Dirty Carpets

The United Nations has fallen on lean times. Volunteer workers have replaced many salaried employees in information booths. Delegates are no longer supplied with water carafes but must trek to the nearest water cooler. Even the shampooing of rugs has been suspended. "If they spill coffee on the carpet, tough," says Dennis Beissel, head of general services at the U.N.'s Manhattan headquarters. "They'll learn to like the color."

The austerity measures are likely to continue: the U.S. announced last week that its donation to the U.N.'s 1986 budget would total $100 million, rejecting the General Assembly's assessment of $210 million -- 25% of the organization's annual budget. (The Soviet delegation gave $85 million.) The U.N. was lucky to get even that much from Washington. There were fears that Congress, attempting to trim the federal deficit and exasperated by the U.N.'s frequent hostility to U.S. interests, would vote to contribute as little as $50 million. The Reagan Administration is still pressuring the U.N. to cut costs and stop launching programs it cannot properly fund. "The purpose," says Allen Keys, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, "was to encourage the momentum of reform."

What the State Department wants is the adoption of a report prepared by a U.N.-appointed panel of 18 delegates. The plan calls for a 25% cut in the number of assistant and under secretaries-general (there are now 80) and a 15% reduction in the organization's 11,423 staff positions. The so-called Group of 18, however, was unable to reach a consensus on how U.N. programs should be created and implemented. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who agreed last month to serve a second term only if the U.S. assured him that it would contribute enough money to keep the U.N. afloat through December, has instructed the General Assembly to vote on the plan immediately. But most observers doubt that a resolution will be reached this year. "They'll probably agree to disagree and keep on spending money they don't have," sighs a U.N. staffer. "A lot of people don't think the reality of the situation will ever catch up with them."