Plop in the middle of the entangled, entangling, impossible mess of the United Nations, where Kofi Annan’s ego attempts achingly to overswell diurnal scandals, enters John C. Danforth. This resolute human being, who only four months ago became U.S. ambassador to the U.N., announced that he was quitting. Why? And why at this time? Because, he said, he needs to spend more time with his wife, Sally. “Forty-seven years ago,” Mr. Danforth wrote to the president, “I married the girl of my dreams, and, at this point in my life, what is most important tomeisto spend more time with her. Because you know Sally, you know my reason for going home.”
Well, if we knew Sally like John knows Sally, we’d perhaps ignore other considerations before the house. But we don’t, and are therefore driven to pause over other matters that might have entered the mind of Danforth when he decided to pull out.
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