Mr. Moon: A Master of Missteps at the Head of the UN

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Ban emerged as the front-runner largely thanks to the United States, which was looking for an especially bland candidate after knocking heads so often with Kofi Annan over the Iraq war. The Washington Times, a conservative daily newspaper critical of the UN, described many people's ideal candidate as someone who would be "a decaffeinated Kofi Annan." Seen from that perspective, model student Ban was the perfect candidate.

Many heads of states needed a little time to get straight who the new UN leader was. On a visit to Jerusalem, then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called him not Secretary-General Ban but "Secretary Moon," while Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in Beirut even greeted him as "Mr. Annan." A survey this year revealed 81 percent of Americans still don't know who he is.

By March 2008, Ban had already been on the job over a year, but most UN employees were still figuring out how to properly address their boss. They mixed up his first and last names, calling him Mr. Ki-Moon or Mr. Moon. As the confusion showed no sign of abating, the secretary-general's chief of staff sent a letter to all UN executives concerning a "matter of come delicacy," calling for more "clarity and accuracy" when addressing the head of the world body. He recommended that employees capitalize the name "Ban" to draw more attention to its status as surname, for example in "Secretary-General BAN." The letter, first published in New York Magazine, also added mention that the name is pronounced like "Autobahn."

Ban puts endless hours into his job, but he continues to be everywhere and yet not quite anywhere. He traveled almost ceaselessly as South Korea's foreign minister as well, managing to visit 111 countries and attend 374 meetings with his counterparts abroad in his mere two years and 10 months in office. The diplomat proudly calculates he has traveled almost a million kilometers in his second year in office alone.

Ban undertook an Arctic journey this September, visiting Norway's Svalbard Archipelago. It was a true adventure, complete with a helicopter that had to turn back because of storm conditions and a night spent on an icebreaker ship, in which he was kept awake by the din of cracking ice. When Ban talks about the trip, however, he tells it purely in the jargon of climate experts, everything expressed in centimeters, degrees, liters, and kilograms, as if the whole experience could be described simply as a sum of its component parts, all mathematics and no emotion.

'Alarming, Alarming'

It's evidently the secretary-general's way of rendering life comprehensible and calculable, as well-ordered as graph paper. In the end, however, nothing sticks from the experience. There's no clear picture, just a mass of details.

There was a moment, however, when the secretary-general stood on top of Svalbard's Zeppelin Mountain. A small red lift had brought him to the peak, and now all he had to do was walk to the observation platform with the best view.

Ban's gaze fell for the first time down toward the valley. Startled, he glanced around for his wife, whispering to her that she should stay behind, this wouldn't be her kind of thing.

The path from the lift station to the observation point wasn't a dangerous one, and only a distance of about 10 meters (33 feet). But a head for heights was certainly necessary, since the view from Zeppelin Mountain drops away for half a kilometer (0.3 miles) before reaching the small settlement of Ny-Alesund below and the valleys where the dying glaciers lie. It could have been a great photo-op -- a courageous Ban high above a melting river of ice. But he was overcome by vertigo.

Ban ascended the plateau as if it were a capsizing ship, his upper body bent forward. He was wearing professional weatherproof clothing, the same as the scientists wear. This was how the world should see him, as an environmental savior and fighter for a better climate.

Not knowing quite what to say once he reached the platform, Ban repeated the words "alarming, alarming", his arms flailing helplessly. He clearly lacked the strength for a grand gesture. There was a long silence. Then one fellow traveler gathered up the nerve to ask if the man needed any help on his lonely post -- "Mr. Secretary-General, everything okay up there?"

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• Part 1: A Master of Missteps at the Head of the UN
• Part 2: Dull Private Life?
• Part 3: 'A Decaffeinated Kofi Annan'