IN AN ADMINISTRATION full of "unilateralists," many observers expected Secretary of State Colin Powell to be the most reliable friend of the United Nations--and perhaps he was, until French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin sandbagged him on Iraq at a meeting Powell thought had been called to…

MANY MYSTERIES REMAIN in the wake of the life and death of Alger Hiss. One is his relationship to Dean Acheson. On January 25, 1950, the day Hiss was sentenced to prison for lying about passing secrets to the Soviet Union, Harry Truman's secretary of state declared during a press conference: "I do…