Unums

In its career as schoolmaster to the world, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization early discovered that ideas could transcend almost anything but foreign exchange. In those days, even with UNESCO's help, a student in a soft-currency nation who wanted to sample hard-currency wisdom in printed form had to negotiate with a staggering array of government agencies, import license bureaus, customs men and international bankers. Four years ago UNESCO tried printing exchangeable coupons, but found itself still hamstrung by the differing currencies of its member nations.

Last week UNESCO began printing money in an international currency all its own--the Unum (value $5). Unums (for UNESCO Unit of Money) are not real money in the sense that they can buy either guns, butter or trips abroad. But each of the 130,000-Unums-worth of bills (in one, two-and ten-Unum denominations) printed in Paris last week, and backed by UNESCO's own dollar reserve, will be worth its face value in exchange for books, films and scientific equipment in any UNESCO country.

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