Bush Continues Presidential Tradition with U.N. Speech
27 September 2007
Presidential speeches are ceremonial, symbolic and agenda-setting
Washington -- President Bush called on world leaders at the opening of the 62nd U.N. General Assembly to work to liberate people from tyranny and violence wherever it exists. The speech, though relatively brief by presidential standards -- less than half an hour -- was ceremonial and specific, symbolic and agenda-setting.
More significant, in a sense, President Bush’s annual trip to New York City to speak before world leaders illustrates something important about the legitimacy the United Nations has achieved in 62 years, says historian Gary B. Ostrower of Alfred University in New York state.
"It has become, in an important way, particularly since the 1960s -- the 1970s certainly, with decolonization -- it has become the center of world politics. It's become the diplomatic sun around which everything else revolves," Ostrower said during an interview September 27 with USINFO.
For a U.S. president not to attend and make the opening address would be viewed by domestic and foreign critics as an offense, he said, even though the speeches themselves have ranged from the very ceremonial to the very specific in proposing an agenda for the General Assembly to follow.
"The speeches, really, as I think about it, have ranged all over the place. The one constant is that the president is there," he said. "Even presidents who have not wanted to be there have been there."
The speeches have been ceremonial because the United States is host to the United Nations, and they have been agenda-setting because presidents use them to advance their policies.
Bush opened the 62nd session September 25 reminding the 192 member nations of the international bill of rights first proposed 60 years ago by 16 nations -- the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
"This great institution must work for great purposes -- to free people from tyranny and violence, hunger and disease, illiteracy and ignorance, and poverty and despair. Every member of the United Nations must join in this mission of liberation," Bush said. (See the full text of the president’s remarks.)
"As we gather for this 62nd General Assembly, the standards of the Declaration must guide our work in this world."
The United Nations was founded in 1945 at the San Francisco Conference in large part to replace the League of Nations, which had been created in the aftermath of World War I and was nearly defunct by then. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had planned to open the conference, but died the month before it began.
President Harry Truman, who had been Roosevelt's vice president and was elevated to the presidency on Roosevelt’s death, immediately pledged that the conference would continue as scheduled, Ostrower said. When the U.N. Charter was drafted by the conference, Truman described the moment as "a profound cause of thanksgiving to Almighty God." (See full text of U.N. Charter.)
Presidents, Ostrower says, never have expressed extremes in their speeches before the General Assembly. They have tended to offer both generalizations and suggestions for the General Assembly to consider during each year, but never radical positions.
"It was only during the [President Ronald] Reagan administration that American coolness toward the U.N. became manifested, and this was for a number of different reasons. It was a period when internationalism generally had been viewed much more skeptically than it had been before the 1980s," he said.
The aftermath of the Vietnam War and decolonization of former colonies held by the European great powers contributed to U.S. perceptions of the United Nations, he said. The automatic support and warmth the U.S. public had for the United Nations faded, he said. At no time, though, did Reagan ever criticize the United Nations specifically.
Besides the opening address, U.S. presidents use their visits to meet on the sidelines with counterparts of other nations, both in New York and in Washington. Such meetings occur not by accident but by design, which is part of the normal pattern that underscores how American presidents interact with the United Nations, Ostrower said.
For more information on the U.N. General Assembly, see The United States and the United Nations.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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