Recent events in the United Nations have called into question American support for the world organization—particularly resolutions of the Twenty-Ninth General Assembly (1974) giving observer status to the Palestine Liberation Organization, resolutions of the Thirtieth Assembly (1975) equating Zionism with racism, and recent actions of the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Labor Organization. What I plan here, using polling data primarily, is an analysis of the current state of American public opinion about the U.N., and I want to place the current attitude in historical perspective.

In the early years of the organization—roughly from the signing of the Charter in 1945 through the Korean armistice in 1953—the American public tended to have great expectations of the United Nations.