Flying Flags and Flowing Words

By Evan Thomas.

It has been billed as the largest gathering of world leaders in history. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the United Nations, heads of state or government have begun to descend on New York City; at least 90 will have called before the end of October. They may or may not further the cause of world peace in a forum that has failed to live up to its impossibly dreamy promise as arbiter of global disputes. But the assembled dignitaries will surely provide a rich spectacle of diplomatic pomp and a torrent of high- minded rhetoric, not to mention traffic jams that are likely to be, even by midtown Manhattan standards, of epic proportions. Worries New York City Assistant Police Chief Gerard Kerins: "We could have days with 100 demonstrations going on at one time and 30 motorcades converging on one spot."

Last week as the General Assembly opened, the motorcades of the Presidents of Peru and Brazil sat stuck in stretch- limo gridlock, while outside the U.N. the first of countless demonstrations--includi ng one organized by the Coalition to Free Soviet Jews and another protesting the Afghanistan invasion--pressed against police barricades. As Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Secretary of State George Shultz hymned the praises of peace inside the vast General Assembly chamber, sharpshooters crouched on nearby rooftops, police helicopters whirred overhead, and U.S. Coast Guard boats patrolled the East River, which courses past the U.N.'s great green-glass tower. Divers, meanwhile, plumbed the river depths looking for bombs. To protect the visiting potentates will reportedly require the vigilance of more than half of the 2,000 agents of the U.S. Secret Service, and up to 3,000 New York City policemen, as well as State Department security agents and all of the U.N.'s 250-plus police force. The legions of security men will be deployed with the help of a new computer system installed at Assistant Chief Kerins' command post, a 44-ft. trailer parked just north of the U.N. "Security-wise," says FBI Spokesman Joseph Valiquette, "the next two months are going to be a nightmare."

With such potential terrorist targets as Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Polish Premier Wojciech Jaruzelski and Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq on the guest list, the precautions are not excessive. The U.N. has been brushed by terrorism before. In 1964, as Cuban Revolutionary Che Guevara was castigating the U.S. in the General Assembly chamber, an anti-Castro group fired a 3 1/2-in. bazooka round at the U.N. from the Queens side of the East River. (It fell 200 yds. short, rattling the windows and more than a few delegates.) The security chiefs' greatest fear this time around is that Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi and Cuban President Fidel Castro, both of whom are expected to attend, will arrive at the U.N. on the same day.

Over the next month, the General Assembly is scheduled to hear from the heads of state or foreign ministers of 148 of its 159 member states. In speeches last week, a long parade of leaders inveighed against most of the world's ills, including Latin America's crippling $370 billion debt, famine in Africa, war and terrorism in Central America, Afghanistan and the Mideast, apartheid in South Africa, and the nuclear arms race. Amid the rhetorical hand wringing, Foreign Minister Suppiah Dhanabalan of Singapore cautioned, "There is a clear danger that this organization may become irrelevant to issues of peace and security, the primary issues for which it was founded."

The U.N.'s birthday celebration, as well as the security headaches, will culminate on Oct. 24, the anniversary of the ratification of the U.N. Charter. President Reagan is expected to speak to the General Assembly that week, along with dozens of Prime Ministers and several potentates, including a few Kings. The Secret Service will airlift the President's bulletproof, armored Lincoln Continental on an Air Force transport from Washington, but foreign dignitaries will have to make do with rented limos. Fugazy, New York's largest limousine purveyor, offers cars equipped with flag holders, but the company reports that only six such autos have been requested. Few heads of state, it seems, are eager to alert terrorists by announcing their presence. Bracketing most official cars are station wagons filled with security agents carrying Uzi submachine guns.

The U.N. is already one of the world's great word mills, publishing more than a billion pages in documents a year. But its football-field-size printing plant will be taxed by the nonstop flow of oratory. To fit in all the speechmaking anticipated in the final week of the anniversary commemoration, U.N. officials are searching for a diplomatic way to hold the pronouncements of visiting statesmen to 15 minutes apiece. Their solution: dignitaries will be warned that if their eloquence runs long, "night meetings will be required with all the ensuing consequences." Dire consequences indeed: cocktail parties delayed and curtain times missed.

Demand for New York's cultural offerings has tested the resourcefulness of the U.N. staff, which was able last week to produce, on short notice, tickets to the opening night of Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera for Poland's Jaruzelski. New York hotels are braced for the onslaught. The venerable Waldorf-Astoria, well trained in the care and feeding of outsize egos (Frank Sinatra and Lee Iacocca maintain permanent residences in the Waldorf Towers), employs a "flagman," whose sole duty is to keep track of the 115 foreign flags that the hotel keeps on hand and to fly the right ones for VIP guests. Since 40 foreign delegations are booked into Waldorf suites (at up to $2,100 a night), flagpole space will have to be judiciously apportioned.

The most put-upon worker of all at the anniversary bash may be the U.N.'s chief of protocol, Aly Teymour. Most of his time is spent not hobnobbing at elegant dinners but stuck in traffic on the way to Kennedy Airport to welcome visiting statesmen who jet in at all hours of the day and night. Last week the tall, cultivated Egyptian greeted 120 foreign ministers, but that was merely a warm-up. Still to come are 92 heads of state. Or is it 93? The total changes daily.

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo and Marcia Gauger/ New York