No Humburg

An ambassador of a Security Council member nation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it would almost be an insult to be spared the attention of foreign intelligence agencies. ‘‘It used to be a shame; now it’s a matter of status. If your mission is not bugged, then you are really worth nothing.’’

President Franklin D. Roosevelt ‘‘fought hard for the US to host the opening session’’ of the UN in April 1945, says James Bamford in his book about the National Security Agency, Body of Secrets. ‘‘It seemed like a magnanimous gesture to most of the delegates. But the real reason was to better enable the US to eavesdrop on its guests,’’ according to Bamford.

Regardless of how common spying is, it is not common to get caught, as the NSA apparently was last March when a British translator gave The Observer copies of an agency memo requesting a ‘‘surge’’ in eavesdropping on Security Council members during the debate on authorising the use of force against Iraq.

Last week, former British Cabinet Minister Clare Short told BBC Radio that she had seen transcripts of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s surreptitiously recorded conversations. Experts say it would be highly unusual if the US did not know about the Annan eavesdropping. Under a secret pact between Britain, Canada, Australia and the US, Washington has responsibility for surveillance and sharing information on targets within the United States, NSA experts said.

Most diplomats acknowledge spying as a fact of life. It was at its height during the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet Union filled their UN delegations with CIA and KGB officers.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, gave Russian intelligence a clean chit: ‘‘I don’t think you could even suspect that the Secretary-General’s office was bugged by the Russian intelligence service.’’ Another Council member nation’s ambassador reacted with incredulity. ‘‘On the record, if Lavrov says so, I have to believe Lavrov,’’ the diplomat said. ‘‘Off the record: Is he joking?’’ —(LAT-WP)