Treaties: And Now, 37 Years Later...

Harry Truman was in the White House, Old Glory had just 48 stars, and the Dodgers were still Brooklyn's beloved Bums when the international treaty outlawing genocide was first sent to the U.S. Senate for ratification in 1949. In the intervening years, every American President except Dwight D. Eisenhower has endorsed the pact, and 96 nations, including the Soviet Union, have confirmed it. Last week the Senate finally approved the treaty by a vote of 83 to 11. Said Majority Leader Robert Dole: "We have waited too long to delay further."

The accord, drafted with U.S. help following the Nazi Holocaust, makes the mass murder of national, ethnic, racial or religious groups an international crime. Over the years, U.S. opponents of the treaty, most of them Senate conservatives, have said they had no quarrel with its sentiments but argued that the pact would permit foreigners to meddle in American domestic affairs. Last May the Senate passed a resolution that allows the U.S. to exempt itself from World Court jurisdiction over treaty cases. That provided the cover Congress needed and finally cleared the way for the U.S. officially to endorse an end to genocide.