic core institutions of the United
Nations, the Security Council and the General Assembly, that is
where we encounter the problems, of course. The peacekeeping op-
erations that the United Nations carries out in Cyprus and in
Golan and in Lebanon I think are positive, constructive, successful
by and large in the sense that what they do is serve as a buffer
between warring groups with their consent.

I wish today, very much, that we could move U.N. observers into
the Shouf in the larger area around Beirut. Syria and the Soviets
are unfortunately blocking that so far. I think the U.N. observers
do a first-class job in that peacekeeping field. I think the Security
Council has been unfortunately very deeply hampered by the
actual divisions in the world, political divisions in the world, super-
power rivalry it is called there. The Secretary General's reports
have been a valuable contribution to facing these problems.

I believe, and I have said in many public places, that the United
States and our best friends in the other democracies were some-
what remiss in the last decade in permitting some patterns of poli-
tics to develop in the General Assembly and Security Council
which were hostile to democratic values and interests, but I think
we are making progress in restoring those, and I think it is very
important to continue working to that end.

Mr. Levine. I appreciate that answer. I know that I, for one, find
myself at times exasperated and infuriated by what I read comes
out of the United Nations, and yet I try to remember a lot of the
things that you just reminded us of in your response to my last
question.

I think it is useful during some of the times of consternation that
we all have to remember these extremely positive humanitarian



79

multinational successes that have continued to come out of the
United Nations and for whom our contribution is absolutely essen-
tial.

Mr. Yatron. Mr. Lantos.

Mr. Lantos. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick, at the beginning of this hearing I ac-
cused you of integrity, intelligence, effectiveness, and eloquence,
and one of the qualities that I haven't yet mentioned has been your
candor in dealing with and in the United Nations.

I would like to explore the role of candor on the part of the U.S.
representative in that body.

It seems to me as a student of the United Nations, since its
founding, that both you and Ambassador Moynihan brought a
degree of candor to our dealings with the United Nations which
was enormously refreshing, and while many have viewed it as
being hostile to the United Nations, in my judgment this candor
was designed to restore to whatever extent it is feasible the moral
authority of the United Nations because, glossing over outrages