Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Gala goes on, weather or not Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 13:27:07 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE;ABOUT TOWN \HD Gala goes on, weather or not \BY Kevin Chaffee \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES After listening to a nine-song tribute to Marian Anderson performed by mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves at the United Nations Concert at the Kennedy Center, about 800 guests braved Saturday night's tempestuous weather to drive halfway across town for the second half of the evening: a black-tie dinner at the Washington Hilton. There, the beleaguered international organization was much on the minds of several of the event's more notable attendees. Lamenting that the United States is $733 million in arrears on its dues, John Whitehead, president of the U.N. Association of the USA and former deputy secretary of state, clearly was trying to sound upbeat about the U.N.'s fiscal crisis. "We have to pay our fair share of the peacekeeping costs," he said, "[because] the United States has the opportunity to use the U.N. as an important part of our foreign policy - as I hope we will do in Yugoslavia in due course." U.N. Undersecretary General Joseph Verner Reed, former U.S. chief of protocol, was a bit more defensive, especially about a recent series in The Washington Post. Often highly critical of the United Nations, the series "failed to give the new secretary-general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, any credit for moving forward with peacekeeping and administrative reform," Mr. Reed said. "The series is just a lot of 'regurgitated old paper,' " he added, careful to note that his "hard-nosed" boss already has begun to cut major posts from the U.N.'s bloated bureaucracy. The criticism was "generally accurate, although it emphasized the negative aspects," said Mr. Whitehead, who went on to repeat a maxim that few will dispute. "If we didn't have the United Nations, we'd have to invent it." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM