U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – In his acceptance speech following his election to a second term as the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon said his swearing-in ceremony was “special in another respect,” apart from the general solemnity of the occasion.

“On being sworn in, a few moments ago, I placed my hand on the U.N. Charter ... not a copy, but the original signed in San Francisco,” Ban said on June 21.

“Our Founding Fathers deemed this document so precious that it was flown back to Washington, strapped to its own parachute,” Ban said. “No such consideration was given to the poor diplomat accompanying it; he had to take his chances.”

“We thank the U.S. National Archives for their generosity in lending it today, and for their care in preserving it,” he said. (The original U.N. Charter was signed on June 26, 1945 in San Francisco and went into effect on Oct. 24, 1945.)

The U.S. National Archives, however, did not answer questions sent by e-mail to its press office to confirm Ban's statements. Specifically, CNSNews.com asked if the loan of the document was a request by the U.N. or a gesture on the part of the United States.

Questions about who paid for the transporting of the document to New York and back to Washington, D.C., and the cost of that transportation also went unanswered.

CNSNews.com also asked if Ban's statement about a parachute being used during the document’s transport was true and who accompanied the document.

Miriam Kleiman, spokesperson for the National Archives, responded to the questions by e-mail with the following statement: “It is our policy not to discuss the security of documents, and that includes all matters relating to transport.”

In his speech, Ban said, “The Charter of the United Nations is the animating spirit and soul of our great institution.”

He credited the “great organization” with being “dedicated to human progress.” He said “we the peoples” have helped with world wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Apartheid in South Africa.

“As never before, the U.N. is on the front lines protecting people and also helping build the peace ... in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia; in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East,” Ban said.

He also spelled out his top eight priorities of his second five-year term as secretary general on the U.N. Web site, placing climate change at the top of the list.

“There is still much work ahead of us. Every year of delay is estimated to cost $500 billion, according to the International Energy Agency,” the list states. “Scientists warn that if the world continues business as usual, emissions will soar and global temperatures could rise upward of four degrees Celsius by the end of the century.”

The other priorities, in the order listed, are disarmament, combating the financial crisis and poverty, global health, peace and security, women, and responsibility to protect.

The last item on the list is U.N. reform and accountability, an issue critics of that body would say should be the first and foremost priority.

“I plan on using U.S. contributions to international organizations as leverage to press for real reform of those organizations, such as the United Nations,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said in January after GOP lawmakers confirmed she would chair the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinin (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Dating back to 2007, Ros-Lehtinen has pushed for legislation to link U.S. contributions to the U.N. with wide-ranging reforms.

Former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton told the committee in 2007 that moving from assessed contributions to a voluntary system would allow countries like the United States  “to judge the effectiveness of the various parts of the U.N. system, and demand results.”

The United Nations Charter was completed and signed in June 1945. The U.N. conference of delegates overseeing that task was headed by Alger Hiss, then the secretary general of the San Francisco United Nations Conference on International Organization.

Hiss, who had worked in the Roosevelt administration since the 1930s and attended the Yalta conference, was convicted of perjury in 1950 concerning his ties to communist espionage.

Documents released by the U.S. National Security Agency in 1995-96, the VENONA files, revealed that the Soviet code-name “ALES” was “probably Alger HISS.” Also,  Hiss was identified by KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky, who said in 1988 that “a handful of the most important agents were run individually. Among them was Alger Hiss (code-named ALES).”

Concerning the VENONA documents, then Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) said in 1998, “Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent and appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important.”