VALUE OF U.N.

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28234, 23 March 1957, Page 11

VALUE OF U.N.

American’s Tribute (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 21. A top United Nations official said today that Britain, France and Israel threatened the start of World War 111 when thye went into Egypt last year. The official, Mr Andrew Cordier, executive assistant to the Secre-tary-General, said that there could be no doubt that the United Nations by its action saved the world from such a war conflagration. Mr Cordier, told some 200 editors frgjn the National Edi-tojfial—--Association that Israel. ‘■Britain and France “decided to do it the hard way” after the United Nations had come “very, very

close” to a solution of the Suez Canal controversy. “An attempt was made to settle the Suez crisis outside the United Nations,” Mr Cordier said. “Then it was brought to the United Nations in a rather half-hearted way. “The United Nations came very, very close indeed to a settlement of the issue.” President Eisenhower was justi- • fied in declaring in a radio and ! television broadcast last October • that he had good news for the 1 world about the Suez situation, 1 Mr Cordier said. 1 The President’s optimism was ; based on the “success registered in 5 this house (United Nations head- [ quarters), on the 38th floor” ? where Mr Hammarskjold had engaged in a series of conferences with the Foreign Ministers of I Israel, Britain and France. , “But certain countries decided 5 to do it the hard way, to fight 1 about it,” he said. “That decision M —lsrael being joined by Britain ; and France in the invasion of J Egypt—forced the crisis upon the United Nations.”

Mr Hammarskjold was now devoting much of his time on his visit to the Middle East to the Suez Canal. He was also in the Middle East to discuss freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, the Gaza Strip, and relations between Israel and Egypt generally, Mr Cordier said. “The role of the United Nations has been indispensable,” be went on. “The role that the United States has played has been a decisive role of leadership, so pronounced as to assure the success of the role of the United Nations.” Mr Cordier, who is a United States citizen, concluded; “The United Nations has been—and I am speaking as an American—the best dollar-for-dollar investment in public funds, taking it over the whole range of public investments, in the United States.”