December 11 News highlights:
General Augusto Pinochet:
Augusto Pinochet took
power in 1973 in a military coup against Salvador Allende's
democratically elected Marxist government.
Why Kofi Anan Went to the Harry
Truman Presidential Library?
The U.N. Secretary-general Kofi
Annan is delivering his final speech today. It's expected to
lay out the principles for world leaders in the 21st
century. Laura Trevelyan reports from the Truman library in
Missouri.
>> Why is Kofi Annan coming hereto the Harry Truman
presidential library to deliver his final major speech? It's
because Harry Truman became president back in 1945, the
year the second world war ended, the year the united nations
was created. The hope was that with strong American
leadership the U.N. Could prevent such a war from ever
happening again. Well, this is the replica of Harry Truman
inside the white house, and joining me now is Scott Roley of
the Truman Library. Scott, tell me what kind of point do you
think Kofi Annan is trying to make by coming here to make
his final speech?
>> Well, I think the main point probably is that people
sometimes forget at least in America that the united nations
was a conscript or a dream of the united states in the
post-world war II era and he wants to drive that point home
I suspect.
>> What was Harry Truman ’s vision for united nations and
what it could achieve?
>> Well, historically Truman was one of those who felt that
the failure of the league of nations was an unfortunate
thing, and so after the horrible effects of world war ii,
you know, obviously the idea of a place where you go and
adjudicate things and reach peaceful conclusions rather than
have more world wars I think is ultimately what he was
after.
>> So Harry Truman was a real believer in what the united
nations might be able to achieve.
>> Yes. All his life he carried in his pocket several
stanzas from Alfred Lloyd Tenson's Poe Emlocksly Hall that
talk about the parliament of man. He used to rewrite it when
it would get too crumbled from being in his wallet. It
illuminates that he believed in this dream, and even he made
sure in his actions that the U.N. Was involved in almost the
first thing we did when Korea was invaded. We went to the
U.N. Security council and got them involved, and technically
that was a U.N. War, not a U.S. War.
>> So do you think Kofi Annan's trying to draw parallels
between the American leadership towards the U.N. Shown by
Harry Truman and by the current administration?
>> Well, he might be. That's interesting. They like to cite
president Truman as a parallel to president bush anyway, so
that's fair.
>> Now, president Truman had very high hopes for what the
united nations could achieve. Do you think he was
disappointed by the time he left office? I don't think so,
not by the time he left office. I think it was on the path
that he wanted it to go on, at least up to that point. They
were starting to build the structure at that point. He was
there at the groundbreaking. They had passed a number of
important things, the universal declaration
of human rights. I think he felt it was still on the right
road at that point, where it did or didn't go off the path I
don't know exactly.
|
