In the 1970s, when Kurt Waldheim was Secretary-General, reporters at the United Nations used to call him The Headwaiter. "He always stood there," recalled Don Shannon, the U.N. correspondent for the Los Angeles Times in those days, "as if he were wringing his hands on a towel, asking what he could do for the powerful countries." That kind of a scene would warm the hearts of American officials these days...

At a Korea University conference in Seoul a few months ago, I was placed next to Julius Nyerere of Tanzania at dinner. For those of us who covered Africa more than a quarter of a century ago, Nyerere was like a saint. Incorruptible, frank, good-humored, intellectual, he could charm the most suspicious and doubtful questioners into following the flow of his logic as he expounded the need in Africa for socialism, one-party democracy, self-reliance, non-alignment. He always made sense, at least in theory, and, since we knew he did not line his pockets with gold or pander to tribalism and racism, we always wished him and his poor country well. I turned to him at the Seoul dinner and said, "Mr. Nyerere, when I was a young correspondent, and you were a young president, I interviewed you." "Well," he replied with a laugh, "I got out of my business. I hope you got out of yours." In fact, the 74-year-old Nyerere is one of the few African leaders to get out of the business peacefully and voluntarily...