President Trump took over the United Nations Correspondent Association’s room to sign a new agreement with Denmark and Greenland. Then, the UN press corp noticed.
“Ma’am, where are you going?”
The Secret Service agent who dared to stop Edith Lederer in the third-floor press corridor had no idea he was standing in front of a UN institution. “Ma’am, where are you going?” he scolded.
“I’m UNCA’s vice president, and I’m going to my office!” she shot back in the same tone. Those of us who had already been stopped by the Secret Service outside our own offices laughed. Edith was let through. We were not so lucky. “Are you also UNCA’s vice president?” he asked me rhetorically.
I could have told him I sit on the board of the Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists, but I knew it wasn’t about the title. None of us carries Edith’s authority. She is a pioneering American journalist who was already a legend when she arrived here almost 30 years ago. She was the first woman AP assigned full-time to cover the Vietnam War, and the agency’s first female overseas bureau chief, in Lima. A muscular agent twice her size was not going to keep her from walking the press corridor.
It was a rare occasion anyway: the president of the United States was on our floor. For some mysterious reason, the UNCA room had been chosen for the signing of a high-profile trilateral agreement on Greenland with Denmark, “an incredible, beautiful country,” in Mr. Trump’s words.
The president who once wanted to buy the island settled for two new military bases and a free hand in its airspace. At the height of the president’s war with the media, the US Mission had asked the United Nations Correspondents Association to lend its room for such a historic agreement. The deal had clearly not been planned for very long.
To please such a distinguished guest, the room had to be beautified. There was a sober podium, blue velvet curtains, and lots of flags. No gold, though. Trump may have been disappointed, but on such short notice, it was the best that could be done.
UNCA was very gracious about this rare use of its room for the signing of a bilateral treaty, something we could find no precedent for. “We are always glad to collaborate with Member State missions and the United Nations, and to offer our support whenever possible,” Valeria Robecco, president of UNCA, told Envoy when asked for an explanation.
So the journalists’ room was lent to the same president who, hours earlier, had lashed out at CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins for asking when the war on Iran would end. “You should not be here covering me. You said you weren’t going to cover me,” he snapped. That would not have stopped Helen Thomas, just as it didn’t stop Edith Lederer, or Kaitlan Collins. “The United Nations allowed us in, sir,” she shot back.
Oh, well, Mr. President. In your view, the press may be “the enemy of the people,” but the UN is the house of all. The house of free press. As you said yourself, “It’s an honor to be here.”
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