A Time of Frustration

Secretary-General U Thant sent a letter to all U.N. delegations last week telling them his decision "not to offer myself" for a second five-year term.

U Thant put it down to frustration. After more than 20 years, he said, the U.N. has yet to agree "on basic principles" for its prime mission of peacekeeping. It has also failed, he noted, to become "universal," meaning that Red China should be seated. U Thant felt, too, that the U.S. and Western Europe were not doing enough to improve trade terms with poorer countries of the world. Then there was Viet Nam. "To day," he said, "the pressure of events is remorselessly leading toward a major war, while efforts to reverse that trend are lagging disastrously behind. In my view, the tragic error is being repeated of relying on force and military means in a deceptive pursuit of peace."

Was U Thant really frustrated enough to quit? Many delegates thought not. After all, the pay ($70,500 a year, tax free) is good, his health is fine, and everyone--even the Russians--wants him to stay on. Besides, no one can seem to agree on a successor. In the U.N.'s clubby delegates' lounge last week, more than a dozen names were being mentioned, from Finland's ex-Ambassador to the U.N. Ralph Enckell to Mexico's past President Adolfo Lopez Mateos. In the end, the doubters feel that U Thant, whose current term of office runs to Nov. 3, may only be angling for a draft, and as the price of his acceptance would demand more cooperation between the East and West.

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