hood of success has been greatly increased by the Paris conference. To believe in the future of UNESCO it is necessary to believe that the foreign offices of the member states will enlarge their traditional and restricted conception of the character of foreign relations until it corresponds with the facts of the contemporary world. It is necessary to believe also that none of the principal powers of the world will reject the fundamental proposition upon which UNESCO is based— the proposition that it is possible for men of different and opposed opinions to live at peace with each other in the same world if they can understand each other's minds and respect each other's convictions.. The conference at Paris offered positive reasons for maintaining both beliefs. The character of the delegations indicated that many of the member states regard UNESCO as an undertaking of the first importance. And the character of the discussions suggested that opposed opinions will be able to face each other frankly and openly in the meetings of the new organization however intolerantly they may regard each other elsewhere. The Soviet Union was not officially represented. But nations which share the Soviet view of the contemporary conflict of ideas took an active part in the debates. On at least two occasions the chief of the Yugoslav Delegation gave explicit expression to the philosophic position to which the Soviet Union is committed. The exchanges of ideas which ensued helped to reconcile what had at first been presented as opposing views about UNESCO's functions.

The First Session of the General Conference of UNESCO lacked, it is true, the emotional and intellectual unanimity and elevation of the Constituent Conference at London. It evinced, however, other characteristics of perhaps equal importance. There was an evident and general community of good will. And there was a willingness to discuss controversial issues and to plan action in controversial fields. Differences did of course occur--and differences, often, of a fundamental character. The fact that they were, for the most part, intellectual rather than political differences did not make them easier to resolve. On the contrary, differences touching the things of the mind go deeper in our time than differences of a purely political nature, and the participants in the Paris conference were men and women to whom the things of the mind are intensely real and intensely important. That it was possible to discuss such differences and to arrive at a meeting of minds was in itself a major achievement.

It was an achievement, moreover, which testified to the vitality of the new organization. When it became evident that the Executive Board, charged under the constitution with the duty of nominating a Director General, could continue its discussions of that most difficult

and delicate matter in an atmosphere of friendliness and candor, and when it became evident that the General Conference could agree on a program of common action in crucial and critical areas without material dissent, the present strength and future promise of UNESCO became apparent. UNESCO has taken the first great step. It exists as an international body, dedicated to a world democracy of culture, with a life and continuity of its own-an international whole greater than the sum of its national parts.

The Program of UNESCO

INTRODUCTION

T

for 1947

HE OUTSTANDING achievement of the First General Conference of UNESCO was the program authorized for action in UNESCO's first year. The critical question before the Conference was the question whether nations with cultures as distinct and different as those of India and Belgium, of Poland and Egypt and the United States, could agree on a common course of international action in matters affecting the education of children, the advancement of science, the dissemination of art, the access to knowledge, and the interpretation of philosophies, or whether, if they did agree, their agreement would go beyond the mild and meaningless generalities with which the vocabulary of cultural cooperation abounds.

There were not lacking, in the Conference and outside it, men who asked these questions. Members of the American Delegation asked them of each other in their delegation meetings, insisting that UNESCO could never succeed unless it was prepared to deal directly and courageously with the controversial issues of our time. M. Bidault, President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, closed the first meeting of the Conference with the warning words: "I need not, I am sure, repeat to your assembly the recommendation of the ancient author: 'It is to Athens you go, respect her gods'."

No one, in this country or elsewhere, who had thought seriously about the task to which UNESCO was committed was under any misapprehension whatever as to the difficulty of drafting a program which should accomplish the positive work of international understanding without disrespect to the gods, whether of Athens or of other cities. Nor was there any doubt anywhere but that UNESCO, if it lacked the courage to face up to the real issues of human thought and human belief-which are the real issues of our age-would altogether fail. The world in which we live has no place and no time for an agency of international understanding which confines its efforts to those subjects on which understanding is already complete or on which

understanding does not greatly matter. The areas of disagreement are too critical and too great. That the General Conference did produce agreement on a program which faced up to some, at least, of the controversial questions of the time was a matter of gratification not to the United States Delegation alone but to all delegations.

DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE PROGRAM

The program, as finally adopted by the Conference, consists of a combination of documents and actions. There are, first, the reports of the various subcommissions of the Program Commission as modified and accepted by the Commission. Second, there is what is described as a Commentary Upon the Proposed Program of UNESCO by the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Program Commission. Third, there is the report of the Commission on Reconstruction and Rehabilitation. Fourth, there is the action of the General Conference in accepting the Commentary and the various reports. The reports, in other words, constitute the program; but they constitute the program subject to the Commentary, which amounts to a directive from the Conference to the Director General as to the projects to which the Conference attached greatest importance. The program as a whole can best be understood, therefore, by examining the Commentary first and the various reports thereafter.

The reason for this rather unusual documentary organization of the program is to be found in the history of the Conference and of the Preparatory Commission which preceded it. Both the Conference and Preparatory Commission suffered from an embarrassment of riches so far as program ideas were concerned. The task of the Preparatory Commission was to gather together for the Conference program ideas regarded as worthy of consideration. The document in which these ideas were published is an ample tract of 164 pages containing some 150 proposals arranged under the compartmentalized headings of a university curriculum. In addition, numerous other ideas had been proposed to the Conference by individuals and organizations in the member states and many of the delegations had come to Paris with programs of their own.. It was obvious, therefore, from the beginning of the Conference, that principles and procedures of selection would have to be adopted both for practical reasons of budget and staff and for substantial reasons of coherence and intelligibility. It was obvious, in other words, that UNESCO, more than most international organizations, suffers from the temptation to produce what was called "a parade of hobby horses", rather than a reasoned program, and that such a parade of hobby horses can be disastrous to a coherent program.

CRITERIA FOR THE SELECTION OF MAJOR PROJECTS

Faced with this situation, the United States Delegation moved at the first session of the Program Commission to adopt criteria of selection binding on the various subcommissions.

This proposal was supported by other delegations, particularly those of the United Kingdom and Australia, and a member of the United States Delegation was requested to prepare a resolution combining the American, British, and Australian suggestions, which were thereupon adopted as instructions to the subcommissions.

The American contributions to this document expressed a position which had been developed, first, by the United States National Commission in its September 1946 meeting in Washington, and, subsequently, by the United States Delegation in its early discussions in Paris. The United States National Commission had concluded, and had so reported to the Secretary of State, that all proposed activities of UNESCO should be judged by their relation to UNESCO's constitutional purpose "to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture". The United States Delegation, in the course of its first discussions, had constructed upon the basis of this proposition a statement of principles which, after many rewritings, provided the substance of the Delegation's declaration before the Program Commission.

The position of the United States Delegation modified the position of the National Commission in two ways. First, the Delegation felt that the word "peace" in the phrase "to contribute to peace" should be understood in a positive rather than a negative sense; peace, in UNESCO's view, should be not "a mere absence of overt hostilities” but "a condition of mutual confidence, harmony of purpose, and coordination of activities in which free men and women can live a satisfactory life". Second, the Delegation felt that, although all UNESCO undertakings must "contribute to peace" understood in this sense, not all undertakings need contribute "directly" or "immediately". UNESCO, the Delegation felt, will not only act as an operating agency undertaking projects on its own account. It will also act as a stimulating agency, inspiring and supporting the activities of other organizations, and as a service agency, providing necessary services to the member states. In the latter two classes of activity the relation of a given undertaking to the over-all objective might be neither direct nor immediate. It must however be substantial and real. This general position was incorporated in the instructions of the Program Commission to the subcommissions. In addition, the subcommissions were instructed that proposals adopted should be feasible

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