Danger for UNESCO

The United Nations usually junks its most important work under reams of verbiage, making constructive action almost impossible. For with each nation measuring all proposals with its own political yardstick, agreement has run second best to propaganda. Unlike the Security Council, however, the smaller, more specialized United Nations commissions have turned out solid achievement through negotiation. Among such groups is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, which, because of the non-political nature of its delegates, has reached broad agreement on many projects. Typical of its accomplishments is the new European Organization for Nuclear Research, to be completed next year, which will offer Europe's scientists a unified laboratory comparable to any in America.

But the United States now proposes to change UNESCO into a political body by making all delegates directly responsible to their national governments. Pointing to the Soviet bloc, whose representatives can hardly claim ideological independence, this country is now demanding its own cipher in UNESCO debates.

From a political standpoint, such a move is unnecessary. The Russians could never push Communist leaf-lets through UNESCO presses. The West has an over-whelming majority in the group, and even with the most rigid discipline, Communist delegates could not control policy. Nor need the West counter any propaganda seeping in from Moscow. Working in the cultural field, UNESCO offers little opportunity for the sensationalism which marks General Assembly debates. Partisan speeches on non-political subjects have held little interest for the global audience.

Yet if implemented, the new plan would swing delegates' attention from constructive action to the petty intrigue of national rivalry. For, while an individual can make the concessions necessary to reach agreement on issues, the same grants would mean loss of face to a national representative. Although spokesmen for Moscow now pattern their views on the narrow interests of their particular countries, this minority of bound votes is too small to effect the group's supranational outlook. In seeking to bind all of the delegates to national interests, the United States may be stifling one of the UN's most effective commissions.