The louder they talk of reform at the United Nations, the more things stay the same. The new chief of staff, Alicia Barcena, is hailed at Turtle Bay as the answer to the old boys’ network. In fact she is part of the same network the U.N. has always drawn on for star power.

Ms. Barcena’s rise is largely owed to the Canadian tycoon Maurice Strong, who has recently left the United Nations in the aftermath of the oil for food scandal. He has befriended the much younger blonde Mexican woman early on and put her in positions of power that helped launch a career in international institutions.

Last week, an angry staff member asked Secretary-General Annan’s deputy, Mark Malloch Brown, how he, a Briton, could have agreed to take a top power job that until recently was held by a woman, while advocating the creation of more leadership roles for non-European females.

“You are right. A woman Deputy Secretary General was replaced by a man,” Mr. Malloch Brown told the staffer. “On the other hand, a man was replaced for the first time ever in the organization’s history by a woman from Mexico, Alicia Barcena.”

Like Mr. Malloch Brown, who maintains strong ties to financier George Soros, Ms. Barcena is not merely a Spanish speaking female, but a protege of a worldwide operator, Mr. Strong. Throughout his career, Mr. Strong was able to place friends and associates in powerful positions at world institutions like the U.N. and the World Bank, gaining power and influence in the process.

Turtle Bay officials insist Mr. Strong had nothing to do with naming Ms. Barcena as chief of staff. “The only reason she was picked was her impeccable credentials and impressive career within the U.N. system,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said yesterday.

It was at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, largely considered the birthplace of the Kyoto Treaty, that Mr. Strong first introduced Ms. Barcena to top international high flyers. Later she became executive director of the Earth Council, a Costa Rica-based organization founded by Mr. Strong to oversee implementation of the Rio Summit’s recommendations. Since then Ms. Barcena has sat on various executive and advisory boards alongside Mr. Strong. Her Earth Council position is highlighted as a major accomplishment in her resume.

Mr. Strong is a man of dualities. His role in creating the Kyoto Treaty has made him a hero to the environmental movement, but he is also highly respected in the oil industry as a scion of Canada’s petroleum industry.

Throughout the decades he has held various positions at Turtle Bay, joining and leaving the organization and always somehow emerging wealthier in his private businesses. In his most recent role as Mr. Annan’s adviser on North Korea, Mr. Strong, who has made money selling energy, has continually said energy is the key to solving the peninsula’s problems.

Even now, after leaving Turtle Bay under a cloud, he continues to present himself as a U.N. man.

“The United Nations has concentrated on helping the international community to prepare an economic package [for North Korea] that could help resolve the nuclear issue,” Mr. Strong said last month during a lecture in Seoul, according to the South Korean news agency.”It is not one that has to be done exclusively through the United Nations but one that can be done with the active support of the United Nations.”

Since last July, when Mr. Strong’s $1 a year contract ended, “He does not speak for the U.N.,” Mr. Dujarric assured me yesterday. Mr. Strong “asked” to sever his Turtle Bay links after his oil-for-food ties first emerged last summer, Mr. Dujarric said.

Mr. Strong’s former business partner, Korean influence peddler Tongsun Park, is currently held without bail awaiting trial on federal charges of acting as an unregistered agent for Saddam Hussein. In July 1997, according to the investigation team under Paul Volcker, Mr. Park received from Saddam’s deputy, Tariq Aziz, $1 million in a card box filled with cash, which was then converted in a Jordanian bank to a $988,885 check made for “Mr. M. Strong.”

After that, the United Nations could no longer afford to publicly be associated with Mr. Strong. But away from New York, Mr. Strong continues to draw on his U.N. connections. And at Turtle Bay his friend and protege is now holding a key position, making sure that the severed ties do not keep Mr. Strong too far from his favorite institution.