Strange Things Can Happen at U.N. Debate

Seats for the United States delegation are empty as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2006. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan) (Peter Morgan - AP)

UNITED NATIONS -- There was the much-discussed handshake that never happened, the presentation of the coca leaf, and the case of the lonely beige chair that took center stage.

When leaders from dozens of U.N. member states suddenly find themselves crammed in the same building, strange things happen. On the first day of the annual U.N. General Assembly session, it was difficult not to feel that one was witnessing the intricate, poorly understood social rituals of a rare and exotic animal species.

The practiced U.N. protocol officers prevented any major gaffes, even when Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had to scrap his appearance because of a coup back home. And the much-anticipated run-in between U.S. President Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never materialized.

As was customary, Bush delivered the second speech of the day and co-hosted a lunch with Secretary-General Kofi Annan just before 1 p.m. Ahmadinejad didn't deliver his speech until the evening, and was not even in New York when Bush was at the U.N., according to U.S. Ambassador John Bolton.

"I honestly don't know where these stories come from," Bolton said. "It doesn't require any acrobatics to avoid a meeting and certainly I'm not aware we've been engaged in any."

There was one meeting Bush did not avoid. He shook hands warmly with his predecessor, President Bill Clinton, who was in town for his Clinton Global Initiative conference, which pushes the world's rich and powerful to act on poverty, health care and global warming.

As usual, things were running late all day, forcing some leaders to sit around and wait for everyone else. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe had an empty chair next to him at lunch (it was supposed to have been filled by Thaksin), and was clearly not pleased to have arrived on time for Annan's lunch. Cameras caught him looking around with an annoyed look, once raising his hands in exasperation.

"I'm sorry if we've starved some of you, but that's the way we work here in this house every day, and sometimes we go without lunch," Annan told the diners.

The menu included smoked salmon and tournedos rossini, made of small beef filets, truffles and fois gras. Desert was a banana sundae.

Through the day, the background noise was the speeches that are the right of each leader attending the summit, euphemistically called a "debate." The General Assembly hall emptied out as the day turned to evening and the speeches continued, but leaders blithely ignored the 15-minute time limit and Day One didn't end until 9:22 p.m.

Outside the building, the streets were clogged with traffic but peaceful enough, as evinced by the pair of New York police officers who played chess on a magnetic board set up on the hood of a patrol car.

The United Nations, beacon of the world's aspirations for 50 weeks of the year, was transformed into Fortress U.N., with its mobile police command centers, observation posts, barricades and dozens of uniform-clad officers.