A taught and timely memoir from former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Those tempted to approach Kofi Annan’s memoirs viathe ‘Washington read’ – going straight to the index and then to anecdotal mentions of the great and the good – may be briefly titillated, but they will not be distracted for long. Every so often in Interventions, his taut and timely memoir, the former UN secretary-general, so famous for his equanimity, acquiesces to the editor’s eternal desire for headlines and delivers a gentle jab at a fellow statesman. So we read this of Tony Blair in 2006 as the then British prime minister tells Annan that he is against calling on Israel to impose an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon: “Something had changed in Blair and with it, I felt, his ability to act as a credible mediator in this conflict.”
Then there is the early passage about Colin Powell, who, we read, comes to see Annan six weeks after the invasion of Iraq with a “huge smile” on his face. “Kofi, they have made an honest man of me,” the then secretary of state says. “They’ve found the mobile labs.” Poor Powell! While subsequent mentions make clear Annan retains a huge affection for him – possibly not true of Blair – this extract will have been yet another wounding blow to the general. Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright, to mention just two others, will also not be entirely comfortable with all they read here, and deservedly so.