UNITED NATIONS – The “housecleaning” campaign at the United Nations was put into high gear yesterday, indicating that Secretary-General Annan believes he needs to better manage the press as well as heal relations with Washington, where legislators continue to demand his resignation.

Mr. Annan announced at a press conference here that the 51-year-old Briton now heading the U.N. Development Program, Mark Malloch Brown, would become his chief of staff. Mr. Malloch Brown, a tall, imposing presence, almost overshadowed Mr. Annan, who looked tired and somewhat nervous at yesterday’s press conference.

Mr. Annan told reporters that the announcement “is the first in a series of changes or reshuffling that may happen.” The goal is to “clean house,” one U.N. official told The New York Sun, asking not to be named. “The changes are long overdue. Kofi should have done it at the end of his first term.”

Before heading to Asia with Mr. Annan, where the two are to launch an appeal for aid for tsunami victims, Mr. Malloch Brown made a round of visits to U.N. press bureaus, telling the Sun that “people of my generation” understand press relations. “Communications has become a critical component of the modern mix of policy and politics and management,” he said, adding that in his new capacity he hoped to deal with the press in “an effective way but also in an open way.”

Many U.N. officials believe the organization’s real problem is inept press relations, and some suspected that the mere nomination of Mr. Malloch Brown, who is considered one of the most adept U.N. officials at handling the press, was a vote of no-confidence in the current communications team.

Reached on a year-end vacation with his family in India, the undersecretary general for communications and public information, Shashi Tharoor, told the Sun yesterday that he does not see it that way. “There is room for the expertise and abilities that Mark brings to the job,” he said.

Another hope was that Mr. Malloch Brown could help repair relations with America. “You cannot have a strong U.N. that does not have a strong relationship with the United States,” he told the Sun. “I mean the administration, and I mean American public opinion, and I think we managed in recent months to [offend] both, and that’s not good.”

A New York Times story yesterday highlighted advice Mr. Annan recently received from Americans strongly identified with Democratic politics.

To avoid friction with Washington Republicans, Mr. Annan said yesterday that his new nominations will include Americans “from both parties.”

But on Capitol Hill some Republican legislators who have called for Mr. Annan’s resignation were not impressed. “It’s like reshuffling the chairs on the deck of the Titanic,” Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey told the Sun, adding he is still calling for Mr. Annan’s resignation.

While Mr. Annan is finally making some necessary changes, Mr. Garrett said, he has yet to answer for past deeds, as would have any leader in the business world.

One of the key positions Mr. Annan is expected to fill soon is that of his Middle East representative, a post made vacant at the end of 2004, as Terje Roed-Larsen ended his long stint. Some press reports speculated that a veteran of British and U.N. diplomacy, Kieran Prendergast, who since 1997 has served as undersecretary-general for political affairs, would be named to the post.

Mr. Prendergast, who was once Britain’s deputy ambassador in Israel, was said by a diplomat who knows him well to be “very interested” in the job. The Israelis consider him “fair,” and at times he has even countered anti-Israeli attacks by some of Mr. Annan’s more pro-Arab advisers, the diplomat said. A U.N. official added that at the end of his career, Mr. Prendergast “wants to practice real diplomacy, not only to manage.”

But one diplomat familiar with the maneuvering around the position told the Sun that Mr. Prendergast has not yet been named to it due to opposition from the Bush administration.

Mr. Annan refused to confirm press reports about Mr. Prendergast’s nomination, adding, “I have a long list of candidates.”

Unlike the praise he has conferred on some of the other names he was asked about, he said only that Mr. Prendergast still heads the department of political affairs, “but I must admit that I do intend to make further changes – changes that would affect senior people already in the building.”