Another Warning for UNESCO

When the U.S. announced its intention late last year to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization at the end of 1984, many foreign diplomats dismissed the move as Reagan Administration isolationism. Now it looks as if the U.S. will not be alone after all. Britain gave notice last week that it will leave the Paris-based organization at the end of 1985 if certain management and budgetary reforms are not under taken. The decision came after a Cabinet argument in which Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, insisted that Britain take a firmer stand against UNESCO's financial mismanagement and anti-Western bias. Its director-general, Senegal's Amadou Mahtar M'Bow, has annoyed the U.S. and Britain by, among other things, promoting a plan under which UNESCO would set standards for international news reporting. Western news organizations believe that the scheme would lead to increased state control of the press.

The Thatcher government denies that the announcement is the result of U.S. pressure. The Prime Minister, said a senior British official, "has been fuming about this for months and didn't need any prodding by anyone." If both the U.S. and Britain pull out, UNESCO will lose nearly 30% of its annual operating budget.