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Outside UN, a Secretary So Social - UN Secretary General - Global Policy Forum Outside UN, a Secretary So Social
By Barbara Crossette
New York Times
May 30, 2002
He has a daytime job like no other in the world — and now, the evening hours to go with it. New Yorkers, competing to lure Kofi Annan to their dinners and benefits, are making him the most sociable, plugged-in United Nations secretary general the city has ever known. Sometimes that translates into as many as five nights out a week, he says. That is on top of all those official lunches, diplomatic receptions and traveling: 20 countries so far this year.
He is not complaining. "You have everybody here, lots of interesting people," he said in an interview last Friday, down with a cold he picked up dashing back and forth to East Timor last week to celebrate the birth of the world's newest country. "This is a very vital and vibrant city, and there are some really fascinating people. On any subject — name it — you'll find someone to discuss it with or pick their brains, and that I find very exciting."
Although one close friend described Mr. Annan as the "rock star of international relations," it is, in fact, his unassuming good nature and genuine curiosity about those he meets that get him invited back, say those who know him — and this is a lot of New Yorkers, apparently. He counts Michael R. Bloomberg among his friends. Brooke Astor invited him to her 100th birthday party. He dines with corporate leaders (although this has brought down the wrath of the antiglobalization movement, angry that the United Nations, it says, seems to be growing too close to big business).
"He's not bought in completely to the fact that he's the current social star of New York parties," said William H. Luers, a former diplomat and later president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art who now runs the United Nations Association of the United States, an independent support group. "He is sort of self-deprecating. He doesn't have that radiance of a star the way Henry Kissinger or Paul McCartney have. Or Richard C. Holbrooke, who radiates energy. When Kofi walks into a room, he's clearly a presence, but he doesn't have that ego that drives stars to constantly seek attention. When you invite him, he comes on time. He doesn't wait till everybody's there and come in dramatically."
Toni K. Goodale, whose management consulting company works for nonprofit organizations, has known Mr. Annan since they were both students in the 1970's at the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Études Internationales in Geneva. She said that the secretary general had met everyone who mattered in New York, adding, "I don't think there's anybody too much left to meet."
Not so fast. There was at least one gap in his social circle and Robin Chandler Duke found it. Ms. Duke, a founder of Population Action International and a United Nations Association board member, discovered at a birthday party for the photographer Gordon Parks that a number of African-American leaders had not met the secretary general, who was born in Ghana and educated at Macalester College and M.I.T. "I was stunned," she said, in an interview in the midst of organizing a fund-raiser for Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Delaware Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Here they are, corporate leaders, educators, legal people, and they had never met Kofi Annan." A few weeks ago, Ms. Duke remedied that with a party for 23 black leaders and the secretary general.
Sir Brian Urquhart, a Briton who joined the United Nations at its founding in 1945 and retired an under secretary general for political affairs in the 1980's, has known all the secretaries general, except the first, Trygve Lie of Norway, and says Mr. Annan mixes more in New York society than any of his predecessors. Mr. Lie's daughter, Guri Lie Zeckendorf, who lives in New York, said her father also counted a mayor, William O'Dwyer, among his friends, and was frequently entertained by the Rockefellers, who had given the United Nations the land on which it was built. But it was not an age driven by a celebrity culture, she said.
Sir Brian takes up the history from there: "Dag Hammarskjold did not go out very much," he said of the contemplative Swede. "He didn't like routine social life. U Thant just went home and read. Kurt Waldheim? I'm not sure he got asked very much." (Others say he certainly tried.) Mr. Thant was Burmese. Mr. Waldheim, from Austria, is now barred from visiting the United States because of links to the Nazis as a young man. Mr. Luers knew Javier Perez de Cuellar, a Peruvian, well and described him as "a man of great aesthetics" who frequented the galleries of the Metropolitan. "I used to love taking him through the museum," he said, "because he really knew, probably, more about the art than he knew about the countries of the world." And everyone agrees that Boutros Boutros-Ghali, from Egypt, was an uncompromising intellectual and a workaholic who never relaxed.
Mr. Annan has a striking partner in his wife, Nane Lagergren, a lawyer and artist born of two distinguished Swedish families. Her father is one of Europe's leading judges. Raoul Wallenberg, who died saving thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe from Nazi death camps, was her uncle. Her grace and elegance make her a sought-after guest in her own right. "Nane when she arrived here was very shy, and happy just to be an artist," said James C. Goodale, Toni's husband and a communications lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton. "She's just blossomed to be the first lady of the world." The Goodales — he was formerly vice chairman of The New York Times Company — introduced the Annans to prominent New Yorkers long before he became secretary general.
Mr. Annan said he and his wife had some rules. "We try ideally not to go out more than three nights a week, but some weeks we go to some function or other every night," he said. "But what we've managed to do is to carve out the weekends for ourselves. We refuse to accept any engagements on the weekend. We usually go for long walks. Periodically, we go to the movies, or to the theater, or to listen to music."
Mr. Annan has hopes that he and Mayor Bloomberg can repair the generally dismal relationship between the city and United Nations. "I think that is possible," the secretary general said. "I consider him a good friend. I've known him long before he thought of becoming the mayor. "He's very open. He did something none of his predecessors have done: inviting all the U.N. ambassadors to Gracie Mansion for cocktails to thank them all for what they do and what they bring to the city, which was quite unique." Small successes like this may encourage Mr. Annan to continue partying beyond the ambassadorial crowd. "I think he believes, quite rightly," Sir Brian said, "that the U.N. really needed to stop talking to itself, needed to reach out to people beyond the diplomatic circle. All of that diplomatic wining and dining is a relic of a completely different time."
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