Posted October 6, 2003.

Laura Bush Marks End of 19-Year UNESCO Boycott

First Lady Laura Bush was in Paris September 29 to celebrate the return of the United States to UNESCO October 1 after a 19-year boycott that began when the Reagan administration decided the organization was corrupt and anti-American. Her three-day trip to Paris and Moscow is seen as part of a campaign to rally international support for United Nations aid for the American occupation of Iraq, according to the September 30 New York Times, but it also marks the end of a campaign by libraries and other cultural institutions to get the U.S. back into the UNESCO fold.

“As a former public school teacher and librarian,” the First Lady said, “I believe education is our most urgent priority, and should have the first and highest call on our time and our resources.” Earlier this year, U.N. Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura designated Mrs. Bush UNESCO Honorary Ambassador for the U.N. Literacy Decade (2003–2012).

In 1991 the governing Council of the American Library Association, having protested the withdrawal in 1984 and 1989, passed a resolution urging the U.S. government to reinstate membership because it was in the best interests of the library community and then–President George Bush's “New World Order.” A year ago, President George W. Bush pledged to the United Nations General Assembly that the U.S. would do so. For re-entry, the U.S. will pay “a one-time deposit to the capital fund of $5 million and $82 million of the total $577 million budget for 2003 and 2004,” according to the Times.

As the educational, scientific, and cultural arm of the United Nations, UNESCO supports numerous library-related projects, including the Memory of the World program and the Libraries Portal. UNESCO has also sponsored two missions to Iraq to assess damage to libraries and cultural institutions.

Posted October 6, 2003.