It is not the policy of the National Council of Churches to endorse specific legislative bills, per se. However, it is appropriate, and particularly so at this time to indicate the council's continuing support for the United Nations and its principles.

It is our hope that the United States can always be counted among those nations which actively seek to work through and give leadership in the United Nations for more justice, freedom, and peace on earth, and to give it every legitimate support to this end.

Chairman MORGAN. Thank you, Mr. Ferwerda.

Mr. Ferwerda, you say the council has 40 million members, approximately?

Mr. FERWERDA. This is the membership of our 33 constituent communions, of which the largest is the Methodist, something over 10 million Methodists. I believe you have heard from Dr. Wilcox in their behalf.

I was asked also to represent the United Church of Christ, which is about 3 million, formerly Congregationalists and Evangelical and Reformed. We also have the American Baptist Convention, United Presbyterian Church, and a number of others, with a total membership of 40 million people.

Chairman MORGAN. Do you have a department of international affairs in this council?

Mr. FERWERDA. Yes; the chairman of that department for the past 7 years has been Ambassador Ernest Gross, our former Ambassador to the United Nations. If I recall correctly, he succeeded the late John Foster Dulles as chairman of that department.

Chairman MORGAN. Mr. Gross is very well known to this committee. He appeared before the committee many times on behalf of the Department of State.

Did the department of international affairs meet and determine your support of this bond issue? How do you arrive at the position of your membership on such an issue?

Mr. FERWERDA. Normally, certain continuing concerns are referred to the general assembly, our highest body, when it meets every 3 years. Since the bond issue problem has come up since the last meeting of the general assembly in December 1960, we have no general assembly statement that specifically refers to the United Nations financing.

We do refer here, however, to what we feel are very pertinent parts of the general assembly's resolution on Christian responsibility for world community. We feel this refers particularly to the situation in the United Nations as it is now, in which clearly we need to strengthen it by using it and fulfill more of its potentialities and so on. This specific testimony related to that general assembly statement. It has been based on further analysis of the problem within the department of international affairs, has been cleared by Mr. Gross and other officers of the department and further referred to the president of the National Council, Mr. J. Irwin Miller, and others, to get their finding that it also reflects basic National Council of Churches policy.

We have been, particularly of late, especially careful on this. I think you can appreciate that, so there are no pronouncements on the part of the National Council of Churches which does not accord with National Council policy.

Chairman MORGAN. Thank you, sir.

Dr. Judd.

Mr. JUDD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Ferwerda, it is nice to see you and have your testimony.

In the first paragraph of the resolution adopted by the National Council of Churches governing body, you say "Christians should vigorously resist attempts to weaken or bypass the United Nations." Do you know what they had in mind when they used the word "bypass"? It just caught my eye. You didn't write it, but I wondered what they had in mind.

Mr. FERWERDA. I wasn't at San Francisco when this was adopted. As I recall the circumstances, this was a reference to the fact that on occasion there have been problems which to many people suggested use of the United Nations for their more effective solution, and where other solutions instead have been used.

Looking at the world today, for example, I would say clearly the Indians, if they feel as strongly as they seem to, that their situation vis-a-vis Communist China is a dangerous one, and they should refer this as a threat to the peace to the United Nations.

There are many other such situations.

For her own reasons India chooses not to bring this to the United Nations.

There have been other situations where it could be argued in the past that the United States has also not referred situations to the United Nations where it would appear this would be a useful reference.

Mr. JUDD. Is it the suggestion that as the first court of resort nations ought regularly to refer problems first to the United Nations? Mr. FERWERDA. If reference to regional organizations or other instrumentalities for keeping the peace is not effective. As you undoubtedly know, Dr. Judd, there is in chapter 6 of the charter itself, well, more than a suggestion, a requirement—although I must say it hasn't always been lived up to that regional organizations and other such instrumentalities be used before reference to the United Nations.

So we are in a peculiar state of affairs.

Looking at the history of the U.N., sometimes people have rushed to the U.N. too often. And there are cases I would have to say which have been brought to the U.N. which might better have been brought to the Organization of American States or other regional organizations.

You recall those instances in which the United States has argued "No, this should not yet be brought to the U.N. It can be settled here within the hemisphere."

We would certainly support the use of those other regional organizations, and these too are part of what we would feel to be building the institutions for world community-not complete total and exclusive reliance on the United Nations, but the United Nations plus those other agencies which may on occasion be more effective for peaceful settlement.

Mr. JUDD. That is what I wanted you to say. I thought you had that in mind.

I presume you are also saying that where there are conflicts or disagreements that can be worked out by private negotiations between the immediately affected parties, that is the ideal way to do it, if it can be done.

When you look back at Trieste, Austria, and so on, most of the main successes in gaining peaceful settlements, and the Lao agreement, if it turns out to be a success, were not worked out through the United Nations. They were worked out by the countries most immediately affected, who tried to find some common ground on which they could get agreement.

The difficulty is that when you get into the United Nations on something that can be exploited by one side or the other for purposes entirely apart from the immediate dispute, the discussion generally takes off into the acrimonious atmosphere of controversy and sometimes delays rather than promotes the peaceful settlement we would

like.

I merely want to say that we ought to keep the U.N. in its proper place for it to be most useful. As I recall, Jesus said if you have something against a fellow, see if you can't work it out with him privately before you go to the judge. But the judge ought to be there if the parties can't work it out privately.

In the next to the last line, you say "with a more vigorous leadership in partnership." Do you feel that our Nation hasn't supported the U.N. right down the line vigorously and wholeheartedly?

The statement is that Christians ought to "encourage our own Nation to fulfill its share in the present and future life of the United Nations with a more vigorous leadership in partnership."

If you say we should try to do better; yes. If you suggest that our country, under whatever administration, hasn't vigorously and wholeheartedly supported the U.N., I would like some documentation on that, because I am under the impression that we have really gone all out, as we should, in supporting the U.N.

There has been time after time after time, I must say of my personal knowledge, that if it hadn't been for the insistence of the United States in using the U.N. and supporting it, it would have been on the sidelines.

We were the ones who kept disputes there when some countries, including important allies, preferred to use methods outside the U.N. You will recall the Suez incident and a few other cases.

Mr. FERWERDA. I would have to respond with the suggestion that what is involved here as I interpret this statement is that we introduce, as this expression puts it, the leadership in partnership.

On occasion some of us have felt that in the United Nations we have not always exerted our leadership in quite as subtle a fashion as we might. At one time you recall we were able to roll up those 40-to-6 votes and the votes always seemed to be going our way.

There was, if you recall some of the conversations in the corridors of the U.N., there was a feeling that the United States here was being perhaps a little less subtle than it might have been in exercising what was then a strong numerical leadership.

The expression here of "leadership in partnership," carries also with it the expression of bringing all the imagination it can summon,

suggesting that it is perhaps just as important to exercise our leadership on a continuing basis where we are not trying to get votes.

I won't say that the votes are unimportant. Sometimes I would suggest that what is familiarly known, as you know, in the U.N. as arm-twisting has been a little less subtle than it might have been.

I think what we need is more of a continuing effort to put our view across and to determine what the attitude of other countries is.

I can recall situations where the United States, for example, made proposals rather suddenly at the time of an emergency special session, that 15 new members from Africa be seated. Their delegates weren't even there, and the delegate from Ghana got up and immediately denounced this.

But

I haven't been able to find what all the circumstances were. it sticks in my mind as one instance in which we didn't sufficiently pave the way. There may have been reasons why we wanted these 15 new members in quickly in 1960, although actually the regular session was to convene within a week or so.

This occasion suggests that we haven't always worked through other missions to let them know what our plans were. On occasion there has been somewhat less coordination even with some of our closest allies, some of the most important leaders, I might call them, of other countries.

This I think is what in part is involved here, to put on a continuing basis a comprehensive approach to the U.N. that shows an appreciation of other positions.

I think this is particularly important where we are likely to see now some votes going against us. We even had, you recall, some of those peculiar votes last year in which we and a few of our friends, along with the Soviet Union and its bloc, were on the negative end.

I recall one vote of 70 to 20 on one of the technical issues of nuclear testing, in which the 70 included neither the United States nor the Soviet bloc. We happened to be on the short end.

At this point I think that again we had, one might suggest, not in a real sense done our homework. I think if that voting, for example, could have been delayed, if we could have been more aware of the strong tide running against us, we might have been saved that possible embarrassment.

I am not saying that a 70-to-20 vote against us is a defeat. I am saying it is not even in today's U.N., which no one can literally control, a necessary situation.

I don't like to see resolutions of this sort because of the short-run effect they have on American opinion. The idea that we are losing in the U.N. seizes the popular imagination and something like disenchantment can set in.

Mr. JUDD. That overdoing of things is an American fault. It is true also in our foreign aid program. With all good and benevolent intentions, we are too sure that we know all the answers. We want to be helpful. Maybe our answer is the best, but nobody likes to be told.

Thank you very much.

Chairman MORGAN. Mr. Murphy.

Mr. MURPHY. No questions.

Chairman MORGAN. Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. No questions, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman MORGAN. Thank you, Mr. Ferwerda.

The next witness is Dr. Paul Cooke, vice chairman of American Veterans Committee.

Dr. Cooke, you have a prepared statement, and you may proceed, sir.

STATEMENT OF DR. PAUL COOKE, VICE CHAIRMAN, AMERICAN VETERANS COMMITTEE

Dr. COOKE. My name is Paul Cooke. I am national vice chairman of the American Veterans Committee (AVC), an organization in which I have held voluntary elective offices for the past 15 years. At the District of Columbia Teachers College, Washington, D.C., I serve as acting dean and professor of English.

The American Veterans Committee appreciates this opportunity to express its views on the subject of the U.N. bond issue, including the question of permitting individuals to purchase bonds.

Our executive director, Mr. J. Arnold Feldman, has appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to express the vigorous support of our organization for the proposed purchase of $100 million worth of United Nations bonds by the United States. We are pleased that the U.S. Senate approved the resolution.

I have also testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Thursday, July 19, to urge that American citizens be permitted to buy the bonds from the U.S. Treasury.

AVC, which is an organization composed of honorably discharged veterans of World Wars I and II and the Korean conflict, has steadily supported the United Nations. Beginning with our first national convention in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1946, our platform has always contained a platform plank of strong support for the concept of peace through the United Nations. At our 14th national convention in Atlantic City last month, we unanimously adopted the following platform plank:

The United Nations continues to be man's best hope for peace, and support of the United Nations must be an essential part of our foreign policy.

At the same convention AVC'ers from many parts of the country approved a resolution entitled "The Purchase of United Nations Bonds by Private Individuals and Nongovernmental Institutions and Organizations."

Part of this resolution, which in full is appended to my statementI call to the attention of the committee the complete resolution here as an attachment. The last two pages of this statement are this attachment. It is entitled "AVC Resolution on "The Purchase of United Nations Bonds by Private Individuals and Nongovernmental Institutions and Organizations.""

We adopted this resolution at our convention last month at Atlantic City. The full resolution states a number of positions that we take on matters precisely before the committee and other aspects of this whole U.N. bond issue, especially with respect to nongovernmental organizations purchasing bonds directly from the U.N. and in turn selling them to individuals.