Friday, October 25, 2024

A01803 - Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish Economist and Diplomat Who Served as the Second Secretary-General of the United Nations

  Hammarskjold, Dag - A00055

"The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.  And only he who listens can speak."  (11/27/2023)

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Dag Hammarskjöld
Hammarskjöld in the 1950s
2nd Secretary-General of the United NationsIn office
10 April 1953 – 18 September 1961Preceded byTrygve LieSucceeded byThantPersonal detailsBorn
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld

29 July 1905
Jönköping, Sweden–NorwayDied18 September 1961 (aged 56)
Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now Zambia)Cause of deathAeroplane crashPolitical partyIndependentParents
Alma mater
Signature

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Dag Hammarskjöld (born July 29, 1905, Jönköping, Sweden—died September 18, 1961, near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia [now Zambia]) was a Swedish economist and statesman who, as the second secretary-general (1953–61) of the United Nations (UN), enhanced the prestige and effectiveness of that organization. He was posthumously awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1961.

The son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, prime minister of Sweden (1914–17) and chairman of the Nobel Prize Foundation (1929–47), Dag Hammarskjöld studied law and economics at the universities of Uppsala and Stockholm and taught political economy at Stockholm (1933–36). He then joined the Swedish civil service as permanent undersecretary in the Ministry of Finance and subsequently became president of the board of the Bank of Sweden. From 1947 he served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1951 Hammarskjöld was chosen vice chairman of Sweden’s delegation to the UN General Assembly, of which he became chairman in 1952. On April 10, 1953, five months after the resignation of Trygve Lie of Norway as secretary-general, Hammarskjöld was elected to the office for a term of five years. In September 1957 he was reelected to another five-year term.

For several years he was most concerned with fighting and threats of fighting in the Middle East between Israel and the Arab states. He and the Canadian statesman Lester Pearson participated in the resolution of the Suez Crisis that arose in 1956. Hammarskjöld also played a prominent role in the 1958 crisis in Lebanon and Jordan.


The Belgian Congo became the independent Republic of the Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) on June 30, 1960, and civil strife erupted there soon afterward. Hammarskjöld sent a UN peacekeeping force to suppress the violence, and in September 1960 his action was denounced by the Soviet Union, which demanded that he resign and that the office of secretary-general be replaced by a three-man board (troika) comprising representatives of the Western, communist, and neutral nations. With the United States and the Soviet Union supporting different sides in the conflict—and vying for influence in the region—the Congo crisis became an extension of the Cold War. Amid fighting between UN peacekeepers and secessionists in the mineral-rich province of Katanga, Hammarskjöld in September 1961 undertook a peace mission to Moise Tshombe, president of Katanga, which had declared itself independent. However, Hammarskjöld was killed when his airplane crashed as it was approaching Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).


In the decades following Hammarskjöld’s death, the cause of the crash was the subject of much speculation. Although two British investigations indicated pilot error, many believed that the aircraft had been intentionally brought down, possibly by foreign agents or mining interests that supported Katanga’s secession. In 2017 the UN appointed Mohamed Chande Othman, a Tanzanian judge, to review the crash, and his report was released later that year. Although he was unable to reach a definitive conclusion, Othman declared that “it appears plausible that an external attack or threat may have been a cause of the crash, whether by way of a direct attack…or by causing a momentary distraction of the pilots,” resulting in a fatal pilot error during the plane’s descent.


Claims that various countries, especially those in the West, were withholding information seemed to be supported by Othman’s call for all member states “to show that they have conducted a full review of records and archives in their custody or possession, including those that remain classified, for potentially relevant information.”


As secretary-general, Hammarskjöld is generally thought to have combined great moral force with subtlety in meeting international challenges. He insisted on the freedom of the secretary-general to take emergency action without prior approval by the Security Council or the General Assembly. He also allayed widespread fears that the UN would be completely dominated by its chief source of financial support, the United States. The absence of a major international crisis during the first three years of his secretaryship enabled him to concentrate on quietly building public confidence in himself and his office.

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Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (/ˈhæmərʃʊld/ HAM-ər-shuuld,[1] Swedish: [ˈdɑːɡ ˈhâmːarˌɧœld] ⓘ; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. As of 2024, he remains the youngest person to have held the post, having been only 47 years old when he was appointed. He was a son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1914 to 1917.

Hammarskjöld's tenure was characterized by efforts to strengthen the newly formed UN both internally and externally. He led initiatives to improve morale and organisational efficiency while seeking to make the UN more responsive to global issues. He presided over the creation of the first UN peacekeeping forces in Egypt (the UNEF) and the Congo (the ONUC) and personally intervened to defuse or resolve diplomatic crises. Hammarskjöld's second term was cut short when he died in a plane crash while en route to cease-fire negotiations during the Congo Crisis.

Hammarskjöld was and remains well regarded internationally as a capable diplomat and administrator, and his efforts to resolve various global crises led to him being the only posthumous recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.[2] In the Western world, his appointment and tenure were hailed as one of the most notable and successful in UN leadership.[3] U.S. President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century".[4] In the third world, however, his legacy is extremely controversial, given his erratic performance in the Congo crisis, with consequences to this day.[5][6][7]

Early life and education

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Hammarskjöld's birthplace in Jönköping

Dag Hammarskjöld was born in Jönköping to the noble family Hammarskjöld (also spelled Hammarskiöld or Hammarsköld). He spent most of his childhood in Uppsala. His home there, which he considered his childhood home, was Uppsala Castle. He was the fourth and youngest son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, Prime Minister of Sweden from 1914 to 1917.[8]

Hammarskjöld studied first at Katedralskolan and then at Uppsala University. By 1930, he had obtained Licentiate of Philosophy and Master of Laws degrees. Before he finished his law degree he had already obtained a job as Assistant Secretary of the Unemployment Committee.[9]

Career

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From 1930 to 1934, Hammarskjöld was Secretary of a governmental committee on unemployment. During this time he wrote his economics thesis, "Konjunkturspridningen" ("The Spread of the Business Cycle"), and received a doctorate from Stockholm University. In 1936, he became a secretary in Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank. From 1941 to 1948, he served as chairman of the Riksbank's General Council.[10]

Hammarskjöld quickly developed a successful career as a Swedish public servant. He was state secretary in the Ministry of Finance 1936–1945, Swedish delegate to the Organization for European Economic Cooperation 1947–1953, cabinet secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1949–1951 and minister without portfolio in Tage Erlander's government 1951–1953.[10]

He helped coordinate government plans to alleviate the economic problems of the post-World War II period and was a delegate to the Paris conference that established the Marshall Plan. In 1950, he became head of the Swedish delegation to UNISCAN, a forum to promote economic cooperation between the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries.[11] Although Hammarskjöld served in a cabinet dominated by the Social Democrats, he never officially joined any political party.[10]

In 1951, Hammarskjöld was vice chairman of the Swedish delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in Paris. He became the chairman of the Swedish delegation to the General Assembly in New York in 1952. On 20 December 1954, he was elected to take his father's vacated seat in the Swedish Academy.[12]

United Nations Secretary-General

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Nomination and election

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See also: United Nations Secretary-General selection, 1953

On 10 November 1952, Trygve Lie announced his resignation as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Several months of negotiations ensued between the Western powers and the Soviet Union without reaching an agreement on his successor. On 13 and 19 March 1953, the Security Council voted on four candidates. Lester B. Pearson of Canada was the only candidate to receive the required majority, but he was vetoed by the Soviet Union.[13][14] At a consultation of the permanent members on 30 March 1953,[15] French permanent representative Henri Hoppenot suggested four candidates, including Hammarskjöld, whom he had met at the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation.[16]

The superpowers hoped to seat a Secretary-General who would focus on administrative issues and refrain from participating in political discussion. Hammarskjöld's reputation at the time was, in the words of biographer Emery Kelèn, "that of a brilliant economist, an unobtrusive technician, and an aristo-bureaucrat". As a result, there was little to no controversy in his selection;[17] the Soviet permanent representative, Valerian Zorin, found Hammarskjöld "harmless".[18] Zorin declared that he would be voting for Hammarskjöld, surprising the Western powers.[19] The announcement set off a flurry of diplomatic activity. British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was strongly in favor of Hammarskjöld and asked the United States to "take any appropriate action to induce the [Nationalist] Chinese to abstain".[20] (Sweden recognized the People's Republic of China and faced a potential veto from the Republic of China.) At the U.S. State Department, the nomination "came as a complete surprise to everyone here and we started scrambling around to find out who Mr. Hammarskjold was and what his qualifications were".[21] The State Department authorized Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the US Ambassador, to vote in favor after he told them that Hammarskjöld "may be as good as we can get".[22][23]

Journalist: "We understand you've been designated Secretary-General of the United Nations."
Hammarskjöld: "This April Fool's Day joke is in extremely bad taste: it's nonsense!"

–Exchange between a Stockholm journalist and Hammarskjöld, 1 April 1953[17]

On 31 March 1953, the Security Council voted 10–0–1 to recommend Hammarskjöld to the General Assembly, with an abstention from Nationalist China.[24] The vote was conducted in secret, and Hammarskjöld was unaware his name had been put forward for the position.[25] Shortly after midnight on 1 April 1953, Hammarskjöld was awakened by a telephone call from a journalist with the news, which he dismissed as an April Fool's Day joke.[a] He finally believed the news after the third phone call.[16] The Swedish mission in New York confirmed the nomination at 03:00 and a communique from the Security Council was soon thereafter delivered to him.[26] After consulting with the Swedish cabinet and his father, Hammarskjöld decided to accept the nomination.[24] He sent a wire to the Security Council:[27]

With strong feeling personal insufficiency I hesitate to accept candidature but I do not feel I could refuse to assume the task imposed on me should the [UN General] Assembly follow the recommendation of the Security Council by which I feel deeply honoured.

Later in the day, Hammarskjöld held a press conference at the Swedish Foreign Ministry. According to diplomat Sverker Åström, he displayed an intense interest and knowledge in the affairs of the UN, which he had never shown any indication of before.[27]

The UN General Assembly voted 57–1–1 on 7 April 1953 to appoint Dag Hammarskjöld as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Hammarskjöld was sworn in as Secretary-General on 10 April 1953.[24] He was unanimously reelected on 26 September 1957 for another term, taking effect on 10 April 1958.[28]

Tenure

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Hammarskjöld (age 48) outside the UN headquarters in New York City, 1953

Immediately following the assumption of the Secretariat, Hammarskjöld attempted to establish a good rapport with his staff. He made a point of visiting every UN department to shake hands with as many workers as possible, eating in the cafeteria as often as possible, and relinquishing the Secretary-General's private elevator for general use.[29] He began his term by establishing his own secretariat of 4,000 administrators and setting up regulations that defined their responsibilities. He was also actively engaged in smaller projects relating to the UN working environment; for example, he spearheaded the building of a meditation room at the UN headquarters, where people can withdraw into themselves in silence, regardless of their faith, creed, or religion.[30]

During his term, Hammarskjöld tried to improve relations between Israel and the Arab states, frequently playing the role of a mediator between David Ben-Gurion and Gamal Abdel Nasser.[31] Other highlights include a 1955 visit to China to negotiate the release of 11 captured US pilots who had served in the Korean War,[8] the 1956 establishment of the United Nations Emergency Force, and his intervention in the 1956 Suez Crisis. He is given credit by some historians for allowing participation of the Holy See within the UN that year.[32]

In 1960, the newly independent Congo asked for UN aid in defusing the Congo Crisis. Hammarskjöld made four trips to Congo, but his efforts toward the decolonisation of Africa were considered insufficient by the Soviet Union; in September 1960, the Soviet government denounced his decision to send a UN emergency force to keep the peace. They demanded his resignation and the replacement of the office of Secretary-General by a three-man directorate with a built-in veto, the "troika". The objective was, citing the memoirs of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, to "equally represent interests of three groups of countries: capitalist, socialist and recently independent".[33][9]

The UN sent a nearly 20,000-strong peacekeeping force to restore order in Congo-Kinshasa. Hammarskjöld's refusal to place peacekeepers in the service of Lumumba's constitutionally elected government provoked a strong reaction of disapproval from the Soviets. The situation would become more scandalous with the assassination of Lumumba by Tshombe's troops. In February 1961, the UN authorized the Peacekeeping Forces to use military force to prevent civil war. The Blue Helmets' attack on Katanga caused Tshombe to flee to Zambia. Hammarskjöld's erratic attitude in not providing support to Lumumba's government, which had been elected by popular vote, drew severe criticism among non-aligned countries and communist and socialist countries.[5] Hammarskjöld knew that the Belgian Government, allegedly supported by the United States, arranged for the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. In the end, his actions were supported only by the United States and Belgium.[6][7]

His final report to the United Nations was some 6,000 words and is considered to be one of his most important. The report was dictated in a single afternoon to his assistant, Hannah Platz.[34]

Death

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Main article: 1961 Ndola Transair Sweden DC-6 crash
Hammarskjöld's grave in Uppsala

On 18 September 1961, Hammarskjöld was en route to negotiate a cease-fire between United Nations Operation in the Congo forces and Katangese troops under Moise Tshombe. His Douglas DC-6 airliner SE-BDY crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Hammarskjöld perished as a result of the crash, as did all of the 15 other passengers.[35] Hammarskjöld's death set off a succession crisis at the United Nations, because there was no line of succession and as a result, the Security Council had to vote on a successor.[36][37]

The circumstances of the crash are still unclear. A 1962 Rhodesian inquiry concluded that pilot error was to blame, while a later UN investigation could not determine the cause of the crash.[38] There is evidence suggesting the plane was shot down.[39][40][41] A CIA report claimed the KGB was responsible.[42]

The day after the crash, former U.S. President Harry Truman commented that Hammarskjöld "was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said 'when they killed him'."[42]

In 1998, documents suggesting CIA, MI6, or Belgian mining interest involvement via a South African paramilitary organization surfaced. The information was contained in a file which the South African National Intelligence Agency turned over to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in relation to the 1993 assassination of Chris Hani, leader of the South African Communist Party. These documents included an alleged plot to remove Hammarskjöld. The authenticity of the documents could not be substantiated because they were copies instead of originals.[38]

In 2011, Göran Björkdahl, a Swedish aid worker whose father worked for the UN in Zambia, wrote that in part, he believed that Hammarskjöld's death was a murder which was committed to benefit mining companies like Union Minière, after Hammarskjöld had made the UN intervene in the Katanga crisis. Björkdahl based his assertion on interviews with witnesses of the plane crash near the border of the DRC with Zambia and on archival documents.[43][44]

In 2013, accident investigator Sven Hammarberg was asked by the International Commission of Jurists to investigate Hammarskjöld's death.[45]

In 2014, newly declassified documents revealed that the American ambassador to the Congo sent a cable to Washington D.C. and in it, he wrote his suspicion that the plane could have been shot down by Belgian mercenary pilot Jan Van Risseghem, commander of the small Katanga Air Force. Van Risseghem died in 2007.[40]

On 16 March 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed members to an Independent Panel of Experts which was established for the purpose of examining new information which was related to Hammarskjöld's death. The three-member panel was led by Mohamed Chande Othman, the Chief Justice of Tanzania, and it included Kerryn Macaulay (Australia's representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization) and Henrik Larsen (a ballistics expert from the Danish National Police).[46] The panel's 99-page report, released 6 July 2015, assigned moderate value to nine new eyewitness accounts and transcripts of radio transmissions. Those accounts suggested that Hammarskjöld's plane was already on fire as it was landing and they also suggested that other jet aircraft and other intelligence agents were nearby.[47]

In 2016, the original documents from the 1998 South African investigation surfaced. Those who were familiar with the investigation cautioned that even if they were authentic, the documents could have initially been authored as part of a disinformation campaign.[38]

In 2019, the documentary film Cold Case Hammarskjöld by Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger claimed that Jan van Risseghem had told a friend that he shot down Hammarskjöld's aircraft. This went against the official stance maintained by van Risseghem's family that he was not involved in the death of Hammarskjöld. According to an interview with van Risseghem's wife, he was in Rhodesia negotiating the purchase of a plane for the Katanga Air Force, with the logbooks proving that he was not flying for Katanga at the time. The documentary crew interviewed colleagues of van Risseghem's for the film, all of whom supported their theory.[48][49][50] In an interview with Swedish historian Leif Hellström, van Risseghem claimed that he was not in southern Africa at the time the crash happened, and dismissed the idea of his involvement.[50]

A document which was found in France amidst the Fonds Foccart (National Archives in Pierrefitte) in November 2021 is a death warrant for Hammarskjöld that contained the acronym OAS, the secret organization which was nestled in the French army at the time of Algeria's war for independence. The document reads: "It is high time to put an end to his harmful intrusion ... this sentence common to justice and fairness to be carried out, as soon as possible". The unsigned document is a facsimile that appeared to be a transcription of an original letter.[51]

Hammarskjöld's 1959 will left his personal archive to the National Library of Sweden.[52]

Personal life

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A spiritual quote by Dag Hammarskjöld engraved in the stone wall within the Peace Chapel of the International Peace Garden

In 1953, soon after his appointment as United Nations Secretary-General, Hammarskjöld was interviewed on radio by Edward R. Murrow. In the talk, Hammarskjöld declared:

But the explanation of how a man should live a life of active social service in full harmony with himself as a member of the community of spirit, I found in the writings of those great medieval mystics [Meister Eckhart and Jan van Ruysbroek] for whom 'self-surrender' had been the way to self-realization, and who in 'singleness of mind' and 'inwardness' had found the strength to say yes to every demand which the needs of their neighbours made them face, and to say yes also to every fate life had in store for them when they followed the call of duty as they understood it.[53]

Hammarskjöld's only book, Vägmärken (Markings, or more literally Waymarks), was published in 1963. A collection of his diary reflections, the book starts in 1925, when he was 20 years old, and ends the month before his death in 1961.[54] This diary was found in his New York house, after his death, along with an undated letter addressed to then Swedish Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Leif Belfrage [sv]. In this letter, Hammarskjöld wrote:

These entries provide the only true 'profile' that can be drawn ... If you find them worth publishing, you have my permission to do so.

The foreword is written by the English poet W. H. Auden, a friend of Hammarskjöld.[55]

Markings was described by the late theologian Henry P. Van Dusen as "the noblest self-disclosure of spiritual struggle and triumph, perhaps the greatest testament of personal faith written ... in the heat of professional life and amidst the most exacting responsibilities for world peace and order".[56] Hammarskjöld wrote, for example:

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours. He who wills adventure will experience it – according to the measure of his courage. He who wills sacrifice will be sacrificed – according to the measure of his purity of heart.[57]

Markings is characterised by Hammarskjöld's intermingling of prose and haiku poetry in a manner exemplified by the 17th-century Japanese poet Basho in his Narrow Roads to the Deep North.[58] In his foreword to Markings, W. H. Auden quotes Hammarskjöld as stating:

In our age, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.[59]

Hammarskjöld's interest in philosophical and spiritual matters is also proven by the finding of Martin Buber's main work I and Thou, which he was translating into Swedish, in the wreckage after the plane crash.[60]

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America commemorates the life of Hammarskjöld as a renewer of society on the anniversary of his death, 18 September.[61]

Brian Urquhart's biography of Hammarskjöld addressed what Israel Shenker described in his The New York Times review as "the oft-discussed question of Hammaskjöld's sexuality".[62] Urquhart reports that Trygve Lie spread rumours of Hammarskjöld's homosexuality but, having interviewed Hammarskjöld's close friends, Urquhart concludes that "no one who knew him well or worked closely with him thought he was a homosexual".[62] Shenker infers from Urquhart's work "that Hammarskjöld was an example, not unique in contemporary politics, of an asexual, somewhat narcissistic individual" and quoted private papers where Hammarskjöld had written that "the Secretary General of the UN should have an iron constitution and should not be married".[62] Despite Urquhart concluding the rumours were inaccurate, Larry Kramer included Hammarskjöld in the "I belong to a culture" speech in his 1985 play The Normal Heart.[63][64]

Legacy

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Memorial at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City

Honors

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People's views

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  • John F. Kennedy: After Hammarskjöld's death, U.S. president John F. Kennedy regretted that he had opposed the UN policy in the Congo and said: "I realise now that in comparison to him, I am a small man. He was the greatest statesman of our century."[4]
  • In 2011, The Financial Times wrote that Hammarskjöld has remained the benchmark against which later UN Secretaries-General have been judged.[67]
  • His legacy in the third world is extremely controversial, especially due to his statements to the British representative at the UN, Patrick Dean, that Lumumba was "a communist puppet".[5][6] For the Democratic Republic of Congo, its erratic performance in the crisis of the 1960s has had disastrous consequences for the country to this day.[7]

Structures named in honor of Dag Hammarskjöld

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Uppsala University's Dag Hammarskjöld Law Library
The Dag Hammarskjöld centre in Uppsala
  • Buildings and rooms:
    • Dag Hammarskjöld Library: On 16 November 1961, shortly after his death, the newly completed Library building at United Nations Headquarters in New York was named the Dag Hammarskjöld Library.[68]
    • Stanford University: Dag Hammarskjöld House, on the Stanford University campus, is a residence cooperative for undergraduate and graduate students with international backgrounds and interests at Stanford.[69]
    • Hammarskjold High School: Public high school located in the town of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.
    • Hammarskjold Middle School: Public middle school located in the town of East Brunswick, New Jersey.
    • Dag Hammarskjold Middle School: Public middle school located in the town of Wallingford, Connecticut.[70]
    • Dag Hammarskjöld Elementary School: Public elementary school located in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York.
    • Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Primary School: Government School located in Ndola, Zambia (adjacent to the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Crash Site). This School contains the Karl Eriksson Computer Lab (Hammarskjöld and Eriksson knew each other).
    • Dag Hammarskjöld "Hammar" Residence: Waterloo Co-operative Residence (WCRI) building located in the town of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.[71]
  • Streets:
    • de:Hammarskjöldplatz is the wide square to the north entrance of the Messe Berlin fairgrounds in Berlin, Germany.[72]
    • Hammarskjöldring is a street in Frankfurt, Germany, connecting the boroughs Mertonviertel and Niederursel.[73]
    • Dag Hammarskjölds Alle is a street in Copenhagen, Denmark that connects the inner city with the affluent suburb of Østerbro.
    • Dag Hammarskjølds Gade is a street in Aalborg, Denmark. Headquarters for the regional police, Nordjyllands Politi, are located here.
    • Dag Hammarskjöldsleden [sv] is a traffic route in Gothenburg, Sweden between Linnéplatsen and Västerleden/Söderleden (E6.20). With a length of 5 km, it also connects to Högsboleden .
    • Hammarskjöldsingel is a street in Amstelveen, Netherlands.[74]
  • Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza is a public park near the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City.[75]

Other commemorations

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1962 Medal Dag Hammarskjöld by the Danish sculptor Harald Salomon
UN flag at half-mast
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In 1974, the Australian-British composer Malcolm Williamson, Master of the Queen's Music, wrote his Hammarskjöld Portrait for soprano and string orchestra. The text was taken from Vägmärken, and the work's first performance took place on 30 July 1974, at a Royal Albert Hall Proms Concert, with the soprano Elisabeth Söderström, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Pritchard.

In 1985, Hammerskjöld was one of the names mentioned in the "I Belong to a Culture" speech in Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart, where the protagonist includes him in a list of 24 historical gay figures.[63][64]

In the 2016 film The Siege of Jadotville, depicting the events of the Congo Crisis,[83] Hammarskjöld's plane (incorrectly a DC-4) is purposely shot down by a fighter jet only used by American forces at the time (it's likely this was for production reasons, just as a DC-4 stood in for the DC-6). Hammarskjöld is played by fellow Swede, Mikael Persbrandt.

Also in 2016, the 1961 Ndola Transair Sweden DC-6 crash was featured in Canadian TV series Mayday (S15, E5), "Deadly Mission" and Air Crash Investigation Special Report (S3, E3), "VIP on Board". Peter James Howarth portrayed Hammarskjöld.[84]

In 2023, Persbrandt again played the eponymous politician, in the film Hammarskjöld, directed by Per Fly.[5] The film received negative reviews for glossing over its Congo Crisis controversies.[5]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ The nomination was leaked early by a delegate of the Security Council, who informed a correspondent of the vote as they left the council chamber to go to the restroom.[26] Earlier in March, Hammarskjöld had discussed the succession problem of the UN Secretariat with artist Bo Beskow [de; no; sv]. When Beskow suggested that Hammarskjöld would be suitable for the office, the latter replied, "Nobody is crazy enough to propose me—and I would be crazy to accept."[27]

References

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  1. ^ "Hammarskjöld". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins.
  2. ^ "Nobel Prize facts". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  3. ^ "How Not to Select the Best UN Secretary-General". HuffPost. 28 October 2015.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b Linnér, Sture; Åström, Sverker (2008). UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld: Reflections and Personal Experiences (The 2007 Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture) (PDF). Uppsala University. p. 28. ISBN 978-91-85214-51-8. Catalog record archived from the original on 22 July 2019. "This is the translated text of the 2007 Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture given by Sture Linnér and Sverker Åström at Uppsala University on 15 October 2007".
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Dino Knudsen (2023). "Not an obvious hero". Africa Is a Country.
  6. ^ Jump up to:a b c Luc De Vos, Emmanuel Gerard, Jules Gérard-Libois en Philippe Raxhon (2004). Lumumba. De complotten?. De moord. ISBN 9058262286.
  7. ^ Jump up to:a b c Henning Melber (17 January 2017). "Lumumba, Hammarskjöld and the Cold War in the Congo". African Magazine.
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Bibliography

[edit]

  • Durel, Bernard, op, (2002), «Au jardin secret d'un diplomate suédois: Jalons de Dag Hammarskjöld, un itinéraire spirituel», La Vie Spirituelle (Paris). T. 82, pp. 901–922.
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More Clues, and Questions, in 1961 Crash That Killed Dag Hammarskjold

Officials searching through debris after the plane carrying Dag Hammarskjold crashed in Northern Rhodesia.Credit...Central Press/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images

By Rick Gladstone and Alan Cowell

A few provocative tidbits have emerged about the mysterious 1961 death of United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, just months before the world body may forever close the book on the unsolved case.

The new information, which appears to corroborate the theory that South African or Belgian mercenaries may have forced the plane carrying Mr. Hammarskjold and 15 others to crash in a conflict region of Africa, is far from conclusive.

But it has provided more fuel for questions about what powerful nations may still be withholding in their intelligence archives about the crash, a defining event nearly six decades ago in emerging post-colonial Africa.

Mr. Hammarskjold, a pipe-smoking Swedish diplomat whose name now adorns buildings in and around the United Nations headquarters in New York, was on a mission to settle a conflict over Katanga, a rebellious part of Congo, when his aircraft, a chartered DC-6, crashed just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961.

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The aircraft, named the Albertina, was just a few minutes from its destination: an airfield in Ndola, in what was then the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia and is now Zambia.

Whether the crash was accidental has been at the crux of inquiries that have persisted to this day, generating many conspiracy theories that colonial-era mining interests, perhaps backed by Western intelligence agencies, had plotted to assassinate him.

The inquiries have turned Mr. Hammarskjold’s death into the biggest mystery in the history of the United Nations.

Now, as a prominent jurist retained by Mr. Hammarskjold’s most recent successor, António Guterres, is preparing what may be the final report on the crash, a documentary film has caused a stir by presenting what it has described as revelations.

The two-hour film, “Cold Case Hammarskjold,” by Mads Brugger, a Danish journalist, received mixed reviews when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last month. It suggested that a South African group of white mercenaries had not only played a role in the crash, but had also later plotted to infect South Africa’s black majority with AIDS through a fake vaccination campaign.

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While the AIDS theory has been met with deep skepticism by a range of experts, its assertions about a South African mercenary connection to Mr. Hammarskjold’s death have not been dismissed so easily.

Image
Dag Hammarskjold in 1959.Credit...Associated Press

A few weeks before the premiere of “Cold Case Hammarskjold,” Alexander Jones, a former member of the mercenary group and an important figure in the film, was interviewed for 90 minutes in Sweden by a representative of the jurist who is preparing the United Nations report, according to Andreas Rocksen, a producer of the film.

Mr. Jones described a 1989 recruitment session for the group, the South African Institute for Maritime Research, in which photographs of the Hammarskjold crash site had been displayed and the group’s leader “referred to it as one of the most successful operations — taking down a dignitary,” Mr. Rocksen said.

Asked for comment, the jurist, Mohamed Chande Othman, the former chief justice of Tanzania, said he had received “information from a multiplicity of sources,” including “the makers of a recent film on this subject matter,” according to an emailed statement from his spokesman.

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The judge also said he was still evaluating the information “in terms of whether it may be new information of relevance” and that he intended to submit his report to Mr. Guterres by June.

Neither the judge nor Mr. Guterres said they had seen the film. But a spokesman for Mr. Guterres, Farhan Haq, said that Mr. Hammarskjold’s death “remains one of the saddest, most tragic events in the history of our organization,” and that “a full accounting of what happened is way overdue.”

The film’s researchers also claim to have corroborated a theory that a now-deceased Belgian mercenary pilot, Jan van Risseghem, flying a French-built Fouga Magister belonging to the forces of Moïse Tshombe, the Katangese rebel leader, attacked and destroyed Mr. Hammarskjold’s plane.

The researchers interviewed a friend of Mr. Risseghem’s, Pierre Coppens, who said Mr. Risseghem had recounted the attack to him years later in Belgium.

That account, however, has been called into question by a German historian, Torben Gülstorff, who has traced documents showing that several Dornier twin-engine planes were sold to the Katangese rebel authorities.

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Unlike the Fouga, the Dornier Do 28A had short takeoff and landing capabilities and could have used a short airstrip in the Congolese town of Kipushi to reach Ndola, while a Fouga, based much further away in the Congolese town of Kolwezi, would have been at the limits of its range.

In an article last year, Mr. Gülstorff wrote that “a Dornier Do 28A might be the plane that was used in a nighttime air-to-air attack” on Mr. Hammarskjold’s plane. But he said, “further research is necessary.”

Doubt also has been expressed about Mr. van Risseghem’s whereabouts on the night of the crash. In 1994, Bengt Rösiö, a Swedish diplomat and author who had interviewed Mr. van Risseghem, said in a paper titled “Ndola Once Again” that Mr. van Risseghem was “not in Katanga at the time of the Ndola crash since he was on leave in Belgium.”

SOUTH

SUDAN

CENTRAL AFRICAN

REPUBLIC

DEMOCRATIC

REPUBLIC

OF CONGO

Kinshasa

KATANGA

Kolwezi

Kipushi

ANGOLA

Ndola

ZAMBIA

250 miles

By The New York Times

But that assertion, too, seems undermined by documents published in a Belgian newspaper, De Morgen, last month, showing that Mr. van Risseghem apparently drew an advance on his salary as a mercenary for the Katangese authorities on Sept. 16, 1961.

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New questions also have been raised about the precise cause of the Albertina’s destruction. An article last month in Counterpunch, a magazine based in Petrolia, Calif., suggested that the pilot had been trying for a controlled crash landing after an attacking plane hit it.

If the Albertina had not struck an enormous anthill, the article said, the “skinny trees would probably have arrested its forward movement in a fairly short distance and the passengers if they were strapped in would have a pretty good chance of walking away.”

Some of those colonial officials present in Ndola at the time, representing Britain, insist that there was no evidence of an aerial attack.

“I mapped out where every body was found in relation to the crash site and attended every post mortem,” said John Gange, a former detective senior inspector in the colonial police who examined the site hours after it had been located.

“Every single scrap of the aircraft was removed from the scene and examined by qualified engineers,” Mr. Gange said in an email. “Nothing untoward was found.”

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“No bullets or bullet holes were found on any of the bodies or on any part of the wreckage,” he added.

In the absence of any definitive explanation, conflicting theories have proliferated, along with accusations that Western powers and the United Nations itself have obstructed successive inquiries.

Last November, Judge Othman directly accused Britain and South Africa of having failed to cooperate in his repeated requests for information.

This month, Hynrich W. Wieschhoff, whose father, Heinrich A. Wieschhoff, an adviser to Mr. Hammarskjold, died in the crash, said the United Nations had “done little to publicize the activities” of Judge Othman, had been “slow to fully declassify its own archives and still refuses to release some documents.”

In an article posted on PassBlue, a news website that focuses on the United Nations, Mr. Wieschhoff said the judge’s final report may offer more detail. Still, he said, “unless that report or a new sense of purpose by the U.N. can pry the facts out of Britain, the U.S. and other key states, what happened and why will once again fade unanswered into the past.”

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