Word: moynihans
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Another battle between Moynihan and the State Department developed over what he had hoped would be a "major" U.S. initiative: a resolution calling for worldwide amnesty for all political prisoners jailed for nonviolent acts. It was Moynihan's idea; he sold it to Kissinger over lunch...
Probably doomed from the start, the resolution was not helped by either Moynihan's or the State Department's handling of it. Moynihan failed to lobby for European support sufficiently in advance. One European ambassador first learned of the resolution when he heard Moynihan telling Barbara Walters about it on the NBC Today show...
...State Department was laggard too. The resolution would, as Moynihan declared, abandon the U.N.'s "selective morality" and ask for amnesty in all countries, not just in such objects of Third World indignation as South Africa and Chile. But in order for the U.S. not to be accused of selective morality, its delegation first had to be able to vote with the U.N. majority in condemning Chilean human-rights violations. Chile is a sensitive subject for Kissinger; as National Security Adviser he participated in Nixon Administration decisions to undermine former President Salvador Allende. Approval for the U.S. delegation...
Lame Duck. Last week's showdown at the White House did not bury Moynihan's differences with Washington, and the announcement made no mention of how long Moynihan would stay in his post. At the U.N. many considered him a lame duck, his effectiveness curtailed. This would please his critics but not settle the question: How should the U.S. view the U.N., as a place for conciliation or for confrontation...
Third World radicals, notably the Cubans and some Arab and African extremists, are not interested hi conciliation. But Third World moderates are interested, and they claim that Moynihan has made it harder for them. Europeans, while agreeing with Moynihan on the basic point that developing countries can no longer abuse the Western democracies in public and seek their aid in private, are still worried about keeping their lines open to African, Arab and Asian countries, where they retain important economic ties...