The United Nations and the United States

     Miles Seeley says "It astounds me that Jesse Helms was invited to speak to the UN. Who asked him? His views are well known and his speech no surprise. He belongs to an era most of us hoped was long gone, that of Southern Senators whose hearts belonged on pre-Civil War plantations. I cannot believe the Administration wanted this. The damage could be considerable."
     As the posting said, it apparently was Richard Holbrooke, president this month of the Security Council, who invited him. As an administration appointee, he must have consulted Madeleine Albright, who must have consulted President Clinton. Perhaps they were trying to tell the world that Helms was the problem, which he is. Helms said that the U.S. would withdraw from the U.N. unless the conditions he specified were met. He referred to his predecessor as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee Henry Cabot Lodge, who blocked the U.S. joining the League of Nations. Helms said that Lodge's 14 points were reasonable and that Wilson was unreasonable in rejecting them. The implication was that his own conditions were reasonable, while critics were as obtuse as Wilson. Politics!
     WAISers do not seem to like Jesse Helms. Robert Gard writes: When the Republicans won the Congress and appointed committee chairs, by no means always according to seniority, it was incomprehensible to me that Helms was named as chair of Foreign Relations. He's a disgrace."

Ronald Hilton - 1/21/00