The real achievements of Kofi Annan: "Yet modest as Annan is, he courageously "embraced his celebrity," becoming "something quite new in the history of the UN: a spokesman for mankind who looked wonderful in a tuxedo," plunging into "the social whirl" with a wife who--"like him, quiet, composed, profoundly gracious"--had "the same aura of simple goodness." Together they offered a captivating spectacle: "Kofi and Nane, both enormously attractive and disarmingly modest, the one short and black and the other tall and blond, made for a dazzling couple; they projected a kind of moral glamour." Meisler too dwells on Annan's status as a "social star of New York society," dining and partying three times a week."