Kirkpatrick Mission (Diplomacy Wo Apology Ame at the United Nations 1981 to 85 [Hardcover]

Gerson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Jeane Kirkpatrick made her ambassadorial debut as permanent U.S. representative to the United Nations in 1981, that organization was, in her words, doing its best to "ignore, deplore, despise and revile" the United States. Speaking out forcefully on behalf of U.S. interests during successive international crises, she became a controversial figure worldwide. At the same time, she had to struggle to maintain her independent authority outside the State Department chain of command. Gerson, who served as Kirkpatrick's legal counsel during her 1981-1985 tenure, describes how Kirkpatrick represented U.S. interests during Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the U.S. intervention in Grenada, and how she dealt with the effort of the radical Arab states to expel Israel from the United Nations. This study of the interplay between international law and domestic politics, and between personality and policy in shaping foreign relations is an important contribution to the literature of modern diplomacy.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is a fascinating memoir by the legal counsel to Jeane Kirkpatrick during the years she was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Aimed at general readers as well as those interested in international affairs, it offers an excellent insider's account of bloc politics at the United Nations and also describes the bureaucratic politics and infighting in the U.S. executive branch. Readers will ponder a difficult question: Was Kirkpatrick, a bright and provocative academic expert, really suited to fill an ambassadorial post that traditionally does not permit much individual initiative in shaping national policy? Recommended for international affairs collections.
- Robert H. Puckett, Indiana State Univ., Terre Haute
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (July 29, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029116112
• ISBN-13: 978-0029116111
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,585,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shows how perverse the UN has become, December 17, 2004

By 

Jill Malter ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kirkpatrick Mission (Diplomacy Wo Apology Ame at the United Nations 1981 to 85 (Hardcover)

This book does an excellent job of exposing the UN's support for terror and antisemitism. And we discover how difficult it was for even Jeane Kirkpatrick to counter some of it. However, I think the main issue of the book is not Kirkpatrick, but the UN.

I thought it was strange how difficult it was for our administration to counter requests to bring Arab terrorists into the country on the grounds of them being UN observers. Or refuse to accept wacky UN braying about the Fourth Geneva Convention applying to Israelis living in the West Bank.

Still, the most moving part of the book is on Abu Eain, a flat-out terrorist and murderer who was made a hero by the UN. The General Assembly vote was 75 to 21 in favor of condemning the United States for being willing to extradite this killer so he could face murder charges. That convinced me how utterly the UN supported terrorism.

Next, there is a section on an incident in which a loony Israeli killed two Arabs and wounded about 40 others at the Dome of the Rock. This impressed me. We're at the UN, which is supposed to deal with the entire world, and it is spending more than half of its time on Israel. And it's doing so not because Israel demands any attention, but just to avoid dealing with anything important.

After an interlude on the Falkland Islands, we go back to Israel again, and the successful attempts to rescue Arafat by sea from Lebanon. The author is proud of this, pointing out that a failure to do this (or, say, letting Arafat be executed by the Israelis) would have jeopardized the peace between Israel and Egypt. I think it simply shows how difficult it was even for Kirkpatrick to obtain the political strength to stand up to a pure terrorist such as Arafat.

Guess what we get next? More Israel, as it gets threatened with expulsion by the UN. And as members of the US team are accused of having contacts with Arab terrorists.

Finally, there is something the UN gets to discuss besides Israel or the Falklands, namely the shooting down of a Korean airliner by the Soviets. And the US invasion of Grenada.

But after that, we're back to terrorism, with the infamous 1977 Protocols to revise the 1949 Geneva Convention. These Protocols were basically what even the New York Times called them, namely a "pro-terrorist document." And the United States came close to endorsing them.

Maybe the most important part of the book is at the end, where we discover how the International Court of Justice has started to treat UN General Assembly resolutions as international law. This depressed me a little, as I pondered the prospects of spending eternity as an international outlaw.

Before I read this book, I felt that the conservatives in this country were a little too eager to demand special favors for ourselves at the expense of other nations. But whether that's a valid complaint or not, I now think that a bigger problem is a UN that demands special favors for terrorists.