Don't underrate this tough Korean

UNITED NATIONS — Ban Ki-Moon, the 62-year-old former foreign minister of South Korea, is no longer a free man.

Wherever he goes these days, this pleasantly cosmopolitan diplomat is stalked. Not — as far as anyone actually knows — by terrorists eager to do him in and make a scene, but by two other very real shadows.

One is of the sizable, ever-present security detail that trails his every move (and, to a lesser extent, that of his wife's).

The other is the gigantic shadow of failure that hangs over the United Nations itself — just as it once hung over the League of Nations that was fatefully to fall to the Earth, plunge into its own irrelevance and usher in the onset of the murderous Second World War.

It's hard to say at this moment, just before Jan. 1 when he officially takes office as U.N. secretary-general, which of these two shadows burdens Ban Ki-Moon the more.

If you didn't know him better, you'd suspect that he'd want to rid himself of the first of the shadows if he had but one choice of the two to eliminate. No one in the U.S. besides the American president has to live with as onerous and around-the-clock security as the occupant of the position commonly described as the "world's diplomat in chief."

If he could, Ban might very well ban the heavy show of protective force. Just the other week, before the installation of the security entourage, Ban slipped out of the hotel suite where he and his wife Soon-Taek are now residing until the completion of the secretary-general's official home (which year after year continues to be in "development"). Ban's secret destination? A local movie house to catch "Casino Royale," the latest James Bond film. What's more, this private and unassuming diplomatic couple find themselves at the very epicenter of the second shadow — the immensely dark one that looms over the fate of the Earth. Will this world organization, hanging by a slender thread on the edge of the East River, regain its competence, its composure and indeed its collective legitimacy?

It is the latter shadow that the Bans are contending with that is admittedly the bigger of the two. "I am very worried, even anxious," the incoming secretary-general admitted in the course of a lengthy private dinner. The enormity of the challenge is best understood by pointing out that the problem ailing the world lurks both inside the U.N. as well as in the outside world. Wherever Ban Ki-Moon will go over the next five years, he will indeed find himself surrounded by trouble.

The worst of it — in a sense — seethes right at U.N. headquarters itself. The place is literally a mess. At the swearing-in ceremony earlier this month, half the earphones used to listen to audio translations in the VIP section of the General Assembly were either not working or were in such poor working condition that you could barely tell what language was being translated.

"Maybe my job is that of a repairman," Ban mused with a laugh. "The official residence is still not built after all this time; the Secretariat building needs so much work; and everyone agrees that management reforms [another word for repairs] are urgent."

The Ban repair show might be easy to underestimate, however. While the new SG aims to be a world diplomat, he also happens to be a Korean — as opposed to him being a Korean who happens to be the new SG. Nothing in life is for certain but his Korean-ness may be a key factor.

Koreans are a tough breed. The country, once riddled with war, survived the most dire of circumstances with sheer determination and bone-crushing hard work. This little tiger of a country pulled itself out of Third World economic misery — all while living in a neighborhood you wouldn't quite call "friendly."

When you touch a real Korean, no matter how sweet the smile or polite the response, you are probably touching hard steel. Consider Yul Kwon, the winner of the most recent season of "Survivor" — a hero right now in much of the Asian-American world as well as in the Korean-American one.

Ban Ki-Moon would be the first to admit that he is neither Superman nor James Bond — not remotely so. In his own formulation, he is just a Korean man whom destiny has offered a special challenge and opportunity. But that's the thing. Modest as he may be, he is one very tough Korean who is putting together a team that includes other tough and capable Koreans. Anyone who underestimates the steely willpower of this new team is going to be surprised — and perhaps even astonished.

UCLA professor Tom Plate is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.