Another U.N. Trap

U.S. editors have long wanted a worldwide treaty guaranteeing freedom of the press, and they thought the United Nations was the means to get it. They began to suspect, in a string of preliminary conferences, that they were wrong. Last month they got proof when the U.N. turned the treaty-drafting job over to a committee* loaded with nations which cared more about restricting the press than freeing it.

The danger was plain to U.S. Delegate Carroll Binder. A perceptive, hard-working newsman, Binder had for almost 20 years been a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, is now the global-minded editor of the Minneapolis Tribune's editorial page. Said he: the U.S. will not retreat one inch from its concept of press freedom. "To seek compromise merely for the sake of reaching some sort of agreement even among the nontotalitarian points of view would hardly promote freedom."

Last week, true to form, the committee majority brushed his objections aside. It turned out a draft treaty that was a defeat for the U.S.-British goal of a truly free press. The draft included a long list of limitations which could be used (all in the name of high-sounding moralities) to serve personal vanity, national pride or just plain bad government.

The Asiatic and Middle Eastern delegates were determined to go further and outlaw stories which would "injure the feelings of nationals of a state" or "undermine friendly relations." Egypt, for example, wanted to use such a clause to stop the world press from noting King Farouk's public behavior.

Delegate Binder said the U.S. would reject the treaty and any such amendments, made clear that he would fight to the last ditch if other nations forced a final U.N. vote. If such a phony freedom treaty ever is signed, foreign politicos will certainly use it with great self-righteousness to throttle U.S. news-gathering abroad.

*Britain, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, France, India, Lebanon, Mexico, The Netherlands, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, the U.S.S.R., the U.S. and Yugoslavia.

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