Page 14 WORLD THE BATTALION ITida>,JanmnlB Sen. Helms tempers attack against U.N. officials UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Sen. Jesse Helms, who has made a career of lambasting the United Nations, kept up the attack as he ad dressed the Security Council yesterday , saying Americans feel “a lack of gratitude” from the world organization. Helms, R-N.C., who has previously branded U.N. officials as “dysfunctional” and “cry babies,” tempered his criticism by propos ing a new spirit of cooperation with the world body and suggested formal, annual visits between members and U.S. lawmakers. “If we are to have a new beginning, we must endeavor to under stand each other better,” Helms said in the first-ever address by a U.S. lawmaker to the Security Council. Despite his courtly tone and offer of a “hand of friendship,” del egates reacted coolly to Helms’ litany of U.N. excesses and failings. American tardiness in meeting its payments and Helms’ insistence on a lower U.S. contribution “has hindered and not helped” peace keeping efforts, said Jeremy Greenstock, the British envoy. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s representative, complained that the Unit ed States failed to abide by tenns of a U.N. budget that all members approved. “All the other members of the United Nations expected the United States to keep its word,” he said. “The money we spend on the U.N. is not charity,” Helms declared. “To the contrary, it is an investment — an investment from which the American people rightly expect a return.” "The money we spend on the U.N. is not charity. To the contrary, it is an investment — an investment from which the American people rightly expect a return." — Sen. Jesse Helms Congress last year voted to pay $926 million in back U.S. dues over three years. The United States paid a $100 million installment late last year. But to get the rest, the United Nations must meet about a dozen con ditions dratted by Helms, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the committee’s senior mi nority member. The conditions includes a reduction the U.S. share of the l .N. peacekeeping budget from the current 31 percent to 25 percent and of the regular budget from 25 percent to 22 percent. I lelms said the United Nations must also trim its spending and not draw the United States into “entangling alliances." “A United Nations that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people without their consent begs for confrontation, and — I want to be candid — eventual U.S. withdrawal," Helms as serted. The senator also accused the General Assembly of an anti-Amer ican bias. “The American people hear ail this, they resent it . And they have grown increasingly frustrated with what they feel is a lack ol gratitude,” he said. Helms was invited to speak by U.S. Ambassador Richard Hol brooke, who holds the rotating council chairmanship. the lirs! ot 'ns uidlcnniunipilM to the Middle East. PopeJohm will \isit Egypt next month** Western He ui faith, in stop in i Cairo and the monaster v at the 1 oat olMounk the Ecb. 24-26 tn p. the Vatic*j announei ng the pi Ignmagorta lire ti 'ip will e i 'OK - a moDH major pil gnmage to the 1 loly (1 will inch ide stops m Jordan, w the Pales liman lei ntories. j The The I gypt trip, filled withl services and air travel, will I the stamina of the frail, pope, coming at the start ofi in the Vatican’s Holy Yean ularly demanding schedule 1 ami The stop at Mount Sinai is nes of pilgrimages the pope! to make in the new millenniu say s are purely for religious i without political significance. I le had hoped to begin wit what is believ ed to be the birth the biblical patriarch Abraham but the Vatican dropped the pla Baghdad said it could not orga visit. 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