Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report on U.S. Participation in the United Nations.

To the Congress of the United States:

Pursuant to the provisions of the United Nations Participation Act, I submit herewith the nineteenth annual report covering United States participation in the United Nations during 1964.

This report, like its predecessors, describes the activities of the United Nations agencies and programs that together carry out the aims of the Charter: to maintain peace and security, to adjust and settle international disputes, to cooperate in economic and social development, and to promote the self-determination of peoples and worldwide respect for human rights. It also covers legal, administrative, and financial matters at the United Nations.

The activities covered in this report document the commitment of this Nation to the purposes and programs of the United Nations--a commitment demonstrated by the extent and character of our participation in and financial support for a broad range of United Nations activities over the past twenty years.

During 1964 the constitutional-financial crisis in the General Assembly tended to overshadow in the public mind all other affairs at the United Nations. The Assembly was limited to those minor actions which could be taken by unanimous consent without a vote. It is regrettable that a major organ of the United Nations could not function normally. However, the other elements of the United Nations system carried forward.

The Security Council in 1964 had one of its busiest years; it held over 100 meetings and dealt with some of the most intractable problems of peace and security.

--It successfully organized the difficult peacekeeping operation in Cyprus, averting the threat of a direct military confrontation between two of our NATO allies, Greece and Turkey.

--It aired the Kashmir dispute, the Malaysian charges against Indonesia, and the question of apartheid in South Africa.

--It sent a fact-finding group to report on the border situation between Cambodia and South Viet-Nam.

--It requested the Secretary-General to help the United Kingdom and Yemen resolve their differences over the Yemen-Aden border.

--It provided a forum for the United States to explain the action it had taken to counter the attacks by Hanoi against United States naval vessels in the international waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. In this connection, regrettably, Hanoi was unwilling to admit that the United Nations had any competence in the conflict in Viet-Nam. Despite the fact that Hanoi and Peking rejected United Nations involvement, given its responsibility for international peace and security, the United Nations should clearly be concerned about the conflict in Viet-Nam. It was with this thought in mind that in San Francisco on June 25, 1965, at the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations, I urged United Nations members, individually and collectively, to use their influence to bring to the negotiating table all governments involved in an attempt to halt all aggression and evolve a peaceful solution. I also wrote the Secretary-General the following month saying how much I appreciated his efforts to remove the Viet-Nam dispute from the battlefield to the negotiating table and expressed the hope they would be continued. The Secretary-General replied by expressing his determination to pursue such efforts by all means at his disposal.

Elsewhere in the world during 1964 the United Nations continued to maintain several active peacekeeping operations. United Nations peacekeepers continued to police the Sinai and Gaza lines. The United Nations also supervised the borders between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and the truce line in Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

During 1964 the United Nations ended its military (but not its civilian) operation in the Congo and its observer mission in Yemen.

On the economic front, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) during the summer of 1964 was unquestionably the most significant development of the year. It opened a search by the developing nations for trading and financial arrangements designed to accelerate their development. Machinery was established to carry on the dialogue within the United Nations among developed and less developed countries concerning international trade and related questions of development. A hopeful sign was the adoption by UNCTAD of a system of mutual adjustment and conciliation designed to achieve a meeting of minds before arriving at decisions on important matters.

The record of operations of United Nations Specialized Agencies in the economic and social fields was impressive.

--The World Bank and its affiliates--the International Development Association and the International Finance Corporation-made loans, credits, and investments totaling over $1 billion.

--The World Health Organization spurred important advances in the worldwide campaigns to eradicate malaria and smallpox and in the field of epidemiology.

--The World Meteorological Organization moved ahead toward a projected World Weather Watch--a worldwide cooperative venture to improve man's ability to predict the course of the weather.

--The Food and Agriculture Organization dispatched about 1,000 technical experts to member countries to assist in agricultural productivity, pest control, animal health, and rural community development.

As science and technology develop, there will be new opportunities for international cooperation and common undertakings to serve mankind. On October a, 1964, I proclaimed 1965 International Cooperation Year (ICY) in the United States. To implement our national program for ICY, on November 24, 1964, I named a Cabinet Committee for International Cooperation Year (1965) and called on our national citizens' organizations to help find new areas for common endeavor against the ancient enemies of mankind--ignorance, poverty, and disease. Every such enterprise helps in some small way to strengthen the fabric of peace. As I said at that time--the quest for peace through cooperation is the "assignment of the century."

In transmitting this report, I should like to add a more general observation about our policy toward the United Nations. Every President since the founding of the United Nations has expressed the deep commitment of this Nation to the purposes of the Organization. This commitment has been expressed in our dedication to the purposes of the Charter and in our participation in the entire range of United Nations operations described in this report.

I reaffirmed our dedication on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations at San Francisco on June 25, 1965, when I said:

"... I come to this anniversary not to speak of futility or failure nor of doubt and despair. I come to raise a voice of confidence in both the future of these United Nations and the fate of the human race.

"And let all remember--and none forget--that now more than 50 times in these 20 years the United Nations has acted to keep the peace.

"By persuading nations to justify their own conduct before all countries, it has helped, at many times and in many places, to soften the harshness of man to his fellow man.

"By confronting the rich with the misery of the poor and the privileged with the despair of the oppressed, it has removed the excuse of ignorance, unmasked the evil of indifference, and has placed an insistent, even though still unfulfilled, responsibility upon the more fortunate of the earth.

"By insisting upon the political dignity of man, it has welcomed 63 nations to take their places alongside the 51 original members--a historical development of dramatic import, achieved mainly through peaceful means.

"And by binding countries together in the great declarations of the Charter, it has given those principles a strengthened vitality in the conduct of the affairs of man."

The record of our participation in the United Nations for 1964--set forth in this report--documents the deeds that support these words.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

The White House

March 1, 1966