Malloch Brown's Judgment
New York Sun Staff Editorial
June 23, 2005

Quite a little donnybrook erupted Monday at the United Nations when a reporter of the London Times asked Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff for the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, whether he could explain the full extent of his financial relationship with George Soros. Mr. Malloch Brown answered by challenging the Sun's correspondent to name who gave him the story about how Mr. Malloch Brown, while making a net take-home salary of $125,000 a year, was paying $120,000 to rent from Mr. Soros a house adjacent to the billionaire's own home in Westchester County. Mr. Malloch Brown also challenged our Benny Avni and the gentleman from the Times, James Bone, to declare the motive of their sources.
Our celebrated Mr. Avni wasn't at the briefing, but the Timesman replied that he could answer that right on the spot. A lot of people, he told Mr. Malloch Brown, don't like you, and some of those perhaps have given us stories. That, he suggested, was perfectly understandable, and he asserted that the press can sort out the motives, which he called perfectly transparent - they don't like you. The Timesman then asked, Are there any other properties in which you have a financial relationship with George Soros? Mr. Malloch Brown replied, No, I have no financial involvement with George Soros, of any kind. I pay a full commercial rent for the one property of his I live in.
Mr. Malloch Brown then attempted to turn the tables, saying the circumstances makes me put to you that you may want to question your own motives. He credited all of the reporters in the room with having been a critical part of exposing terrible things that have gone on in the U.N. organization, but urged them to stick to proper issues. Don't you think, the reporter pressed on, it's slightly odd that the person who said they wanted to be squeaky clean has a financial relationship, albeit a normal, commercial financial relationship with someone who does business with the U.N. and the agency you're the head of? Mr. Malloch Brown said he would not if it was on proper, full, commercial lines and wasn't secret.
Well, we don't mind saying that we have great regard for Mr. Malloch Brown. He represents what possibility there is for internal reform at the United Nations. But it's hard to credit his line of argument here. We don't suggest he (or Mr. Soros) is unethical. We simply suggest Mr. Malloch Brown made an error of judgment - and not a minor one. He can stress all he wants that his rental arrangement with Mr. Soros is on full commercial terms. But the suggestion is pure poppycock. Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall when a more ordinary New Yorker tried to rent that house from Mr. Soros and had to disclose that it would require nearly 100% of the prospective tenant's take-home pay.
But even if it were on full commercial terms, it's an error of judgment for Mr. Malloch Brown to rent a place from Mr. Soros in the first place. The billionaire and the United Nations Development Program cooperate in huge joint projects involving millions of dollars. Unlike Mr. Soros's organization, the resources Mr. Malloch Brown is devoting to these projects are not his own; they are financed with other people's money, namely taxpayers' money, the biggest share of them in America.
And taxpayers just have this pesky tendency to want their representatives to live modestly and conduct public affairs with private interests at arms length. And how is Mr. Malloch Brown going to deal with Mr. Soros at arms length if he is locked into an arrangement with the billionaire that requires the U.N. official to fork over each month nearly 100% of his net pay check? That may make sense to Mr. Malloch Brown, but it won't make sense to the ordinary man in the street.
And then there is the political blunder. Mr. Malloch Brown can assert all he wants about his right to choose his friends. But what does it say about the political orientation of the United Nations' top brass when the friend turns out to be the most ardent foe of the man the United Nations wants to sign the checks for hundreds of millions of dollars in its operating expenses. We speak here of President Bush, whose approach to foreign affairs Mr. Soros has likened to that of the Nazis. He pledged himself to spend millions on Mr. Bush's defeat.
What are Americans, who just finished elevating Mr. Bush to a second term, supposed to make of Mr. Malloch Brown's cozy relationship with Mr. Soros? What is the Congress supposed to make of it? Here Mr. Malloch Brown is in the midst of a desperate struggle to convince the Congress not to cut American dues to the world body and he fetches up in bed with a man who spent the last election cycle likening the Republicans' leader to Hitler. One doesn't have to be a multilingual, United Nations sophisticate to find the right word for this kind of stunt.