In Hammerstein and Sondheim’s “The Sound of Music,” Captain Von Trapp bristles when the young telegraph delivery boy, Rolf, greets him with a Nazi salute. The moment is chilling: it is only months before the Anschluss, and Nazi sympathizers in Austria are beginning to creep out of the shadows.
The captain’s complacent friend, Max, shrugs off the danger. “Things will happen,” he says lightly. “Make sure they don’t happen to you.”
When the captain sternly warns him never to say such things again, Max doubles down. “I have no political convictions. Can I help it if other people do?”
Von Trapp’s response is pointed, urgent, and timeless: “You can help it. You must help it.”
Seven years after Captain Von Trapp and his family fled Austria and settled in Vermont, the United Nations was created. Its mission was clear: prevent the horrors of World War II from ever repeating, maintain global order, foster international collaboration and promote world peace.
Eighty years later, we live in very different times. The United States finds itself in a very different position on the world stage — a fact made unmistakably clear during this year’s UN General Assembly in New York City...
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