Wanting U.N. In Europe

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31195, 20 October 1966, Page 17

Wanting U.N. In Europe

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) NEW YORK, October 19. An Arab delegate yesterday appealed for the removal of the United Nations headquarters to Europe. Mr Jamil Baroody, a Saudi Arabian delegate in the United Nations for 25 years, claimed that noise and foul air, racial discrimination, moral degeneracy and political pressures had made New York unsuitable as the United Nations site. Speaking in the Assembly’s Budgetary Committee, he urged the Secretary-General. U Thant, to drop plans to build a new annexe to help relieve the space problem confronting the existing headquarters. Mr Baroody said he had dis-

cussed the issue with delegates from 40 countries and high members of the United Nations secretariat. He said Switzerland and Austria were suitable sites for a new headquarters.

Manhattan, he said, had become a bedlam, with too much traffic, too much noise, too many crowds, dirty air, shortage of water and other ten-sion-raising factors which made it almost impossible for diplomats to carry on their duties.

“Diplomats must work in an atmosphere of calm and serenity,” he said. Violence and sex highlighted the atmosphere in New York City, he claimed, and the arrival of such phenomena as the topless waitress seemed inevitable.

“Imagine a topless waitress with bulging breasts coming to serve you. I, at 61, would not wish to eat my food,” Mr Baroody said. The major reason for locating the United Nations in the United States, to ensure American participation in the organisation, had been met, he told the committee today. “The U.S. is now one of the scions of the United Nations, one who preserves the United Nations,” Mr Baroody said.

He urged the delegates of 120 other member States to sound out their Governments on their attitude to his proposed resiting of the world body. Though not plumping for a specific alternative site, the first cities on his list were Geneva or Lausanne in neutral Switzerland.