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1 United Nations News: Report on the United Nations and Its Related Agencies 1 (1946)

handle is hein.unl/unnews0001 and id is 1 raw text is: United Nations News
A Retort on the United Nations Organization and Its Related Agencies
Published by the WOODROW WILSON FOUNDATION
45 East 65th Street, New York 21, N. Y.
Vol. I, No. 1                        January, 1946                 Monthly, $2.00 per year

This is the first issue of the UNITED NATIONS NEWS: a monthly publication devoted
exclusively to news and reports about the meetings of the U.N.O., its functional agen-
cies, and other international organizations. It will press no point of view nor suggest
legislative action. Its aim is to meet the need for information in compact form about the
many international organizations in which we Americans have assumed responsibility.
U.N.O. IN THE ATOMIC AGE

THE CHARTER of the United Nations Organ-
ization (U.N.O.) was signed last June in a
world in which no atom bomb had yet ex-
ploded. Since the destruction of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, the one question overshadow-
ing all others has been this: How and where
shall we look for security from the complete
destruction of civilization, and perhaps all
life on this planet, which atomic energy has
made most dreadfully possible?
Since it is apparently a fact that neither the
scientific knowledge nor the industrial know-
how is, or can be, the monopoly of any na-
tion or group of nations, international action
has become an absolute necessity - a pre-
requisite to the survival of any of us.
In regard to the U.N.O. two main questions
which the bomb has raised are the following:
1. Shall the control of the bomb be handed
over to the U.N.O.? If so, under what agency?
One official answer to this was contained in
the joint statement issued on November 15 by
President Truman, Prime Minister Attlee
and Prime Minister Mackenzie King. This
statement contained the promise to:
share on a reciprocal basis with others of the United
Nations detailed information concerning the indus-
trial application of atomic energy just as soon as ef-
fective enforceable safeguards against its use for
destructive purposes can be devised.

It also proposed the establishment of a
U.N.O. Atomic Commission to draw up rec-
ommendations for: a) control of atomic en-
ergy; b) elimination from national armaments
of atomic weapons; c) inspection and other
safeguards against violation; d) exchange of
scientific information.
2. Perhaps even more fundamental than the
proposals for joint control of the use of the
bomb itself is the question of what kind of a
world organization is needed, in an atomic
age, in order to prevent war. On this point the
general trend of thought here and abroad has
been that a stronger organization than that
provided for at San Francisco is indeed need-
ed. Certain groups have urged that the U.N.O.
be scrapped and that an entirely new World
Government be established. Others have
argued that a strong world organization can-
not be plucked out of the blue, that it would
therefore be more practical to use the U.N.O.
at least as a stepping stone, and to strengthen
it where possible, for example, by abandon-
ment of the veto power of the Big Five over
decisions of the Security Council.
Meanwhile considerable steady, unspectac-
ular progress has taken place in getting the
U.N.O. ready to serve as an instrument for
world cooperation-as strong an instrument
as the individual member nations are willing
to make it.

Reproduction by Permission of Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Buffalo, NY

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