Model U.N. Hears Plea For U.N. Funds

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24--Richard N. Gardner, deputy assistant Secretary of State for international organization affairs, declared last night that the United States should continue its contributions to the United Nations despite its opposition to the U.N. Special Fund project to Cuba.

Speaking to a banquet meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Model General Assembly at Howard University, Gardner said, "The price of participating in any political institution is that you cannot get your way all the time. We cannot expect to get your way all the time in the U.N. The central question is whether the credits exceed the debits--whether in looking at the balance sheet as a whole, the institution is making a net contribution to our national interest."

The United Nations Special Fund recently agreed to spend $1,157,000 on a five-year project to expand an agricultural experimental station in Cuba's Dela Degas.

In the governing board of the Special Fund, the United States failed to block this project, Gardner said, because other nations feared that deferring to the United States would "jeopardize other projects to which the Soviet Union and other countries have objected." Under the Charter, the Fund is forbidden to make decisions on political grounds.

Furthermore, Gardner pointed out, the United States has benefited from the Fund far more than the Soviet Union. "Out of the 288 Special Fund projects so far authorized," he noted, "282 have been in non-Communist countries. In financial terms, some $2.48 million of the grand total of $2.54 million of Fund projects--over 97 per cent--go to the non-Communist world."

Gardner's appeal for continued support of the United Nations despite the Special Fund project in Cuba was echoed by Senator Thurston B. Morton (R-Ky.). Following Gardner's speech, Morton told the mock General Assembly that if the United States cut contributions because of dissatisfaction with the Cuba project, it would undermine its demand that other nations, especially the Soviet Union, must contribute to projects that they do not like.

Morton said that the administration must apply strong pressure soon for all nations to pay their full share to the U.N. Congo and Middle East operations. Unless it does, he warned, Congress will become increasingly reluctant to vote funds for the United Nations.