Can Bush and Rice really be turning Washington all warm and fuzzy?
TWO RATHER different views of the United Nations have been on display in America this week. In cinemas across the country, trailers are advertising the release next week of Sidney Pollack’s glossy new thriller set at the UN headquarters in New York. In The Interpreter, Nicole Kidman plays what would have to be described as something quite rare these days, even in the fevered imagination of Hollywood liberals — the multilateralist, polyglot, diplomatist heroine. Ms Kidman is a UN official who believes, so the trailers say, in the “power and sanctity of words” to resolve conflicts. She uncovers a plot to assassinate an African president and, in trying to derail it, butts heads with a crusty US agent who favours a more aggressive approach. I haven’t seen the film yet, but given the cast (which includes Sean “Christmas in Baghdad” Penn) and the fact that the UN allowed unprecedented access for its production, I would offer no prizes for correctly guessing whether it is the peaceful, diplom
