Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
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Letter to Senator Helms by the Former Secretaries of State (25 July 1997) Letter to Senator Helms by the Former Secretaries of State (25 July 1997)
The Honorable Jesse A. Helms
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Senator Helms:
We urge you to support full funding of the outstanding and current U.S. legal obligations to the United Nations.
We are deeply concerned that the United States has become the world’s largest debtor to the United Nations. The continued failure of the U.S. to honor its legal obligations threatens the financial viability of the United Nations. While continued reform is necessary, the United Nations advances important U.S. interests and deserves the support of the President and the Congress as well as the American people. We believe that the United States should in 1997 pay its legal obligations to the United Nations and should, in the future, pay its legal obligations on time.
As former Secretaries of State, we know the role that the United Nations and its agencies have played and can play for global peace, stability and prosperity. The U.N.’s work is important: taking care of millions of refugees, condemning human rights abuses, providing humanitarian aid, running peace operations, and serving the promotion of the rule of law worldwide. The U.N. has also served specific U.S. interests, such as conducting inspections of Iraqi nuclear facilities, providing support to U.S.-led operations (such as the Persian Gulf war), observing elections (as in South Africa, Cambodia and El Salvador), fighting international crime and terrorism, and promoting fairer trade and agricultural standards, just to name a few.
The U.S. can play an important role in bringing about institutional and programmatic reforms at the United Nations. New leadership at the United Nations appears committed to improving management and programs. Without a U.S. commitment to pay arrears, however, U.S. efforts to consolidate and advance U.N. reforms and reduce U.S. assessments are not going to succeed.
We urge that you support payment of U.S. legal obligations to the United Nations. Our membership in the U.N. is important to the U.S. and to our leadership role in world affairs. That leadership role in turn is important to global peace, stability and prosperity. It is simply not right that the world’s only remaining superpower and the world’s largest economy and the beacon of hope to so many others should at the same time be the United Nations’ largest debtor.
Sincerely yours,
The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
The Honorable Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
The Honorable George P. Shultz
The Honorable Cyrus R. Vance
The Honorable James A. Baker, III
The Honorable Lawrence S. Eagleburger
The Honorable Warren M. Christopher
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