issues coming up in the Assembly. This traffic often provided important information on current policy issues.

Fourth, each of the public delegates was assigned to a mission task force composed of a coordinating officer and several mission staff and set up to coordinate U.S. policy in each of the General Assembly's standing committees. We met frequently with our respective task forces to review the U.S. position, and to discuss policy alternatives and the U.S. statement on the upcoming issue.

Fifth, task force members accompanied us to our Committee meetings and arranged meetings with foreign delegates, Secretariat staff and representatives of the Western European and Other (WEO) group, the regional caucus in which the U.S. participates. Congressman Winn attended meetings of the Western European and Other (WEO) group every Wednesday morning at the Canadian mission to discuss the positions of various Western states on disarmament.

Sixth, participating in meetings of U.N. parliamentarians provided another way of being involved in the U.N. General Assembly matters. 35 to 40 U.N. member governments appoint Members of Parliament to their General Assembly delegations for anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks. On the initiative of the Australians, a group of parliamentarian-delegates from Australia, the United States, and from a number of African, Asian, Latin American, and Western European states meet once a week to discuss their role in the General Assembly and to exchange views on issues of mutual interest. Congressman Winn participated regularly in these meetings and his comments on them appear in "Supplementary Views" below.

Notwithstanding the efforts by the Department of State, the U.S. mission and others to involve us in U.S. policy on General Assembly issues, our primary role as delegates was representational and advisory. In contrast, we played a very modest role in policymaking. Certain institutional factors seemed to militate against our full involvement in making U.S. policy. First, U.S. policy decisions on U.N. issues are not made at the mission in New York, but by the Department of State in Washington, in some cases weeks in advance of the day the issue is discussed in the General Assembly or one of its committees, in other cases only hours before the issue is scheduled for debate. Thus, we generally read prepared speeches and cast votes according to instructions from Washington. Some statements arrived an hour or two before they were to be given, so there was little opportunity to change the statement. Others arrived several days in advance and could be discussed and altered within certain limits. If we disagreed with a particular policy statement, and there were such occasions, we had the options of seeking to alter it or of declining to give the statement in committee or plenary. We exercised both options.

Second, though we wore the hats of U.S. representatives for 3 months, we considered our primary responsibilities nevertheless to be Members of Congress and in turn to our constituents and to our legislative duties in the Congress. Our 3-month appointment as representatives was essentially "temporary" and as such too short a period perhaps to be involved with full policy-related responsibilities that are carried out daily by U.S./U.N. permanent mission staff. Yet, 3 months is a long time to play the primary role of representative and

adviser. We question therefore the need and usefulness of such a fulltime temporary assignment and make several recommendations on this point in our conclusion.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY ASSIGNMENTS

Our major General Assembly responsibilities included representing the United States in meetings of the plenary sessions and committees to which we were assigned.

PLENARY SESSIONS

During the first 3 weeks of the Assembly-the period of the "general debate" (September 24-October 13)-we "sat in the chair" for the United States. All together, 143 speakers addressed the Assembly during this time: 8 heads of state, 5 vice presidents, 1 deputy prime minister, 12 ministers, 101 foreign ministers, 2 vice foreign ministers, and 9 delegation chairmen. The highlights of this year's general debate included addresses by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, Mexican President Lopez Portillo, and the president of the Non-aligned Movement, Fidel Castro. Subsequently, we represented the United States at meetings of the plenary when issues of special interest came up, such as the pledging conference on Kampuchea, the question of the Middle East, the election of the nonpermanent members of the Security Council, and the respective draft resolutions forwarded from our respective committee for General Assembly approval.

COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS

Based on our particular foreign policy interests and consultations with Ambassador Petree, Congressman Rosenthal chose to serve on the Special Political Committee on Congressman Winn, on the First Committee on Political and Security (Disarmament) Affairs. Other public delegates' assignments were as follows: Howard T. Rosen, Second Committee on Economic and Financial Matters; Esther Coopersmith, Third Committee on Social and Humanitarian Affairs; William Dunfey, Fourth Committee on Decolonization. Since none of the public delegates served on the fifth and sixth committees, senior U.S. mission staff represented the U.S. interests there.

The scope and substance of the work of the General Assembly committees on which Representatives Rosenthal and Winn served are illustrated by their respective agendas, as follows:

Representative Rosenthal Special Political Committee (SPC)

Effects of Atomic Radiation: Report of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation;

U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees;

International Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space; Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peacekeeping Operations;

Questions Relating to Information;

Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Occupied Territories; and

Questions of the Composition of the Relevant Organs of the U.N. The SPC held a total of 46 meetings and adopted 20 draft resolutions.

Representative Winn-Committee on Political and Security Affairs (First Committee)

Implementation of General Assembly Resolution 3358 concerning the signature and ratification of Additional Protocol I of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (Treaty of Tlatelolco);

Chemical and bacteriological (biological) weapons: Report of the Committee on Disarmament;

Implementation of General Assembly Resolution 33/60: Report on of the Committee on Disarmament;

Prohibition of the development and manufacture of new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons: Report of the Committee on Disarmament;

Implementation of the Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace including: Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Indian Ocean; and report of the meeting of the littoral and hinterland states of the Indian Ocean;

World Disarmament Conference: Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the World Disarmament Conference;

United Nations Conference on Prohibitions or Restrictions of Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed To Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects: Report of the conference.

Review of the implementation of the recommendations and decisions adopted by the General Assembly at its tenth special session, including: Report of the Committee on Disarmament: Report of the Disarmament Commission; United Nations Studies on Disarmament: Report of the Secretary General: Nonuse of Nuclear Weapons and Prevention of Nuclear War: Report of the Secretary General; Disarmament Week: Report of the Secretary General; United Nations Programme of Followships on Disarmament: Report of the Secretary General; Implementation of the Recommendations and Decisions of the Tenth Special Session: Report of the Secretary General;

Implementation of General Assembly Resolution 33-61 concerning the signature and ratification of Additional Protocol II of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America; Consideration of the declaration of the 1980's as a disarmament

decade:

Implementation of the Declaration on the Denuclearization of

Africa;

Establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region of the Middle East;

Establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in South Asia: Report of the Secretary General;

Dissemination of information on the arms race and disarmament; Monitoring of disarmament agreements and strengthening of international security: Reports of the Secretary General on program of research and studies on disarmement; Secretary General; study on

the relationship between disarmament and development; and a new philosophy on disarmament;

Strengthening of guarantees of the security of non-nuclear-weapon States: report of the Committee on Disarmament;

Strengthening of the security of non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons: report of the Committee on Disarmament;

General and complete disarmament including the report of the Committee on Disarmament; confidence-building measures: report of the Secretary General; study on all the aspects of regional disarmament: report of the Secretary General; and study on the relationship between disarmament and international security: report of the Secretary General;

Implementation of the declaration on the strengthening of international security, including reports of the Secretary General on noninterference in the internal affairs of states; implementation of the declaration;

Adoption of a declaration on international cooperation for disarmament;

Israeli nuclear armament; and

Settlement by peaceful means of disputes between States.

The First Committee held 55 meetings and adopted 40 draft resolutions.

The agendas of the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Committees appear in appendix III.

Each Committee met as a Committee of the Whole from midOctober following the general debate through mid-December and heard statements from U.N. members on each agenda item. Representatives then negotiated and adopted draft resolutions for what was usually pro forma approval by the General Assembly itself. The Assembly approved a total of 233 resolutions and 156 decisions and concluded its business officially on January 7, 1980.

UNITED STATES-UNITED NATIONS AND THE SECURITY COUNCIL

The seizure of the American hostages by Iranian militants occurred in early November. From that time until our assignment ended in mid-December, this crisis and United States efforts to find a peaceful settlement to it overshadowed the work of the 34th General Assembly. We followed developments in this crisis in daily meetings with Ambassador McHenry, by attending Security Council sessions, and in frequent discussions with mission staff and foreign delegates. On pages 33-35 of this report, we discuss the U.N.'s handling of the situation.

REPORTS TO THE CONGRESS

During our assignment in New York, we prepared and sent six newsletters to Members of Congress to keep them abreast of our activities and to convey our observations of the mission, the General Assembly and Security Council. All six newsletters appear in the appendix. The excerpts from several newsletters that follow here help sum up some of our observations of the United States in the United Nations:

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[Excerpts from Newsletter No. 4 (Nov. 29)]

Both of us are trying to understand the United Nations as a political institution, particularly why so much attention is given to drafting resolutions and what it all means. So much is happening all the time and it is easy to sense that a multitude of political interests are operating all the time. What we see and hear in committee rooms seems like the tip of the iceberg, the result, if you will, of backroom negotiations on small and big points within caucus groups and among coalitions of them. There's the Latin American group, the Arab group, the Asian and African group, the Western group and the Eastern bloc. Larry meets every week with one of the Western groups which deals with disarmament (First Committtee) questions. In these meetings, Western European representatives, the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and Americans sound out each other on positions they will take and they try to develop a common position and tactic to achieve their goals. But the group does not always have a unified position. About the only group that does is the Eastern bloc.

The Third World, comprised of the group of 77 (but now 119 states) and the nonaligned movement, has membership overlapping Latin, African, and Asian regional blocs. It is not unified and its members include radicals like Algeria and Tanzania and Libya as well as moderates such as Singapore and the other ASEAN states. It encompasses producers as well as consumers, middle tier and most seriously affected states.

Despite the pressures and counterpressures on each of the representatives in each committee, they all report to their governments back home about what is going on. Most are kept on a rather short leash and must get instructions on how to vote, be it on supporting or opposing or amending an entire resolution or only a single paragraph.

The United States United Nations mission is no different. Staff teams have to prepare cables on what happened each day in each committee; the higher echelons review and clear each one before sending it on to the Department of State in Washington for review and reply by early the next morning. The cable traffic that comes across our desks is enormous. We get a stack of cables in a classified envelope every morning and every afternoon relating to issues coming up before the different General Assembly committees.

What does it all mean? The debates and negotiations in the Assembly and its committees reflect world political alignments, which weave a seamless, often invisible web.

The United States and our Western friends need to go on the record publicly, make our positions known loud and clear and persist in pursuing principles that we believe should apply not just to ourselves but to human kind. We cannot expect the developing world or the Eastern bloc always to agree with us, but if we do not listen, make our positions clear, and continue trying actively to seek friends and allies, we are likely to start losing in our bilateral relations with Third World countries, some of whom we increasingly rely on for raw materials and our standard of living. The Third World takes the Assembly seriously and even considers resolutions it adopts either unanimously or by large majorities to have the force of international law. We may think we are wasting a lot of breath sometimes, but if we do not pay attention and seek friends and try to influence other delegates to our view, we are likely to invite serious confrontation in an already highly politically charged atmosphere.

[Excerpts from Newsletter No. 6 (Dec. 28)]

One of the great frustrations for both of us is that far too many delegates make unnecessarily long-winded statements during the so-called debate, and U.N. procedures contribute to what have often seemed monotonous and tedious discussions. There is no shortage of vitriolic verbal attacks by one state against another, and obviously the targets of such blasts cannot control what others think or say in the General Assembly. While it is better to suffer a verbal attack rather than an armed invasion, such procedures do tend to quell the spontaneous give and take and friendly chiding so familiar in committee sessions on the Hill. Despite all its shortcomings, the United Nations, as it has been said before, is the only show in town.

We address a number of selected issues before the 34th General Assembly in a subsequent section of this report as well as in other newsletters. [See appendix VI.]