Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk told the House International Relations Committee today that “If the General Assembly were to repeat what it did last year with respect to South Africa and expel Israel, I think that the United States should withdraw from the United Nations.”
Rusk, who served in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations and is presently a professor of international law at the University of Georgia testified at the committee’s hearings on future foreign policy. He said that the new large majority at the UN causes him concern. “I would hope that this large majority would not become so foolhardy as to destroy the very organization which gives it its place in the sun by destroying the basic charter and treating it with contempt,” Rusk said.
He added: “I think we have to give these nations some friendly warning that if they are not careful they themselves may destroy the UN….I think it is important for the principal members of the UN to make it very clear that this majority cannot simply run away with it.”
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