Bureau of International Organization Affairs - History

History

The bureau was created under the U.S. government in order to assess the successes and failures of the United States involvement in the UNESCO organization. For nearly three years prior to the decision to withdraw, the State Department, under the specific guidance of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, had been reevaluating the effectiveness of multilateral organizations in which the United States was a member, and identifying the particular interests of the United States. As a result the Bureau of International Organization Affairs stated that the United State involvement in UNESCO was unnecessary and the United States followed through on their decision to withdrawal.

“The Bureau of International Organization Affairs is responsible for developing the U.S. position on all subjects that come before international bodies, for preparing and laying before the missions, or delegations concerned, the instructions of the President, as to what they will do and how they will report and what positions they will take on the various issues that come up.” …from the Structure and Functions of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Department, United States Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The Bureau of International Organization Affairs has grown in size since its feeble beginnings. The Bureau of International Organization Affairs was initially created to aid in the United States withdrawal from the organization UNESCO, (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). “The bureau concluded that UNESCO's performance has been much less satisfactory than that of other multilateral organizations. To augment its preliminary findings, the bureau carried out an in-depth policy review on UNESCO beginning in August 1983. The results of this review formed the basis for the United States decision to announce its intention to withdraw.”

"To function effectively, this presidential appointee must be able to maintain a relationship of mutual confidence and respect with two people who are central in our government and who both outrank him: the Secretary of State and the United States Representative to the UN. If relations break down with either, the Assistant Secretary's usefulness is, of course, critically impaired. The protocol of the relationship places a handicap on the Assistant Secretary of State in carrying out his assigned duties. The United States Representative, particularly when he sits as a member of the President's Cabinet, obviously "outranks" the Assistant Secretary through whom he normally receives his instruction. The relationship between the Assistant Secretary and his principal, the Secretary of State, has in the past had its episodes of friction, of apparent lack of confidence, even of what can only be described as neglect. But in the main it has been harmonious. One consequence of the Secretary's confidence in the UN Assistant Secretary has been to contribute to the consistent and seemingly unavoidable preoccupation of the latter with the political, as opposed to the economic, social, trusteeship, technical, and other facets, of his responsibilities. The reasons for this preoccupation are several. The most obvious one is that great political crises have dominated the foreign policy scene over the last decade: Soviet relations in general, the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War, Indochina, Suez, and Hungary. All are life and death issues of survival or at any rate issues where the stakes were extraordinarily high. And all of them save Indochina became UN problems."