The U.N. Gang: A Memoir of Incompetence, Corruption, Espionage, Anti-Semitism, and Islamic Extremism at the U.N. Secretariat

The United Nations headquarters appears as a byzantine bureaucracy riddled with lazy staff, rampant sexual harassment, hectoring anti-Semitism and flagrant drug dealing in this contemptuous memoir. And worse: Sanjuan alleges that the U.N. library housed the largest KGB intelligence operation in America and hints darkly—with no apparent evidence—that the 9/11 attacks may have been plotted by Islamic jihadists at the U.N. Sanjuan served as policy planning director in the U.N. Secretariat, but his real job, he says, was to "spy" on the organization's inner workings for the Reagan and Bush administrations. It's hard to see how he accomplished either of these delicate assignments, given his bristling, bull-in-the-china-shop approach to the tasks. He loathes everyone at the U.N., from the "pusillanimous" former secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuellar to the security guard he upbraids for not saying "please," and he delights in verbatim accounts of the long dressings-down he metes out to those who step on his toes. "I used a very strong expletive with reference to the Soviet undersecretary-general's mother" pretty much sums up his attitude toward diplomatic niceties. The author delivers a lively, preening, sometimes eye-opening insider's account, but his obvious polemical intent and the enormous chip on his shoulder overshadow his critique of the U.N.'s failings. (Sept. 20)