Representative Pat Swindall (R-GA) is among a growing group of Congressmen who believe that now is the time for change at the United Nations. To give the American public the flavor of what is going on in the big glass building on the East River, Rep. Swindall asks a series of questions.
How can the leaders of this country continue to ask the American taxpayers to pay for 25 percent of the UN’s budget when the United States has only one vote out of 169 in UN budget decisions, and when the total financial contribution of 100 of the 169 UN members is less than 2 percent of the budget?
How can Members of Congress continue to ask the American taxpayers to pay for the salaries of Soviets working at the UN who, according to a 1985 report of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are required to turn over one-half of their paychecks to the Soviet KGB for operational espionage against the United States?
How can we continue to ask the American taxpayers to provide the money for the UN Fund for Population Activities which performs forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations in the People’s Republic of China?
How can we continue to ask the American taxpayers to finance the United Nations when it is so anti-Israel that the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization passed a resolution at its meeting in Mexico City calling for rewriting the Bible leaving out the role of the Jews?
Congressman Swindall is proposing a three-part program to change the most potentially harmful aspects of the United Nations. First, he has an amendment to cut the U.S. share of the budget of the UN Department of Public Information. Now financed largely by U.S. funds, this department acts more like a Soviet radio network. A General Accounting Office report proves that more than half of its entire output is biased against the United States.
This Department’s bias can be seen from a UN radio broadcast reporting a recent conference on South Africa. Supposedly giving us a full spectrum of American views, the radio presented Senator Ted Kennedy, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, and Angela Davis, the former vice presidential candidate of the Communist Party of the U.S.A.
So the Swindall amendment would eliminate the U.S. share of the UN Department of Public Information’s budget, or $7.5 million. That may not seem like a lot of money in an era when we toss billions around, but it is significant because the UN Department of Public Information beams radio broadcasts in 25 languages to 167 countries all over the world.
The second part of Congressman Swindall’s UN reform package uses the notion of “tough love” when making our foreign giveaway decisions. Swindall thinks that our love and generosity for foreign countries must be tempered with discipline. While Third World nations may threaten us with the loss of their love if we don’t give them all the cash and credits they demand, we must be willing to lose their love for our own and their own best interests. For example, Swindall thinks it is absurd and immoral to give $40 million a year to Mozambique, whose Communist dictator Samora Machel killed 70,000 people in re-education camps, who supports the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pol Pot and the PLO, and who votes against U.S. positions in the UN more than 90 percent of the time.
Congressman Swindall’s UN reform package would require the U.S. State Department to explain and justify the giving of foreign aid to those countries that vote against us in the UN.
The third part of Swindall’s UN reform package would cut the size of the Soviet Mission at the United Nations down to parity with the U.S. Mission. Even after President Reagan expelled some Russians, there are still 218 Soviet diplomats working full-time at the Soviet Mission at the United Nations in New York, whereas the United States, the host country, has only 126 officials!
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report 99-52 in 1985 concluded that the purpose of the excess number of Soviets is espionage and intelligence gathering. The FBI has stated that it is impossible to monitor effectively the activities of all Soviet officials stationed in New York.
When you examine the U.S.S.R.’s official Diplomatic “White List” (the official listing of Soviets who are in the United States), you discover that many of the staff who are classified as groundskeepers have two or three Ph.D.s from the University of Moscow. Curious, isn’t it?
Congressman Swindall’s three-part UN reform package would not only save the American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, but would also advance U.S. interests in world politics.
