Who Foots the Bill?

Fortnight ago Dag Hammarskjold warned the U.N.'s 99 member nations that his treasury was "virtually empty." He got respectful enough sympathy from everyone else, but as usual, it was the U.S. that quietly put up the $20 million, which should carry the U.N. through to the end of the year.

The advance from the U.S. was earmarked for U.N. funds to aid underdeveloped countries, but the U.N. was free to use it as a stopgap to foot the rising bill for the United Nations' Congo operation, which is currently running at $10 million a month. The Russians are already more than $10 million in arrears on their other assessed payments and continue to duck any responsibility for the Congo operation. Asked to cough up, they offered nothing whatever except a piece of advice: the U.N. should get out.

The Russians let the U.S. pick up 48% of the cost of the Children's Fund while they paid a mere 2.45%, paid only a grudging $2,000,000 to the U.N.'s Technical Assistance Fund as against the U.S.'s $30 million. They declined to contribute for the United Nations Emergency Force, which was moved into the Middle East after the British-French debacle at Suez. They did not even bother to join such U.N. voluntary agencies as the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, which supports, among others, refugees from Hungary and Algeria. And despite the Russians' crocodile tears over the plight of Arab refugees, they contributed nothing whatever to their support; the U.S. paid $23 million.

Excluding the still-undetermined cost of the Congo operation, the U.S. in 1960 found itself paying $116 million, or 38% of the U.N.'s total expenditures of $300 million. Russia's total contribution: $17 million.

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