"Secret" meeting examines need to boost support for UN.

A group of prominent UN backers met quietly last December 5 at the Manhattan home of former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke. Their purpose, according to one participant, was "to save Kofi and rescue the UN." Details about the "secret" gathering were given to New York Times reporter Warren Hoge, whose article about the session occupied front-page space on January 3.

According to the New York Times account, UN Secretary-General Annan listened intently for three and a half hours as the veteran internationalists discussed falling public confidence in both the world body and its top official. Hoge, who shares membership in the Council on Foreign Relations with Holbrooke, identified other attendees as Harvard professor John G. Ruggie (CFR), United Nations Foundation leader Timothy Wirth (CFR), current UN official Robert C. Orr (CFR), and former CFR president Leslie Gelb. Each expressed concern about the oil-for-food scandal, blue-helmeted peacekeepers perpetrating sex crimes in Africa, and widespread loss of confidence in Annan's leadership from within the organization itself.

Holbrooke told Hoge he was worried because "the UN, without the U.S. behind it, is a failed institution." The veteran Times reporter also quoted Ruggie: "The attackers of the UN for too long have had a free ride in exaggerating the magnitude of the problem ... and frankly the response on the part of the UN has been inept." But all expressed continued support both for the organization and Annam even though one unnamed participant felt "if Kofi was going to go, it was going to be by the hand of the Volcker report," the inquiry into the oil-for-food corruption led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.