The New York Times

Thursday, March 16, 2000

Helms Extends Olive Branch to the U.N.

By REUTERS

WASHINGTON, March 15 -- Senator Jesse Helms, an outspoken critic of the United Nations, extended an olive branch to the world body today by inviting the United Nations Security Council to Washington.

Mr. Helms, 78, the North Carolina Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appeared to be continuing a fence-mending operation begun earlier this year when the United Nations invited him to give a speech to the 15-member Security Council in New York.

Mr. Helms, who has enormous influence on foreign policy in the Senate, took up the offer, orchestrated by the American representative to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, and visited the United Nations together with members of his committee.

In a carefully composed speech, Mr. Helms politely told the Security Council that he was eager for closer cooperation and dialogue, but said that Washington would withdraw from the world body if it tried to impose its will on the United States.

Today's letter of invitation to the Security Council, issued jointly by Mr. Helms and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said: "Just as the Foreign Relations Committee's U.N. visit was an historic moment, so too will" your "visit to Washington contribute to a new beginning in U.S.-U.N. relations."

The Security Council was invited to visit the Senate on March 30, to tour the Capitol and to attend a luncheon followed by a discussion with the Foreign Relations Committee on proposed United Nations reforms.

Mr. Helms and Mr. Biden, Democrat of Delaware, sponsored legislation passed late last year that authorized repaying $819 million in back dues, the bulk of a more than $1 billion debt owed by Washington to the United Nations, in return for budgetary changes and other steps by the United Nations.

Despite often disagreeing on foreign policy issues, Mr. Helms and Mr. Biden enjoy a cordial relationship in the Senate. Yet both are insistent on a series of reforms that include not only cuts in budgets and staff at the United Nations but also changes in policy concerning the American role in the organization.