State of Siege - Tom Clancy [25]
"To refresh your memories," she went on, "and for the benefit of our new guests, I'd like to tell you a little about the area of the United Nations we'll be visiting."
The guide explained that the Security Council is the United Nations's most powerful body, primarily responsible for maintaining international peace and security. "Five influential countries including the United States sit as permanent members," she said, "along with ten others, elected for two-year terms. Tonight, your children will be playing for the ambassadors of these nations along with their executive staffs. "The Economic and Social Council, as the name implies, serves as a forum for the discussion of international economic and social issues," the young woman went on. "The council also promotes human rights and basic freedoms. The Trusteeship Council, which suspended operations in 1994, helped territories around the world attain self-government or independence, either as sovereign states or as part of other nations."
For just a moment, Hood thought it would be fascinating to nun this place. Keeping the peace inside, among the delegates, had to be as challenging as keeping the peace outside. As though sensing his thoughts, Sharon slipped her fingers between his and squeezed tightly. He let the idea go.
The group passed a large, ground-floor window that looked out onto the main plaza. Outside was the Shinto-style shrine that housed the Japanese Peace Bell. It was cast from coins and metal donated by people from sixty nations. Just past the window, the lobby fed into a wide corridor. Straight ahead were elevators used by UN delegates and their staff. To the right was a series of display cases. The guide led them over. The cases contained relics of the atom bomb blast that razed Hiroshima: fused cans, charred school clothes and roof tiles, melted bottles, and a pocked stone statue of Saint Agnes. The Japanese guide described the destructive force and intensity of the blast.
The exhibit wasn't moving Hood or Barbara's father Hal Mathis, whose father had died on Okinawa. Hood wished that Bob Herbert and Mike Rodgers were here. Rodgers would have asked the guide to show them the Pearl Harbor exhibit next. The one about the attack that happened when the two nations weren't at war. At twenty-two or twenty-three years old, Hood wondered if the young woman would have understood the context of the question. Herbert would have raised a stink even before they got this far. The intelligence chief had lost his wife and the use of his legs in the terrorist bombing of the United States embassy in Beirut in 1983. He had gotten on with his life, but he did not forgive easily. In this case, Hood wouldn't have blamed him. One of the UN publications Hood had browsed through at the gift shop described Pearl Harbor as "the Hirohito attack," tacitly absolving the Japanese people of guilt in the crime. Even the more politically correct Hood found the revisionist history disturbing. After finishing at the Hiroshima exhibit, the group went up two flights of escalators to the upstairs lobby. To their left were the three auditoriums with the Security Council chambers located on the far end. The parents were led to the old press bull pen across the hall. There was a guard outside, a member of the United Nations Security Forces. The African-American man was dressed in a powder blue short-sleeve shirt, blue gray trousers with a black stripe down each leg, and a navy blue cap. His name tag read Dillon. When they arrived, Mr. Dillon unlocked the bull pen door and let them in.
Today, reporters generally work in the high-tech television press rooms situated in long, glass booths on either side of the Security Council auditorium. These booths are accessible by a common corridor between the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council. But in the 1940's, this spacious, windowless L-shaped room was the heart of the United Nations's media center. The first part of