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The Lessons of History
JEANE KIRKPATRICK
Appointed US permanent representative to the UN by Reagan in January 1981, the first woman to serve as UN ambassador. He called her 'a giant among diplomats of the world).
In those years the United Nations, the world really, was sharply divided on virtually every issue, virtually every question that was brought before the United Nations found the United States on one side and the Soviet Union on the other . . . you know the Soviet Union was the great power in the UN.
The Soviet Union had very skilfully organised the United Nations and their supporters in the United Nations. They were much stronger and much more skilful in operating there than the US or any of the democracies.
And how important a factor was the veto in the paralysis you seem to be suggesting that made it so difficult to get the institution working.
Let me just say that I didn't mean to be suggesting paralysis as much as confrontation although ultimately that translated into paralysis I will agree with that. . . .The veto was not often used in those years but it was used, on the other hand, from time to time.
It is important to remember that when the United Nations was founded the founders thought and political scientists observing it ever since have thought that its organisation reflected two principles: it reflected the principle of equality on the one hand and a power on the other and the veto which was given to the principle powers at the time the UN was founded represented the principle of power and I don't think you could have a political institution which didn't have, which didn't accommodate if you will the realities of power as well as such principles as equality.
Is there an argument for saying that the United Nations was in fact quite successful during the Cold War period because it contained it. It sat on things like a great big wet blanket and kept the fires under control while the Soviet Union quietly rotted from within.
Well I never thought of it quite that way.
Do you think there is any merit to that argument?
I've thought quite a lot about how rarely the United States was engaged in actual fighting wars during the period of the Cold War. . .We were very careful in dealing with the Soviet Union because we knew that they had these enormous . . . quantities of nuclear weapons, all ready to be aimed at us as well as the capitals of every European power, every European democracy and we thought they were dangerous.
We thought that at the time of the Cuban missile crisis and we thought that at many subsequent occasions and so we dealt with them very very carefully.
Now the United Nations was the arena in which this activity took place.
I think it is very important to always be clear that it was not the United Nations acting that solved the problem in the Cold War it was the United Nations providing an arena, an orderly arena in which the principle powers and everybody else could in fact meet with one another, argue and explain and try to deal with questions and I think it was useful as such but I don't think it was useful as a problem solving institution.
It is not the business of the United Nations to solve problems, it is the business of the powers to solve problems but it is absolutely essentially to have an arena in which they can do so or try to do so.
To the extent that it did provide a forum in which people could talk to each other, you think it did have a value despite the fact that its operations were so infected by the confrontation between the two sides?
I do.
You know I had only one case of an instance in which I felt there was something good being done by co-operation among the principle powers including the US and the Soviet Union in the UN and with the participation of the UN and that was in my, in four and a half years at the UN, it was the terrible dreadful Ethiopian famine, the Ethiopian famine was so bad and creating such devastation that for some reason in any case the US and the Soviet Union were able to co-operate with one another along with a good many other countries including the UK and France and Poland and others but principally the US and the Soviet Union were able to deal with one another and work out arrangements for collecting and delivering great quantities of food very rapidly to the Ethiopians and there is no doubt that some real good was done in that. . . .
People have talked during the recent crisis over Iraq in terms of the Security Council being able to confirm legitimacy on international action. Do you think that idea had any meaning during the Cold War years?
No and I don't think it has much meaning today if I may put it so bluntly.
You know in the United States we declared our independence from Great Britain with a declaration of independence and that declaration of independence which was written by Thomas Jefferson contains our doctrine of legitimacy and it says, I'll remind you, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To protect these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That is our American doctrine of legitimacy. It's also the British doctrine of legitimacy.
What makes government legitimate and the decisions of governments legitimate is the consent of the government.
The Americanise have never endowed the United Nations with some supreme legitimacy or capacity to confer legitimacy but every time I heard someone say something like that in the course of the last discussions I felt that it was a mistake and that it was very important that we Americans be clear ourselves and make clear to each other and to the world that that is not our doctrine of legitimacy.
So to that extent the power of the United Nations from your perspective is always going to be circumscribed?
It isn't power anyway.
The United Nations doesn't have power. It was not created to have power.
The United Nations has some capacity to serve some very important purposes in the world. That's different than power, governments have power.
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