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International Amusement
Berol Robinson
To the Editor:As a retired staff scientist at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), I was much amused by Mary Burgan’s acerbic comments in her article, "A Report from Paris," in the July–August issue. Yes, UNESCO House is a bit shabby, but it is, in my humble opinion, the second best piece of modern architecture in Paris, the Eiffel Tower being the best. And the Picasso is a joke, but much of the other art (gifts of the member states) is excellent.
Yes, meetings such as the one Burgan attended are bureaucratic in the extreme, precast in concrete. And since UNESCO is an intergovernmental organization, most of the participants at such meetings are representatives of their governments. So one is not surprised to learn that the management-ministerial tone dominated there.
But I’m glad the AAUP was represented in force at the conference, together with other like-minded organizations. And I’m glad that the Association devoted an issue of Academe to international issues. The article by Savage and Finn is an excellent review of the process of preparing a "working document" for a UNESCO conference. Berol Robinson
France
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