Some writing about the UN may suggest that there are those who conceive of the elephant that is the United Nations largely in terms of its human rights programs. The allusion to the fabled task of the blind men is not intended to impugn the vision of those who concentrate on that significant United Nations activity. The United Nations is a multifaceted and incongruous body, and the broadest view would not permit seeing it whole and in detail at the same time. Aware of the inevitable distortion that concentration brings, I would on this occasion look at this particular limb, hoping not to lose sight of the fact that it is part of a living if strange beast in a real world.