U.S. Quits I.L.O.

Expected, but still a shock

The move was widely anticipated, but it set off diplomatic tremors anyhow.

Rejecting the counsel of his top foreign-policy advisers, President Carter last week withdrew the U.S. from the International Labor Organization, the oldest United Nations specialized agency (it was founded in 1919 as an arm of the old League of Nations). Although the I.L.O. has been successful in monitoring and improving labor conditions worldwide, it also has become a forum for Third World and Communist attacks against U.S. Middle East policy and especially against Israel. Both the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce favored the pullout--the first American withdrawal from a U.N. agency. The action will wipe out U.S. financial support of the I.L.O., which amounts to about a fourth of the 135-member organization's $80 million annual budget.

The U.S. had given the required two-year notice of its intention to withdraw but the fact that it actually did so shocked even some Western diplomats. The primary U.S. condition for rejoining is that the I.L.O. get off its political soapbox, but the Administration left specific terms for renewed membership undefined. Labor Secretary F. Ray Marshall said that the U.S. would return "when the I.L.O. is again true to its proper principles"--a statement that the Administration could interpret just about any way it wants.

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