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The United Nations: The Tarnished Image

By Kurt Waldeheim
Fall 1984
Article Summary and Author Biography

In my last annual report as Secretary-General, I tried to assess the United Nations' ability to measure up to the new challenges of our times. "I have to say," I concluded in 1981, "that for all our efforts and our undoubted sincerity, the Organization has not yet managed to cut through the political habits and attitudes of earlier and less hurried centuries and to come to grips decisively with [the] new factors of our existence."

Kurt Waldheim was Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1972 until January 1982.

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