The ninth secretary-general of the United Nations sits in a room on the 38th floor of the UN tower in New York, and waves his hand at a collection of white bone china plates, embossed with the blue UN logo.

“I am terribly sorry — the food is lousy,” he says. “Really lousy.”

I look at him, silhouetted against the New York skyline, and chuckle. In this rare moment of tartness, António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres has hit the mark. For the previous hour, we have been having lunch in his private dining room, and the food was indeed lousy: a dull salad, bland white fish and a stodgy pie. Dull, bland and stodgy: words that might on a bad day apply to the UN.

The UN is not a place where people normally speak frankly, beset as it is by bureaucratic rules, acronyms and niceties. Peril awaits the outspoken. In 2004, then-secretary-general Kofi Annan became locked in a battle with the Bush administration for his professional survival, after daring to suggest in an interview with the BBC that the war against Iraq was illegal. Although Guterres is in charge, he is a prisoner of protocol — and feeling frustrated.

If there were ever a time when the world needed co-ordinated and outspoken global leadership, it is now. This week, Guterres was in Europe, trying to persuade heads of government to focus more on climate change. He also appealed for help to combat the threat of nuclear war from the Korean peninsula, rising instability in the Middle East, conflict in Ukraine, and fighting in the Gulf. What made the situation even more acute is that America is withdrawing from its postwar role as global policeman: as Donald Trump explained during his recent trip to Asia, he is forging policy on the basis of “America first”. “The situation is extremely unpredictable now in North Korea,” Guterres admits.

But is anyone going to listen? The UN is once again facing a crisis of credibility. In recent years it has been repeatedly exposed as inefficient and bloated; UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been charged with sexual abuse and officials across the globe have been accused of corruption. And while earlier UN secretaries-general — such as Annan or Boutros Boutros-Ghali — tried to make their mark on the world, the last incumbent, Ban Ki-moon, was all but invisible: more secretary than general, as critics from earlier UN administrations liked to observe.

In theory, Guterres is well placed to improve on Ban’s record. He has spent the past decade as head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which he restructured to some acclaim, and he won political support from diverse countries to champion refugees. But as a former prime minister of Portugal, Guterres does not have the bully pulpit of Trump.

“I’m not a professional tweeter,” he says. Nor does he have the authoritarian command of leaders such as Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. Rather he has to operate with the blessing of the UN Security Council, and within the constraints of its permanent members.

So can a man who cannot even control his own chef really relaunch the UN?


Dressed in a sober dark suit and red tie, the 68-year-old who greets me has the air of a parish priest or university professor. I tell him that I have entered this private dining room before, when I interviewed Ban; has he thought about changing the stark decor? Guterres shakes his head. He wants to hang contemporary Portuguese art on the wood-panelled walls; his second wife is culture minister in his native Lisbon. But he has not yet sorted out the bureaucratic hurdles that need to be overcome to hang that art. “It takes time — everything takes time,” he laughs.

He sits down on a chair with a back support; all the air travel seems to have taken its toll. A waiter appears with red wine. “[From] the Douro Valley,” Guterres observes. “In my opinion, the best Portuguese table wine. 2011 was an excellent year. 2013 was a good year. 2012 was so-so.” He pauses peers closely at the bottle, and sighs. “This is 2012.”

He suggests that I drink the white instead. I sip: it seems perfectly pleasant to my non-expert palate. However the starter — a plate of green leaves — is tasteless.

United Nations HQ

United Nations Plaza, New York, 10017
  • Field of greens, heirloom tomatoes, citrus vinaigrette
  • Wild striped bass and rice
  • Key Lime tart or fresh fruit
  • Douro white 2014
  • Douro red 2012

So, I ask, why did you want this job? Guterres ignores the salad and starts talking intently, pressing the tips of his fingers together over his plate, as if at prayer or in a meditation pose.

“If you look at my life, my life is a kind of an alternate movement between the humanitarian and the political,” he says. “When I was a student in high school [in middle-class Portugal], I wanted to be a researcher in physics. Then I went to university and we were in the end of the [Portuguese] dictatorship. I got very strongly involved in social work in the slums of Lisbon . . . and I decided to get involved in politics.”

More specifically, he joined the socialist party, serving for many years in elected office, before becoming prime minister in 1995. In his first term he was popular inside Portugal, forging consensus for domestic reforms. He also made his mark in foreign affairs, negotiating the transfer of Macau to China and pushing the UN to take action in the former Portuguese colony, East Timor. Then, in 2002, when the socialists lost a clutch of seats, Guterres unexpectedly resigned, saying he wanted to “avoid political chaos”. For a period, he disappeared from view. Many years later, journalists discovered he was doing anonymous voluntary work in a poor part of Lisbon. “I was teaching mathematics to migrants. But I absolutely didn’t want to make a show. I never cared about legacies.

“When I left office in Lisbon, I was attacked by lots of people, but I didn’t say anything,” he says. “Now, of course, everyone says nice things about me — but that is only because I left Portugal!”

Guterres took over as head of the UNHCR at a difficult moment: the institution was a bureaucratic behemoth and a tide of refugees around the world was straining resources. But, in his understated way, Guterres set about reforming it. “When I started in UNHCR, 14 per cent of our costs [were] in headquarters; when I left, 6 per cent,” he recalls. “When I started, 41 per cent were staff costs; when I left, 22 per cent. And all as we were resettling 100,000 refugees each year.”

This restructuring record earned him respect among cost-conscious western governments. He was also adept at forging partnerships with non-western countries such as China. This served him well in the race for the top UN job: although it was widely assumed in early 2016 that the post should go to a woman and/or eastern European, Guterres triumphed because he was welcomed by every member of the UN Security Council.

So what is his biggest achievement in the first 11 months? Improbably, he points to Donald Trump. “We have avoided disruption with the US.”


As a waiter clears our salads, Guterres explains that when the new president arrived in Washington, Trump seemed hostile to the UN. “At the start of the year I had letters saying that US funding to the UN should be cut, along with other bodies,” he recalls. It was not an empty threat. Long frustrated by the bureaucratic multilateralism of the UN — and its perceived hobbling of US power — presidential administrations have been trying to cut UN contributions for three decades, repeatedly falling into arrears. When Trump arrived in office he declared that he would cut funding to all multilateral groups by 40 per cent. Since then, Washington has said it would withdraw from Unesco and played havoc with the WTO.

But last month Guterres visited the White House and, against the odds, he charmed Trump into a gesture of support: the president declared that the UN “has the power to bring people together, like nothing else”, predicting that “things are going to happen with the UN that we haven’t seen before”.

How did he persuade Trump to change his tone? “My trick is simple: just be authentic. Tell the truth to people, in a way that they can understand.” Really? Guterres smiles and admits that Nikki Haley, the hard-nosed and highly ambitious US ambassador to the UN, also played a key role. “She is a very practical person, very constructive.”

What about Trump? I am curious how the self-effacing Guterres creates a rapport with the president. “Trump is also a very practical man,” Guterres replies, smoothly slipping into the blandness of the practised politician. “Of course, there are things we absolutely do not agree on, like climate change. Absolutely not. But I cannot change that.” He shrugs. “The US is paying all its dues. We have a working relationship. It’s a working relationship.”

A waiter arrives with the main course: a slab of white fish, a pile of yellow rice and some overcooked green chard. Guterres balances his knife and fork on the edge of the plate.

Does he find it easier to deal with the Chinese? Guterres nods. “I believe the Chinese see me as a friend.” He has had a close relationship with Chinese leaders for many years even as China has become increasingly powerful on the world stage. “China is assuming bold measures in relation to climate change,” Guterres continues, contending that Beijing is “playing a much bigger security role” and even getting involved in peacekeeping missions.

So can China use that enhanced role to reduce the tensions in North Korea? Guterres’ smile disappears and he presses the tips of his fingers together very hard, over his plate. “I am very worried,” he says.

It should be possible to find a peaceful solution on the Korean peninsula, he says, but he is not optimistic. “The risks of unpredictability are very high.”

Can the UN play a role in negotiations? There is a long pause. “We can only play a role if that role is extremely discreet,” he finally observes. “It is so discreet that I cannot answer your question.”

Would he meet Kim Jong Un? “I don’t see, at the present moment, any circumstance in which that would make sense.”

Another pause. I take a bite of my fish, and Guterres then tells me he has visited North Korea once, 30 years ago, as part of a parliamentary delegation. “We were invited to a stadium to see a show of what is called Massive Gymnastics. And it included, during one hour and a half, 15,000 children doing all kinds of things . . . complicated gymnastic things, acrobatics gymnastics. During one hour and a half, 15,000 children . . . and there is not one single wrong movement. This tells you about the nature of the society . . . ”

So what about Iran? He seems to relax a little. The situation, he says, is not “critical”. But he is dismayed by Trump’s threats to withdraw from the deal to lift western sanctions on Iran in exchange for a freeze on nuclear development. The Iran deal “reduces the risk of proliferation”, he says. “The combination of the North Korea situation with this Iran situation is that . . . we might have a serious blow to non-proliferation. That would be a disaster.”

A particular obsession for him this week will be cyber warfare. “I believe that if we have a serious war in the future, that there will be a massive cyber attack first, to disorganise the capacities of the other side, for instance to paralyse the electric grid of a country,” he says, “In the first world war, battles would start with an artillery barrage. In the second world war, it was the planes bombarding first before the troops would advance. Now it is cyber attacks.”


A waiter clears our plates of uneaten fish and serves the dessert: bright yellow pie and stodgy pastries. They remain largely untouched as Guterres talks about his sources of inspiration. One is the Parable of the Talents in the Bible; he is a life-long Catholic. Another is a phrase attributed to Jean Monnet, one of the founders of the EU: “I’m not optimistic, I am not pessimistic, I am just determined.”

From his first wife, who died 20 years ago, Guterres learnt other, more subtle skills. She was a trained psychoanalyst, and encouraged Guterres to put politicians — and politics — on the metaphorical couch during negotiations.

“A crucial lesson for my political life is this very simple [psychological] analysis,” he explains. “When you have two persons in a room, you do not have two, you have six: what each person is; what each person thinks he or she is; and what each person thinks the other is. This is the reason personal relations are so complex. But what is true for persons is true for groups, and countries,” he adds.

“This is why there are pre-emptive strikes. So what is essential for me, [with] Russia and the United States, or North Korea and the United States, is to make sure that these six become two, that perception aligns with realities.” That is hard, I observe. “Very hard,” he sighs.

One of the many reforms Guterres is trying to introduce into the UN aims to bring more women into the fold. Has it worked? He shrugs. At the top he has made considerable progress. The challenge, however, is further down the ranks: in the bowels of the bureaucracy, there is a rigid system in place that cannot easily be reformed, in relation to gender or anything else. “The pressure is huge and the machine is too heavy.”

“Don’t you sometimes feel it’s a bit hopeless?” I ask. He shakes his head. “This [system] is heavy, so heavy. But on the other hand, if you manage at a certain moment to convince two stubborn people to make peace, and you avoid thousands of people being killed . . . ”

If this is the dream of the UN, it is one that requires a significant degree of pragmatism. As we talk, Guterres recalls the words of the late Brazilian politician Tancredo Neves. “He was once asked, ‘What are the 10 most important qualities for a politician?’ He said that he didn’t know 10, he only knew seven: patience, patience, patience, patience, patience, patience and patience!”

The room is dark, but outside the sun is shining brightly over the city. “If you want to reform the United Nations, you need to be patient and persistent.”

Gillian Tett is the FT’s US managing editor

Illustration by James Ferguson

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Guterres is right to save the UN money on food / From James Marshall, Bangkok, Thailand

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