So much has happened since November-December of 2000 that it's hard to recapture that tense time when the nation was over its ankles in chads, not knowing whether Al Gore or George W. Bush was to become President. The outcome depended on Florida ballot papers with hanging chads (an incomplete puncture) or, especially, what became known as dimpled chads (papers with a dent but no puncture).

The networks, which at first placed the state in the Gore column, then flip flopped and finally gave it to Bush, got themselves a bad name. So did America. Here was the world's greatest democracy seemingly unable to run its own democratic election.

Observing the nation's embarrassment, some in the UN derived a wry satisfaction from the bizarre events. Delegates from developing countries, some of which had had to struggle with electoral problems in their own emerging democracies, thought it a huge joke that a country that never hesitated to proffer advice on how to keep their elections free and clean was having serious problems doing just that in one of its own pivotal states.

More than one diplomat was heard to scoff that it was time the UN provided technical assistance to the US. The world body, after all, claims a big share of credit for promoting democratic government in places where it's still a novelty, and Kofi Annan never misses an opportunity to preach good governance and advertise the benefits of the democratic system. Helping to organize and monitor free and fair elections in formerly failed states is a UN growth industry.

By happenstance, former Secretary of State James A. Baker, who led the charge for the Bush forces in Florida and after much legal argument returned the state to the Republican column, already had UN experience as an adviser on how to conduct elections. The Secretary General long since had enlisted his help in Western Sahara, where the UN has been trying--it seems like forever--to conduct a referendum on the future status of this former Spanish protectorate. (Morocco wants sovereignty and an indigenous group favors independence. With a largely nomadic population wandering over a vast desert land, the UN has the unenviable task of determining who are entitled to enrollment in the electoral register.)

Enter Baker, whose political expertise and international prestige persuaded Annan to seek his help and advice. He's still at it, on and off, as the Secretary General's personal envoy in the difficult negotiations over Western Sahara, with the assimilated rank of under secretary general. Another American, William Lacy Wing, runs the UN's day-to-day operation in the country.

Baker and Wing are among 65 members of a a largely unheralded, elite corps of Special and Personal Representatives and Envoys of the Secretary General--SRSGs. How many people outside UN circles knew of Baker's mission? How many knew about the SRSGs? The UN's unsung heroes of diplomacy, some call them.

Lakhdar Brahimi, now doing exemplary duty in Afghanistan, is one, as is his deputy, Francesc Vendrell. These two have received high exposure, but most of Annan's volunteer ambassadors go quietly about their business and seldom draw public attention, often by design. Publicity may do more harm than good in some delicate situations.

In most cases, they don't need a job. They answered Annan's call anyway. Several of them are no spring chickens. Brahimi turned 68 on New Year's Day. He's done several previous UN assignments and is the principal author of the Brahimi Report, which followed an investigation under his aegis of errors and miscalculations in UN peacekeeping operations over several years. He proposed sweeping changes. These, however, cannot change the lead time (three months on average) between Security Council agreement to send in UN troops and their actual physical deployment. The time lag is one reason why the coalition states in Afghanistan and its interim government did not want to rely on a UN force. A British-led multinational army was created instead and took up positions within days.

No fewer than 21 of some 65 Annan-appointed SRSGs have assignments involving conflicted Africa. Typical is Ibrahim Gambari, the Special Representative for Africa's Great Lakes Region, a source of endless trouble. Formerly, he was Nigeria's chief UN delegate.

Other erstwhile delegates drawn out of retirement for UN duty include Norway's Tom Eric Vraalsen, the Secretary General's Special Envoy in Sudan; Oliver Jackman, who is from Barbados and now acts as Personal Representative for the Border Controversy between Guyana and Venezuela; and Razali Ismail, a former ambassador of Malaysia and President of the UN General Assembly. Razali has the daunting task of dragging the rulers of Myanmar (formerly Burma) into the 21st Century and persuading them to stop violating human rights.

Among other ex-diplomats who have been recruited as occasional aides to Annan are Jean-Bernard Merimee, a former chief delegate of France, who has the loosely defined title of Special Adviser for European Issues; Russia's Yuli Vorontsov, Special Envoy for the Commonwealth of Independent States; former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, Special Envoy to the Balkans; and Olara Otunnu, from Uganda, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict and the foremost UN authority on the plight of child soldiers.

The heroic Giandomenico Picco, an Italian former UN secretariat official who obtained the release of Western hostages in the Middle East (their captors routinely blindfolded him prior to negotiations), was named Personal Representative for the UN Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. Picco is a profoundly devout Catholic.

Yasser Arafat would like the UN to take a more active role in Palestinian Israeli peacemaking, and Annan is only too well aware of the constraints. Still, he has a good man well equipped to stay abreast of developments in the person of Terje Roed-Larsen of Norway, his Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary General to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority. Such is his influence that after Arafat went ballistic over Pesident Bush's refusal to meet him at the UN General Assembly they both attended in New York in early November, it was Roed-Larsen who was sent in to pacify the PLO leader. For all his talk of a need for gender parity in appointments, Annan has not followed his own advice in choosing SRSGs. The only women among the appointees are Laura Canuto, an Italian assigned to still-troubled Guatemala; Angela King, from Jamaica, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women; and Silvia Fuhrman, an American, the Special Representative for the UN International School.