"CNN," they said in a single hoarse voice.
The secretary general filled his lungs with air. "Guards! Seize those cameras. They must be stopped, and all tapes confiscated."
But it was too late, the secretary general realized with a cold, growing horror.
The lavish spectacle of the United Nations General Assembly embroiled in the diplomatic equivalent of a barroom brawl had already been broadcast to the entire television-viewing world.
And there was absolutely no stopping it.
What the secretary general didn't know and couldn't suspect was that the public relations ramifications of the day were immaterial. The damage was already done. And it extended far, far beyond the injured prestige of the United Nations.
Most incredible of all was the still-unrecognized fact that the havoc to come had been wrought by an anonymous man giving a three-minute speech.
Chapter Six
The speech that set diplomat against diplomat and was destined to set nation against nation was never broadcast, ironically enough. It hadn't been given in English, which was the lingua franca of international commerce and diplomacy. Had it been in English, CNN and the U.S. television networks would probably have excerpted a sound bite, which might have run as a lead-in to what the world thought was the story.
Namely that a brawl rivaling that seen in Russian or Japanese parliaments had broken out in the General Assembly Building.
Nothing like it had ever before been witnessed. The international viewing public was used to the same stock General Assembly shot—the delegates seated in the semicircular rows, some waving pencils, others yawning with the tedium of representing their countries before a body that debated endlessly and did little.
It was the biggest thing that had happened in the General Assembly since Khrushchev had pummeled the podium with his shoe.
And no one understood the true import of it all.
Least of all the secretary general.
After the evening newscasts had run the spectacle with inappropriate commentary, Anwar Anwar-Sadat came out of his office on the thirty-eighth floor of the Secretariat Building and deigned to address the news media.
"I have a statement," he began in his slow, measured cadences.
As usual the media could not have cared less.
"Does this mean the end of the United Nations as we know it?" asked one reporter.
"I would like to give my statement if you do not mind."
"How do you explain this unprecedented behavior?" another reporter demanded.
"My statement will be brief."
"Why did another person give your speech, and will your office provide the text of the address that was given?"
Anwar Anwar-Sadat's stony reserve was broken by that last question.
"My speech was never delivered—by myself or any other. I do not know what was said on the podium. Now, as to my statement—"
"Are you or will you resign over this breach of security and decorum?" he was asked.
"My statement follows," he snapped.
Scenting a sound bite, everyone shut up.
"On this afternoon occurred as regrettable an incident as has ever occurred during the history of the United Nations. Owing to an unfortunate lapse of security, a person of unknown affiliation took the podium and delivered remarks before the General Assembly that were most unfortunate and resulted in the lamentable incident that was unfortunately telecast this evening. It would have been far, far better had the news media shown due restraint and not telecast this regrettable occurrence."
The secretary general paused. The news media held their collective breath.
"Thank you for coming," concluded the secretary general.
"That will be all," said an aide, shooing the media from the reception area.
"What about the future of the United Nations?" a reporter demanded. "How can the peacekeepers keep peace in the world if they themselves can't get along?"
"Will the UN go the way of the League of Nations?" an older correspondent chimed in.
That last in particular stung, but Anwar Anwar-Sadat swallowed his angry retort and slipped back into his office.
He had given the statement that his job demanded he give, one festooned with "unfortunates" and "lamentables" but which said nothing. If he remained out of the public eye and the General Assembly behaved itself when it reconvened tomorrow, the events of this day, he felt confidently, would quickly fade from public memory. At worst, it would resurface in the year-end roundup of memorable and unusual world events the media seemed to delight in recapping.
In that, the secretary general was dead wrong. The story didn't go away, because the General Assembly was not to reconvene the next day. It was impossible to reconvene the General Assembly for a very simple reason.
Every diplomat without fail had been recalled for consultations.
And no diplomat with whom Anwar Anwar-Sadat spoke could give anything but a vague, evasive and diplomatically correct explanation.
There was one exception. The delegate from the United States.
She was the only one to call him in the aftermath of what the media had already dubbed the UN Fiftieth Anniversary Gala Ruckus.
"Mr. Secretary General, we at the State Department are very concerned about this afternoon's incident."
"It is nothing," Anwar Anwar-Sadat insisted.
"We understand the delegates have been recalled for urgent consultations."
"A mere cover story, I assure you. In truth, I myself suggested a cooling-off period."
"In the middle of debate over the Macedonia question?"
"Tut-tut. Macedonia will not convulse overnight."
"We would like to know what happened."
The secretary general searched the ceiling for a plausible explanation. "You will remember the events that triggered the First World War?" he purred.
"Not personally, of course."