WASHINGTON – Two weeks after the United Nations adopted a major reform agenda during a summit celebrating the 60th session of the General Assembly, America’s ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, and the chief of staff to Secretary-General Annan, Mark Malloch Brown, united here yesterday in urging further improvements at Turtle Bay.

The “outcome document” of the “high level event,” as the reform agenda and summit are known to the United Nations, “was not the alpha and the omega,” Mr. Bolton said yesterday during an oversight hearing of the House International Relations Committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Hyde, a Republican of Illinois. “But we never thought it would be.”

Earlier this year, the House passed legislation introduced by Mr. Hyde that would make American funding of the Untied Nations contingent upon the implementation of specific reforms. Yesterday’s was the third hearing held this year by the full committee on the subject of U.N. rehabilitation.

Mr. Bolton, in his first appearance on Capitol Hill since the confirmation hearings that led to his recess appointment in August, said that he was particularly concerned about the need for “management reform” at Turtle Bay. To that end, the ambassador submitted to the committee a three-page list of suggested follow-up measures to the outcome document.

The list touted by the ambassador includes exhortations that the United Nations embrace “improved financial disclosure” and “better protection against harassment.” The list also recommends that the United Nations conduct a “review and analysis of mandates and opportunities for programmatic shifts.”

On the question of terrorism, too, the American mission did not receive from the United Nations everything it had hoped for in the outcome document, Mr. Bolton said. “It’s unfortunate that we had an extended debate” on what constitutes acceptable terrorism versus unacceptable terrorism, the ambassador said.

Despite his warning that “reform is not a one-night stand” and urging that the United Nations make its improvements in a speedy and sustained fashion, Mr. Bolton frequently stopped short of issuing specific condemnation of the world body and particular member states.

In his written testimony distributed before the hearing, for example, Mr. Bolton wrote of management reform: “The key is to break the sense of entitlement that permeates the U.N. system.” He expressed admiration for statements made by the former U.N. undersecretary general for management, Catherine Bertini, in which she documented how the voluntary funding of some U.N. agencies, such as the World Food Program, yields greater efficiency and accountability than in the parts of the organization that derive financing from assessed contributions.

“This is not necessarily to suggest that this is the proper model for all operations at the United Nations, but this Committee’s recent legislation reflects bipartisan support for evaluating the concept of voluntary versus assessed contributions in many parts of the U.N. system,” the ambassador wrote.

In his spoken remarks before the committee, however, Mr. Bolton excised references to the “entitlement” culture, including only his praise for the analysis of Ms. Bertini. Her observation, and the possibility of financing the United Nations with voluntary contributions, met with resistance yesterday from Mr. Malloch Brown, who, speaking to reporters prior to briefing the committee, dismissed the idea as ill-suited to the U.N.’s needs.

Mr. Bolton also stopped short of identifying by name any member states opposed to bringing greater transparency and accountability to the United Nations. Pressed by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican of Florida, on the matter of the U.N. Development Program’s funding of anti-Israel materials created by Palestinian Arabs and released to coincide with the Gaza pullout, Mr. Bolton, who had previously condemned the UNDP for a lack of oversight that led to such funding, said he was satisfied that the issue had been resolved and would not happen again. He did not specify how the situation had been resolved.

Mr. Bolton was joined in his criticisms of the outcome document yesterday by Mr. Malloch Brown, who bemoaned the “real difficulty in getting a clear and unambiguous definition” of terrorism out of member states.

The most dramatic points of Mr. Malloch Brown’s appearance before the committee came when he was pressed by members to promise “clearly and unambiguously” that “the United Nations is proposing no global tax,” as had been previously suggested by some at the world body. “This would be considered a huge overreach by the United Nations,” Mr. Malloch Brown said.

Mr. Malloch Brown was grilled by Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican of New Jersey, on the outcome document’s expression of support for universal “reproductive health” access.

“Do you define ‘reproductive health’ to include abortion?” Mr. Smith asked. “Does Secretary Kofi Annan, as well?”

After a lengthy back and forth, Mr. Malloch Brown stated: “We do not interpret it as being abortion.” Under the Bush administration, America has stipulated that its U.N. assessments and other international contributions cannot be used to finance abortions.