Americans upset by U.N. actions

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33741, 14 January 1975, Page 13

Americans upset by U.N. actions

(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright)

NEW YORK, January. 13.

Recent actions at the United Nations, where the United States gave a warning last month against “a tyranny of the majority,” have prompted thousands of American citizens to write letters expressing disillusion with the world organisation. Protests have been received al the United Nations Secretariat, the New York office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific arid Cultural Organisation, the. United States mission, and the United Nations Association.

Since December 6, when the chief American delegate, Mr John Scali, warned the General Assembly that support for the United Nations in Congress and among the American people was eroding, the mission has received several thousand letters.

“The letters are coming in from a’l over the country, from all kinds of people,” said Mr Courtney Shelton, a press spokesman, adding that at the last count they were running 55 to 1 in favour of the Scali speech.

Since November, when Israel was excluded from U.N.E.S.C.O.’s regional groupings, letters are said to have been arriving at the American committee’s offices at the rate of 100 a day. Mr David Sureck, a press spokesman, said that the office had requested help from the agency’s Paris headquarters to reply. “The mail received at U.N.E.5.C.0.,” Mr Sureck said, “seems to reflect a disenchantment with the organisation, saying that it was formed to set up peace and has now become counterproductive.” At the United Nations secretariat, an official has

been assigned to deal with the more than 5000 letters that have been received there about the appearance before the General Assembly by Mr Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and about the two resolutions regarding the Palestinians that the Assembly adopted. One granted the guerrilla organisation observer status; the other declared that the Palestinian people had a right to return to their former homes in Israeli-held territory. The letters were said to have come from all over the United States and from Americans abroad.