Eleanor Roosevelt Speeches

Well, the United Nations is already strengthened by this last session uh because the um-- I've spent a great time in the American Association for the United Nations trying to interest people in getting information about the United Nations, finding out about it and about the specialized agencies. In the last few weeks since the session and Mr. Khrushchev's visit, he's done us infinite good. I could not have accomplished this in years. Everywhere I go people are conscious of the United Nations and they're talking about it and they're asking questions about it. And this is one of the developments that I think is very important. Now it will of course uh-- the United Nations has to be strengthened in many ways. One of the best ways is for the great nations not to bypass the United Nations. I think personally that even summit conferences would do better if they were held within the framework of the United Nations and produced the secretariat, and if the Secretary General could always be a presence representing the United Nations because world opinion is still a very important thing. And I hope that summit conferences in the future and all conferences-- Not I don't mean that there will not be meetings of experts. That, of course, there will have to be. But the [00:03:00](3:00) to the actual meetings of the political things, they will be, I hope, within the United Nations.

Well we couldn't probably have accepted the United Nations, even in the Senate of the United States as we haven't had the veto in it. Um, however as it has worked out, the veto has shown itself to be less and less practical and what we would feel now, I don't know. It would depend, I think, on leadership and probably a great deal of the feeling of the people generally. But um quite evidently the veto has been used by the Soviet Union for things that it never was intended to be used for. It was supposed to protect them. If we thought they wish to discuss something that was distinctly a domestic policy within domestic jurisdiction, but it's been used to keep people out of the way, to do all sorts of useless things.

Now whether we could do away with it, we did. Under Mr. Acheson, you know, [ER coughs] find a way, it's called the Uniting for Peace Resolution. Um, we found a way so that if the Security Council stopped considering the question because of the veto, or because of non-agreement, whatever the reason um, if some nations felt it important enough and felt it was a threat to the peace of the world, it could be brought up in the General Assembly. And [ER clears throat] that has actually uh gotten around the veto power in questions which threaten the peace of the world, but not in any other questions.

At the present time communist China can't be a member of the United Nations because she still has troops in North Korea. She still has, they say no troops, but certainly we might say a guiding hand in North Vietnam. She still has um taken some rather aggressive action in northern India, in Tibet, various places. So the first qualification for being a member is that you are striving to be a peace-loving state. You must also be able to um [coughs] able and willing to accept your responsibilities under the charter. And China certainly has not shown that she was able or willing. So at present this is a more or less academic question. If, however, we ever reach the point that Mr. Khrushchev talks of so lightly and easily and that I think will take a long time,[ER coughs] of really looking for totalism, then at least in the armament agreements you have to have communist China a part of the agreement because you couldn't possibly [00:07:02](7:02) [audio cut, possibly missing audio] possible increase police force in the United Nations because we can't just move to a heavenly condition in which nobody ever does wrong and so we must have a police force somewhere.

I suppose what you're really asking about is if it's possible to have a Peace Corps such as was suggested a few days ago. I don't think anybody has really thought out the details. I have talked about this for a long time as a possibility because it seems to me that we need to rethink our whole defense position. I think we established our presence: defend thinking in an era when we really did not have the atomic bomb to the extent we have it today. And now we are training a great many young people up to the point where they become useful and then they go. And I have a theory that perhaps we need a profession for atomic warfare and that uh we need to keep those who wish to make it their profession and make it worth their while to stay in and have it their profession. And perhaps we need young people in other ways. Now whether you work a gift with some basic training and how you make them able to fulfill everything is something I don't think anyone has really carefully worked out. But I feel there are ways it could be done and I will hope it would be done in the next few years.

I wish I knew. [Audience laughs] I don't know. That's a very simple answer for me. You can speculate on many, many things, but with any accuracy I couldn't possibly tell you.

Thank you.