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Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

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Asked to respond to an Op-Ed Page article in the Washington Post by Jim Hoagland, particularly his point accusing the Secretary-General's staff of "being out to knife American policy in Iraq and debilitate Saddam Hussein", Mr. Eckhard said he did not want to address that particular article. He referred the correspondent to a letter from his Office to the editor of the

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 8 January 1999

paper today that addressed similar sentiments in the Post's editorial of yesterday.

Responding to a follow-up question, the Spokesman said his Office was not aware of any outgoing telephone calls from Headquarters. As far as he was concerned, the episode had started when journalists had called his Office saying they had information which was the subject of the article. "We then began asking around, starting with the Secretary-General calling Richard Butler [the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM)] to find out what he knew about it. Then the Washington Post had written that the United Nations was concerned".

Asked whether he had said anything about the President of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, Mr. Eckhard said he had not.

Responding to a further question on the UNSCOM matter, Mr. Eckhard said: "We have said from the beginning that we have no evidence, no access to confidential information, based on intelligence sources, on the 38th floor. We don't have that. We got wind of this information that the United States was piggy-backing on UNSCOM for intelligence purposes from journalists. A number of newspapers subsequently had written articles based on Washington sources. One newspaper wrote a story on the Secretary-General's involvement saying that he was concerned. If the quote in the Washington Post is correct, then a member of the Secretary-General's staff was out of line -- said something he should not have said and said something which the Secretary- General said is not reflective of his thinking. We don't know who that person is".

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