representatives to decide what the UN can or cannot do. It is simply a mirror of its members.
Another downside of Kennedy's work is that his text sometimes reads as if it were lifted from The World Almanac. His pages of litanies of UN activities are dry, despite his best efforts to breathe color and pizzazz into them, and he barely mentions the organization's recent derelictions.
Still, his assemblage of data is extraordinary. What becomes clear is that the UN does indeed cover the daily life of the planet. Practically every human problem that one can imagine has been addressed by this oft-beleaguered body. Thus, while its doings may not lend themselves to dramatic narrative, what it accomplishes as an organization is dramatic. But how does one get the message out to people — especially to a sometimes hostile US Congress — that the UN is useful?
Kennedy's closing chapter and his afterword explain what makes it so. He illuminates a myriad of proposals for change and presents his own eloquent brief for the UN's existence. He views the organization as an uninterrupted town meeting of the world that lays down the rules for how we can live with one another on our small planet.
At one point Kennedy cites Truman's “brilliant” address in San Francisco as a remarkable defense of the UN. In this speech Truman summed up the challenge for Americans, reminding those who distrusted global involvement: “If any nation would keep security for itself, it must be ready and willing to share security with all. That is the price which each nation will have to pay for world peace. Unless we are willing to pay that price, no organization for world peace can accomplish its purpose. And what a reasonable price that is.”
Stephen Schlesinger is the former director of the World Policy Institute and author of Act of Creation about the founding of the UN.
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