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sacred cow, but rather as a troika composed of a white elephant, a Trojan horse, and a Judas goat."5 The
supermarket tabloid Star, while not exactly a consistently reliable heavyweight in the news and analysis
category,
expressed
the
sentiments
of
a
large
and growing
segment
of
the
American
people
with
a
November 3, 1981 article by Steve Dunleavy entitled, "Rip Down This Shocking Tower of Shame."
In
March
of
1982,
syndicated
columnist
Andrew
Tully
authored
a piece
headlined:
"[Mayor]
Koch
Should Chase UN Out of Town."6 Many similar articles and editorials could be cited, but perhaps one of
the most surprising was the August 24, 1987 cover story by Charles Krauthammer for The New
Republic, entitled "Let It Sink: The Overdue Demise of the United Nations."
But the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev’s "new thinking"
in the late 1980s coincided with the beginning of
a
remarkable
rehabilitation
in
the
public’s
image
of
the
UN.
First
Gorbachev,
and
then
Boris
Yeltsin,
won
plaudits
for
reversing
the
traditional
Soviet
(or
Soviet
surrogate)
practice
of
using
the
UN
as
a
venue
for
strident
anti-American
diatribes.
Yassir
Arafat
and
his
PLO
terrorists
dropped
their
regular
anti-Israel
philippics.
And
the
UN’s "peacekeepers"
won
a
Nobel
Prize and
worldwide
praise
for
their
roles as mediators in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Central America, Southern Africa, and the Middle East.
Then
came
Operation Desert
Storm,
the
holy
war
against
the aggression of Saddam Hussein. And
mirabile dictu, the United Nations was once again the world’s "last best hope for peace." Suddenly UN
"peacekeepers"
began
to
appear
almost
everywhere —
with
more
than
40,000
troops
in
the
field
in
Africa, Asia, Europe, Central America,
and
the
Middle
East7
—
and every new day now brings new
appeals for the world body’s intervention and "expertise."
On
United
Nations
Day
1990,
a
new
Gallup
Poll
indicated
that
"American
support
for
the
United
Nations ...
is
higher
than
it
has been
in over 20
years."
According to
the
national polling organization,
"Fifty-four
percent
of Americans now think the United Nations
has
done
a
good
job
of
solving
the
problems
it
has
had
to
face...."
The
poll
cited
the
"rapprochement
between
the
U.S.S.R.
and
the
U.S.,
and
the
dissolution
of
the
Iron
Curtain,"
as
well
as
the
developing
Persian
Gulf
situation,
as
major
factors contributing to the enhancement of the UN’s image.8
Gallup reported
that
"almost six out of ten
Americans think that
the
U.N. has been
effective
in
helping
deal
with
the
current
[Iraq-Kuwait]
crisis,
with
only
8%
saying
that
the
U.N.
has
not
been
at
all
effective."
Even
more
disturbing,
if
accurate,
is
the
poll
finding
that
61
percent
of
those
surveyed
thought
it
a
good
idea
to
build
up
the
United
Nations
emergency
force
to
"a
size
great
enough
to
deal
with ‘brush fire’ or small wars throughout the world."9
The euphoria
following the Persian
Gulf
hostilities temporarily boosted
George Bush’s approval rating
to an all-time high for any president. Rude economic realities and an
accumulating
number of political
problems
then
caused
his
star
to
plummet
just
as
rapidly
as
it
had
risen.
The
UN’s
gains,
however,
appear to
have been
more durable. As reported by
Richard Morin
("U.N. Real Winner After Gulf War,"
Salt Lake Tribune, January 24, 1992), a survey by the Americans Talk Issues Foundation "found that
approval for the United Nations actually increased from 66 percent in June to 78 percent in November
[1991], a period when other measures of war-induced euphoria were sinking fast."
The Tribune reported:
[H]alf of those questioned — 51 percent — agreed that
"the U.S. should abide by all World
Court decisions, even when
they
go against
us, because this sets an example
for all
nations
to follow." That was up from 42 percent in May.
