Book Reviews : Fifteen Men on a Powder Keg: A History of the UN Security Council. Andrew Boyd. Methuen. £3.25
| Published date | 01 December 1971 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711787100301215 |
| Date | 01 December 1971 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
1034
properties
of
political
dynamite&dquo;.
He
attempted,
at
one
fell
stroke,
to
deal
with
internal
opposition
to
his
radical
policies
and
with
the
opposition
in
Peking
polarised
in
an
attack
on
the
Albanian
and
Chinese
Communists’
resolute
opposition
to
de-Stalinisation.
The
reverberations
of
the
resulting
explosion
still
rumble
on
though,
at
the
moment,
muted
as
a
result
of
the
recent
Sino-American
overtures
and
the
admission
of
China
to
the
U.N.
Throughout
this
year
British
policy
was
an
attempt
at
an
impossible
balancing
act,
becoming
ever
more
difficult
as
American
policy
hardened
and
the
first
signs
of
withdrawal
from
its
world-wide
commitments
began
to
appear.
The
Viet-Nam
war
had
turned
into
an
engulfing
morass
into
which
not
only
the
United
States’
Army,
but
its
national
morale,
was
steadily
sinking.
The
United
States’
assessment
of
the
political
factors
in
Viet-Nam
were
as
wide
of
the
mark
as
had
been
Khrushchev’s
assessment
of
American
reaction
to
his
Cuban
adventure.
Ten
pages
on
the
United
Nations
are
mainly
concerned
with
the
re-
election
of
U
Thant
as
Secretary-General,
which
was
assured
by
his
pragmatic,
conciliatory
approach
to
every
crisis
&dquo;his
actions ...
directed
always
to
conciliation
or
mediation
rather
than
to
establishing
the
degree
to
which
the
actions
of
the
respective
participants
in
the
crisis
accorded
with
the
legal
and
moral
prescriptions
of
the
U.N.
Charter&dquo;
(p.
256).
A
short
section
on
the
Third
World
is
mainly
concerned
with
the
break-up
of
the
United
Arab
Republic
and
the
situation
in
Africa.
There
is
an
excellent
chapter
by
Michael
Donelan
on
&dquo;The
Financial
Policies
of
the
Great
Powers&dquo;,
&dquo;The
focus
of
concern
in
western
financial
diplomacy
in
1962
continued
to
be
the
American
balance
of
payments
deficit
and
the
problems
to
which
it
gave
rise&dquo;.
This
is
as
true
today
as
it
was
then
and
a
solution
still
seems
far
to
seek,
in
fact,
at
the
moment,
we
are
threatened
with
an
earthquake
and
a
tidal
wave
combined
by
the
actions
of
a
somewhat
slap-
happy
Congress.
The
editor
is
to
be
congratulated
on
the
level
of
his
contributors
and
the
balance
and
objectivity
of
the
work.
The
accompanying
volume
of
documents
is
a
rich
mine
both
illuminating
and,
at
times,
entertaining,
in
spite
of
the
intense
seriousness
of
the
subjects
dealt with.
The
raw
material
of
history
is,
more
often
than
not,
surprising.
Fifteen
Men
on a
Powder
Keg:
A
History
of
the
UN
Security
Council.
Andrew
Boyd.
Methuen.
£3.25.
In
the
author’s
own
words
&dquo;The
Security
Council
of
the
United
Nations
has
been
entrusted
by
most
of
the
world’s
governments
with
primary
responsibility
for
the
maintenance
of
international
peace.
Our
governments
have
thereby
shown
greater
faith
even
than
Kipling’s
in
the
beneficent
properties
of
wood.
For
the
Security
Council
is,
essentially,
a
table
shaped
like
a
lucky
horseshoe.
Around
this
table,
on
average
once
a
week,
gather
fifteen
men
each
of
whom
is
employed
by
a
national
govern-
ment
to
promote
its
interests.
They
have
been
at
it
now
for
a
quarter
of
a
century.
Times
have
changed:
so
have
they.
How
have
they
changed?
What
were
they
originally
supposed
to
be
and
do?
Were
they
ever,
and
did
they
ever
do,
these
things?
Who
are
they
anyway?
This
book
is
not
a
comprehensive
history
of
the
Security
Council.
It
does
not
pretend
to
cover
the
whole range
of
the
Council’s
activity
since
1946.
But
it
seeks
to
provide,
if
not
complete
answers
to
all
the
questions,
at
least
some
clues
to
the
answers;
to
shed
some
light
on
both
major
and
minor
aspects
of
the
Council’s
origins,
actions
and
possibilities&dquo;.
His
Introduction
is
followed
by
an
excellent
account
of
the
crises
faced
by
the
Security
Council,
inter
alia
the
Congo,
Cuba,
Gyprus,
Czecho-
slovakia
in
1968
and
the
Middle
East.
He
draws
very
illuminating
sketches
of
the
personal
qualities
of the
people
who
have
served
on
it
from
the
various
countries
and
points
out
again
that
much
of
the
most
valuable
work
is
done
by
private
encounters
in
the
corridors,
which
is
the
prime
contri-
bution
of
the
&dquo;talking
shop&dquo;.
He
concludes
at
the
end
of
his
lively
survey
that
&dquo;The
Security
Council
is
no
Everest;
but
it
is
there ...
It
will
continue
to
have
good
moments
and
bad
ones,
good
members
and bad
ones,
good
and
bad
relations
with
the
Secretary-General,
the
Arabs
and
Israelis,
the
General
Assembly
and
the
press ...
It
may
undergo
such
further
changes
as
to
make
it
unrecognisable
by
its
original
founders.
But
I
think
it
will
still
be
there&dquo;
(p.
369).
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