Restricted Sessions: Restricted Results

Abstract

‘British believe, either honestly or for political effect, that they can continue to play the part of mediator.’—BEDELL SMITH¹

In a handsomely carpeted room, less spacious than those used for plenary sessions, but still the size of a small house, nine separate tables had been arranged to form a hollow square. At each table sat a delegate, flanked by his principal adviser and his interpreter. Two or three more advisers occupied chairs behind. Along the wall under the windows was a comfortable bench well upholstered in the kind of pale, gleaming, café au lait leather to be found in a Rolls-Royce. There several delegations had installed a junior diplomat to take notes, for the Secretariat of the United Nations were excluded from restricted sessions and each delegation had to make its own record and provide its own interpreter.