United States Leadership in the United Nations

Abstract

HE MIDDLE EASTERN AND HUNGARIAN crises in the fall of 1956 caught the United States off guard.' When reports of the Anglo-French military action in Suez reached Washington, Mr. Dulles felt personally affronted, and President Eisenhower used barracksroom language not heard in the White House since the days of General Grant. In the Eastern European debacle, the Hungarian freedom radio appealed for some tangible support of the Dulles policy of liberating the satellites. These cries for help elicited generous offers of relief supplies and a haven for thousands of refugees, but those fighting in Hungary to liberate the land also heard the United States deny that it had ever urged unarmed persons to attempt an open rebellion against superior forces.3 Here the United States had three knotty problems in foreign policy: the country was temporarily estranged from its British and French allies, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was shaken to it foundations, and a desperate situation was developing in Hungary. In its predicament, the United States turned to the United Nations first through the Security Council, then through the General Assembly when vetoes (by Britain and France in the Middle Eastern debates and by Russia in the Hungarian situation) prevented the Council from acting.4 The United States joined a majority of United Nations members in calling for a cease-fire in the Middle East; British, French, and Israeli withdrawal from the territory they had occupied; a United Nations Emergency Force to help restore the status quo; condemnation of Russia's role in Hungary's plight; and permission for observers to enter the satellite to see what was actually happening there.5 It was clear throughout November, 1956, that the best policy for the United States was to work through the United Nations; and that by so doing, it earned the support and respect of a majority of states and many thinking individuals throughout the world. What lessons the United States learned from this experience, it is still too early to say. There were those