Our U.N. Fiduciaries

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

The next opportunity to take a step toward ridding New York of the United Nations could, at least in theory, come tomorrow at a meeting of the United Nations Development Corporation. The decision makers will be an unlikely lot – not President Bush’s secretary of state, not members of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, but a collection of political appointees led by a 74-year-old former state senator, Roy Goodman, heir to the Ex-Lax fortune.


Among them are Mayor Bloomberg’s sister, Marjorie Tiven. There is Amanda Burden, daughter of Barbara “Babe” Paley and of an heir to the Standard Oil fortune. Ms. Burden, Mr. Bloomberg’s planning commissioner, was so engaged in getting President Bush defeated that in the six months before the November election she gave $27,000 to “Kerry Victory 2004,” an additional $10,000 to the Ohio Democratic Party, and $10,000 to the Florida Democratic Party. There is Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, Governor Pataki’s Yiddish-speaking former liaison to the Jewish community.


Also on the corporation board* are Paul Windels III, a lawyer from a family long involved in reform politics in New York; a former managing director of Goldman Sachs, Andrew Alper, who is Mr. Bloomberg’s economic development commissioner; George Klein, a real estate developer active in Jewish causes who reportedly is an heir to the Barton’s candy fortune; and Mark Broxmeyer, a Long Island real-estate developer who is the chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and who wants to own a major league baseball team in Washington, D.C.


The credibility of these individuals and their colleagues will be on the line, in that they meet at a time when every dollar – and every allocation of credit – being sought from taxpayers comes in the context of a state budget crisis of historic proportions. Watchdogs such as Comptroller Alan Hevesi, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and Assemblyman Richard Brodsky are going around complaining that too many state resources are in the hands of independent authorities, much like the United Nations Development Corporation, that lack adequate transparency and accountability. They meet at a time when renewed attention is being paid to the fiduciary responsibilities of board members, from Enron to Tyco.


The United Nations Development Corporation claims on its Web site page titled “Benefits of the United Nations” that “The U.N.’s presence in New York creates an inherent solidarity with New Yorkers at a time of peril from terrorism. Both the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations quickly and forcibly condemned the terrorist’s 9/11/01 attack on New York and the Council mandated a strong program of anti-terrorism measures binding on all 190-member states.”


What planet was this Web site written on? Iran, Syria, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, all of which America listed as state sponsors of terrorism, remained voting members of the United Nations even after September 11, 2001. Libya has been chairing its human rights commission. Iran is even today publicly signing up suicide bombers for operations against America and Israel, rendering the United Nations Development Corporation’s talk of “binding” and “strong” anti-terrorism measures demonstrably false. The American government has thrown out of New York Iranian “diplomats” who, under cover of United Nations business, were casing New York tar gets to attack. This is a sort of “solidarity” we could do well without.


Let our disdain for the United Nations as presently constituted – with Communist China, the “Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea,” and terrorist Iran and Syria as members, but with free and democratic Taiwan left out – not be interpreted as isolationism or xenophobia. We’d be the first to lay out a welcome mat for an international organization of free democracies being based in Manhattan. Some make the argument that the dollars spent by United Nations diplomats on fancy restaurants and East Side real estate are worth tolerating the terrorists and the tyrants. But we believe most New Yorkers are not so cynical about the blood of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the Dolphinarium Disco in Tel Aviv, the Marine Barracks in Beirut, the Air Force Khobar Towers barracks at Dharan, AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires.


Senator Goodman, Mmes. Burden and Tiven, Messrs. Alper, Broxmeyer, Klein, Wiesenfeld, and Windels and their colleagues have a chance Tuesday to reflect on where they’re going. Because the United Nations has asked to expand its headquarters using scarce Manhattan parkland and bonds backed by New York taxpayers, the members of the corporation have the leverage to shift the international body in a better direction.They can act like sheep and go along with the existing United Nations and its plans. Or they can act independently, as true fiduciaries to the people of New York, and play a significant role in the war for freedom and democracy.


* The corporation’s Web site says it is governed by a 15-person board but lists only 13 directors. Also listed as UNDC board members are Arthur Polk, Ilene Butler, Jerilyn Perine, Michael Levin, and Bruce Gelb.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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