THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release April 26, 1994 STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY United States Committee on the UN's 50th Anniversary The President announced today the establishment of the United States Committee for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, to be chaired jointly by Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Ambassador Madeleine Albright. The Committee will coordinate events within the United States leading up to the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the United Nations on October 24, 1995. The Committee's work will be designed to 1) increase public awareness of the origins and founding purposes of the United Nations; 2) emphasize the role the United Nations continues to play in advancing human welfare and interests that are important to the United States; 3) highlight current efforts supported by the United States to reform and energize the United Nations system; and 4) encourage and inform debate about the future roles and missions of the United Nations and its components in a constantly changing world. The Committee is being established at the Cabinet level and includes the Secretaries of Defense, Education, and Health and Human Services and the Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Agency for International Development and the Director of the United States Information Agency. This varied membership reflects the broad range of United Nations activities in which the United States plays a leading or strong supporting role. The approach of the United Nations' 50th birthday is a good time for all of us to re-dedicate ourselves to the uplifting principles of the UN Charter and to the hard work of bringing those principles closer to reality. In this sense, the anniversary should be less a celebration of the past than an opportunity to lay the groundwork for the future. Our goal is a United Nations system that is well-managed, credible, forward- looking and dedicated to making a real difference in people's lives -- in America and around the world. There is no better time, as the United Nations approaches the end of its first half century, for its supporters and friends to be planning energetically for the next. The United States Committee for the United Nations' Fiftieth Anniversary will work cooperatively with counterpart committees that have been established by the United Nations, the United Nations Association of the United States, New York City, San Francisco and the national committees of other UN member states. # # #