Charles M. Lichenstein, 75, American Envoy at the U.N., Dies

Charles M. Lichenstein, who as America's No. 2 envoy at the United Nations 20 years ago offered to wave "a fond farewell" to the world body if its members chose to leave the United States, died on Thursday in Washington. He was 75.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization where he worked, said Mr. Lichenstein had died of complications during heart surgery.

His provocative remarks came on Sept. 19, 1983, at a meeting of the United Nations committee overseeing relations with its host country.

On Sept. 1, Soviet fighter jets shot down a Korean airliner that had strayed over Soviet territory, killing all 269 on board, including an American congressman.

In response, the legislatures of New York and New Jersey voted to ban Soviet aircraft from landing in their states.

The United States, which opposed the legislation, offered the Soviet Union landing rights at a military base so its foreign minister, Andrei A. Gromyko, could fly in for the General Assembly meeting.

But the Soviets refused. When the United Nations committee met to review the situation, the Soviet delegate, Igor I. Yakovlev, said the ban on landing "raises the question of whether the United Nations should be in the United States."

A furious Mr. Lichensteinreplied that if member states felt "they are not being treated with the hostly consideration that is their due," they should consider "removing themselves and this organization from the soil of the United States."

"We will put no impediment in your way," he continued, "The members of the U.S. mission to the United Nations will be down at the dockside waving you a fond farewell as you sail off into the sunset."

His remarks produced a flurry of speculation — immediately denied — that the Reagan administration might want the United Nations to move out of the United States. Mr. Gromyko boycotted the fall meeting.

Later the White House said that Mr. Lichenstein, who was alternate representative at the United Nations from 1981 to 1984, when Jeane J. Kirkpatrick was the ambassador, had sought unsuccessfully to resign from his post two weeks earlier in frustration at the United Nations' bureaucracy.

Charles Mark Lichenstein was born Sept. 20, 1926, in Albany. He graduated from Yale University and later helped establish the Chubb Fellowship, which encourages students to pursue careers in public service.

He worked for Richard M. Nixon's 1960 presidential campaign and 1962 gubernatorial campaign in California and for Senator Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964. In 1964 and 1965 he was research director for the Republican National Committee.

He served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford in public information, policy development and congressional and political liaison.

From 1975 to 1979 he was senior vice president of the Public Broadcasting Service in Washington, the national program distributor for United States public television.

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST, JAN. 21, 1991]

(BY CHARLES M. LICHENSTEIN AND PAUL M. JOYAL)
Now that war between the U.S.-led coalition and Iraq is underway, we must take seriously Saddam Hussein's threat to unleash the full arsenal of terrorism against us wherever in the world we are to be found, including here at home: `America,' he warns, `will swim in its own blood.' Exaggeration? Maybe. But he and his coven of terrorists have had lots of practice and no known inhibitions. So what do we do about it?

The first thing we do is take the threat seriously--not to the extent of tearing apart the fabric of our free and open society, nor of promiscuously suspending constitutional protections of the rights of citizens and resident foreign nationals, but seriously.

The second thing we do, if we're serious about the prospect of terrorist attack, is to call on the experts in the business of counter-terrorism. That means the FBI and local police, because terrorism by definition obliterates state boundaries. Moreover, we then grant our law enforcement professionals a reasonable amount of elbow room to do their jobs effectively and with the greatest chance for success.

What we do not do is fall prey to hysterical overreaction, either to the threat itself or to the quite routine, ordinary, even dull investigative techniques employed by the forces of counter-terrorism.

One of the most common of these investigative techniques is to ask people questions. And not just any old people, of course, but those who are in the best position to know something about the activity in question, or who might even engage in it themselves (whether willingly or under duress), or who might possess information about it (often without even suspecting its significance)--precisely because of who they are, and the circles of their acquaintance, and their susceptibility to the pressures of, let us say, ethnic `solidarity' (also known as blackmail).

If the activity under investigation is Iraqi-sponsored terrorism against American targets, one very logical focus of such question-asking is the Arab-American community. Not because the local police or the FBI are anti-Arab, but because, in trying to head off potential terrorist attack, they go where the ducks may be or may seek sanctuary and support.

If anything, members of the Arab-American community are likely to be more the beneficiaries than the victims of effective counter-terrorism: they themselves need (and would receive) protection against the self-appointed vigilantes that terrorist atrocities might spawn.

All of which brings us to the ongoing FBI interview program within the Arab-American community--and, even more, to the hysterical reaction it has provoked among those who style themselves the protectors of American civil liberties. The Post's editorial of Jan. 16 [`Singling Out Arab-Americans'] mirrors these concerns and even conjures up images of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

It is true that all Americans are individuals under the law; but by choice or by circumstance most of us also are identified by groups. Given the limited counter-terrorism resources avaliable to us in this country and the right of any American to simply say no to questions from law enforcement officers, the charge that Arab-American business and community leaders are being singled out for some sinister motive, or might even be candidates for internment camps, is--to put it bluntly--irresponsible. This overreaction to legitimate investigative technique ignores the duties and responsibilities of citizenship and demeans the professionalism of those whose job it is to defend the Constitution and all our citizens.

Be it tighter security at our borders, or eliciting important and timely information from those who may be in a position to help prevent terrorism, any democratic government and free society must rely on the cooperation of its citizens. The world situation and the imminent threat of terrorism require action. The challenge is to respond in a reasonable way--like, for example, the FBI interview program.

(Charles M. Lichenstein is a former U.S. deputy representative to the U.N. Security Council. Paul M. Joyal is the former director of security of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.)

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