During the last night of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, things looked to be in serious trouble.
Representatives from 114 countries had come together for the first time to make the environment a matter of mutual co-operation and concern. But they could not agree on language for a declaration of principles that was supposed to be released to the public the next morning.
As the wrangling between delegates stretched into the predawn hours, the secretary-general of the conference, Maurice Strong, abruptly pulled the plug on their audio. The gesture shook participants and gave Mr. Strong an opening to get the conference back on track.
International man of mystery…
Mr. Strong no longer has any official ties to the U.N., however. In 2005, at the height of the investigations into the U.N.’s corrupt Oil-for-Food relief program for Iraq, news emerged of the six-figure check from Iraq. Evidence procured by federal investigators and the U.N.-authorized inquiry of Paul Volcker showed that Mr. Strong in 1997, while working for Mr. Annan, had endorsed a check for $988,885, made out to “Mr. M. Strong,” issued by a Jordanian bank. This check was hand-delivered to Mr. Strong by a South Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, who in 2006 was convicted in New York federal court of conspiring to bribe U.N. officials to rig Oil-for-Food in favor of Saddam.
Mr. Strong was never accused of any wrongdoing. Asked by investigators about the check, he initially denied he’d ever handled it. When they showed it to him with his own signature on the back, he acknowledged that he must have endorsed it, but said the money was meant to cover an investment Mr. Park wished to make in a Strong family company, Cordex, run by one of his sons.
Go incognito.
