The Five Virtues of Kofi Annan

What you discover in Annan's job fairly quickly is that a moral compass is not enough for you to find your way. You are moving too fast, in what he has called "the race to stop the killing." The job requires more than a sense of right and wrong; it also demands a special kind of diplomatic telemetry. It requires faith. You are sitting across from Milosevic. He is prattling on in his wonderful English and recalling his days as a banker in New York, asking whether certain restaurants are still open. He has just finished meeting with his generals. Surely they have discussed the killing that is under way. What should you do now? Suddenly the moral instinct alone does not answer. You are on your own, trying to find a direction in a world in which there are no marked paths. You are sitting across from pure evil. What do you do now?

--With reporting by William Dowell/U.N., Douglas Waller/Washington and Regine Wosnitzna/Berlin