He derails trains of thought, discomfits the orthodox, and disrupts debate. But he may also be responsible for preventing untold numbers of colleagues from dying of sheer boredom. What is more, he knows the ropes at the United Nations General Assembly better than anybody else, for he has been there since its first meeting in 1946. He is Jamil M. Baroody, 66, a Lebanese-born New Yorker who is Saudi Arabia’s U.N. representative.
Unguided Missile. Because the oil-rich Saudis need hardly anything in the way of aid from the U.N. and Baroody has King Feisal’s total confidence, he is probably freer than any other diplomat to say exactly what he thinks. Which he does, interminably. A slightly stooped, balding man with an appreciative eye for a well-turned leg, he has a point of order for every occasion, and when colleagues show annoyance at his interruptions, he faces them down with a schoolmaster’s glare. During the recent debate on the admission of China, he overheard one diplomat say that Baroody should be thrown out instead of the Chinese Nationalists. Baroody promptly reported the conversation from the podium, blithely breaking a house rule against revealing private conversations in public. During the same debate, Baroody, who strongly supported the U.S., managed to call for a vote at precisely the wrong moment, allowing the pro-Peking countries to muster their forces before the U.S. was ready for a showdown. Exasperated, U.S. Ambassador George Bush described Baroody as “an unguided missile.”
Others dismiss him as a jester, a clown or worse. Yet somehow, Baroody occasionally comes across as the one sane man at a mad tea party. He was the only delegate, for example, to bring up the embarrassing point that on the very day the U.N. was beginning a debate on disarmament, the newly admitted Peking regime had chosen to detonate a nuclear bomb. At a loss for an answer, the hapless Chinese delegate replied simply: “I denounce you.” Baroody shot back: “This ‘denounce’—this is no way to explain your case.” Afterward Baroody shrugged: “Someone has to put them in their place.”
Big Moment. Baroody is a mass of conflicting nationalities and interests. His family is half-Christian and half-Moslem; though he represents the most orthodox Moslem country in the world, he is a Christian. He can deliver anti-Western diatribes with as much vigor and vitriol as a 1950s Pravda editorial, yet he has an American wife and his four children received U.S. educations. A product of the American University in Beirut, Baroody has been a friend of King Feisal since their youth. He supervised the education abroad of the King’s seven sons, and is reputedly adviser on the royal investments in the U.S.
Baroody’s greatest moment came in 1965 when, in the eyes of some—most notably himself—he all but saved the organization from disintegration. The Soviet Union was then withholding its dues because Moscow opposed U.N. peace-keeping operations in the Congo and the Middle East; the U.S. was insisting that Russia pay up before it could vote. Everyone was intent on avoiding a collision between the two powers—except for Peking’s agent, the delegate from Albania, who insisted on a vote that would have plunged the great gold and blue hall into turmoil. Standing at the rostrum and trying to outshout the General Assembly’s President, who was trying to ignore him, the Albanian insisted on being heard. Baroody marched up to the rostrum, told the Albanian that he could speak first next day, and led the startled delegate by the arm back to his seat.
Two weeks ago, Baroody was at his best during a rancorous slanging match between the Soviet Union and China. As usual, he was ready with an Arabic proverb: “The wind and the sea had a quarrel, but the one who paid the price was the sailor in the boat. We are all of us in the boat.” For that speech, Baroody last week received an unusual tribute from U.S. Delegate Edward J. Derwinski: “The oratorical skill of the distinguished delegate is almost overpowering. I am convinced that if Mr. Winston Churchill in his heyday had debated Mr. Baroody, he would have come across second best.” Chances are that Baroody does not consider the compliment exaggerated.
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