In this Burmese name, U is an honorific.

U Thant
Thant pictured in 1968
Secretary-General of the United Nations
In office November 30, 1961 – December 31, 1971
Preceded by	Dag Hammarskjöld
Succeeded by	Kurt Waldheim
Personal details
Born	(1909-01-22)January 22, 1909 Pantanaw, British Burma, British Raj
Died	November 25, 1974(1974-11-25) (aged 65) New York City, United States
Resting place	Tomb south of Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar
Nationality	Burmese
Spouse(s)	Daw Thein Tin
Relations	Po Hnit (father) Nan Thaung (mother) Khant (brother) Thaung (brother) Tin Maung (brother)
Children	Maung Bo Tin Maung Thant Aye Aye Thant
Religion	Theravada Buddhism

This article contains Burmese script. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Burmese script.

U Thant (/ˌuː ˈθɑːnt/;^[1] Burmese: ဦးသန္႔; MLCTS: u:san.; Burmese pronunciation: [ʔú θa̰ɴ]; January 22, 1909 – November 25, 1974) was a Burmese diplomat and the third Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1961 to 1971. He was chosen for the post when his predecessor, Dag Hammarskjöld, died in September 1961.

"U" is an honorific in Burmese, roughly equal to "Mr". "Thant" was his only name. In Burmese he was known as Pantanaw U Thant, in reference to his home town of Pantanaw.

Early days[link]

U Thant as a Rangoon University student in 1927.

Thant was born in Pantanaw, Lower Burma, and was educated at the National High School in Pantanaw and at University College, Rangoon, where he studied history. He was the eldest of four sons and was born into a family of well-to-do landowners and rice merchants. His father, Po Hnit, had helped establish The Sun (Thuriya) newspaper in Rangoon and had been educated in Calcutta, British India.^[2][3] He was also a founding member of the Burma Research Society. U Thant's father, according to Thant Myint-U (U Thant's grandson), had both Buddhist and Muslim forebears.^[3] His father died when Thant was fourteen,^[4] and a series of inheritance disputes forced Thant's mother, Nan Thaung, and her four children into difficult financial times.^[5] His brothers U Khant, U Thaung, and Tin Maung, were also politicians and scholars.^[2]

After university, Thant returned to Pantanaw to teach at the National School and became its headmaster by the age of twenty-five. During this time he became close friends with future prime minister U Nu, who was from neighbouring Wakema and was the local superintendent of schools. Thant regularly contributed to several newspapers and magazines under the pen name "Thilawa" and translated a number of books, including one on the League of Nations.^[6] U Thant was a devout Buddhist.^[7]

Civil servant[link]

U Thant and his family in 1957, including son Tin Maung Thant and daughter Aye Aye Thant.

U Thant and his mother Nan Thaung

When U Nu became the prime minister of the newly independent Burma, he asked Thant to join him in Rangoon and appointed him director of broadcasting in 1948. In the following year he was appointed secretary to the government of Burma in the Ministry of Information. From 1951 to 1957, Thant was secretary to the prime minister, writing speeches for U Nu, arranging his foreign travel, and meeting foreign visitors. During this entire period, he was U Nu's closest confidant and advisor.

He also took part in a number of international conferences and was the secretary of the first Asian–African summit in 1955 at Bandung, Indonesia, which gave birth to the Non-Aligned Movement. From 1957 to 1961, he was Burma's permanent representative to the United Nations and became actively involved in negotiations over Algerian independence. In 1961, the Burmese government awarded him the title Maha Thray Sithu as a commander in the order of Pyidaungsu Sithu.^[8]

UN Secretary-General[link]

U Thant shakes hands with John F. Kennedy during his visit to the UN Headquarters.

Thant began serving as acting Secretary-General from November 3, 1961, when he was unanimously appointed by the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Security Council in Resolution 168, to fill the unexpired term of Dag Hammarskjöld. He was then unanimously appointed secretary-general by the General Assembly on November 30, 1962, for a term of office ending on November 3, 1966. During this first term he was widely credited for his role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis and for ending the civil war in the Congo. He also said that he wanted to ease tensions between major powers while serving at the UN.^[9]

In April 1964, Thant accepted the Holy See’s designation of itself as a permanent observer. There appeared to be no involvement of the General Assembly or the UN Security Council in the decision.^[10] He received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1965.^[11]

U Thant was re-appointed secretary-general of the United Nations by the General Assembly on December 2, 1966, on the unanimous recommendation of the Security Council. His term of office continued until December 31, 1971, when he retired. During his time in office, he oversaw the entry into the UN of dozens of new Asian and African states and was a firm opponent of apartheid in South Africa. He also established many of the UN's development and environmental agencies, funds and programmes, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN University, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and the UN Environmental Programme.

Unlike his two predecessors,^{[citation needed]} Thant retired after ten years on speaking terms with all the big powers. In 1961, when he was first appointed, the Soviet Union had tried to insist on a troika formula of three secretaries-general, one representing each Cold War bloc, something which would have maintained equality in the United Nations between the superpowers. By 1966, when Thant was reappointed, all the big powers, in a unanimous vote of the Security Council, affirmed the importance of the secretary-generalship and his good offices, a clear tribute to Thant's work.

The Six Day War between Arab countries and Israel, the Prague Spring and subsequent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 leading to the birth of Bangladesh all took place during his tenure as secretary-general.

He was widely criticized in the US and Israel for agreeing to pull UN troops out of the Sinai in 1967 in response to a request from Egyptian president Nasser.^[12] U Thant tried to persuade Nasser not to go to war with Israel by flying to Cairo in a last-minute peace effort.

His once good relationship with the US government deteriorated rapidly when he publicly criticized American conduct of the Vietnam War.^[13] His secret attempts at direct peace talks between Washington and Hanoi were eventually rejected by the Johnson Administration.

Thant followed UFO reports with some interest; in 1967, he arranged for American atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald to speak before the UN's Outer Space Affairs Group regarding UFOs.^[14]

On January 23, 1971, U Thant categorically announced that he would "under no circumstances" be available for a third term as secretary-general. For many weeks, the UN Security Council was deadlocked over the search for a successor before finally settling on Kurt Waldheim to succeed U Thant as secretary-general on December 21, 1971—Waldheim's 53rd birthday—and just ten days before U Thant's second term was to end.

In his farewell address to the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary-General U Thant stated that he felt a "great sense of relief bordering on liberation" on relinquishing the "burdens of office".^[15] In an editorial published around December 27, 1971, praising U Thant, The New York Times stated that "the wise counsel of this dedicated man of peace will still be needed after his retirement". The editorial was titled "The Liberation of U Thant".

While serving as secretary-general, U Thant lived in Riverdale, Bronx, on a 4.75-acre (1.92 ha) estate near 232nd Street, between Palisade and Douglas Avenues.^[16]

Death[link]

U Thant died of lung cancer in New York on November 25, 1974. By that time Burma was ruled by a military junta which refused him any honors. The then Burmese president Ne Win was envious of U Thant's international stature and the respect that was accorded him by the Burmese populace. Ne Win also resented U Thant's close links with the democratic government of U Nu which Ne Win had overthrown in a coup d'état on March 2, 1962. Ne Win ordered that U Thant be buried without any official involvement or ceremony.

From the United Nations headquarters in New York where he was laid in state, U Thant's body was flown back to Rangoon, but no guard of honour or high ranking officials were on hand at the airport when the coffin arrived except for U Aung Tun, deputy minister of education, who was subsequently dismissed from office.^[17]

On the day of U Thant's funeral on December 5, 1974, tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Rangoon to pay their last respects. Thant's coffin was displayed at Rangoon's Kyaikasan race course for a few hours before the scheduled burial.

The coffin of U Thant was then snatched by a group of students just before it was scheduled to leave for burial in an ordinary Rangoon cemetery. The student demonstrators buried U Thant on the former grounds of the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU), which Ne Win had dynamited and destroyed on July 8, 1962.^[18]

During the period of December 5–11, 1974, the student demonstrators also built a temporary mausoleum for U Thant on the grounds of the RUSU and gave anti-government speeches. In the early morning hours of December 11, 1974, government troops stormed the campus, killed some of the students guarding the makeshift mausoleum, removed U Thant's coffin, and reburied it at the foot of the Shwedagon Pagoda, where it has continued to lie.^[19]

Upon hearing of the storming of the Rangoon University campus and the forcible removal of U Thant's coffin, many people rioted in the streets of Rangoon. Martial law was declared in Rangoon and the surrounding metropolitan areas. What has come to be known as the U Thant Crisis—the student-led protests over the shabby treatment of U Thant by the Ne Win government—was crushed by the Burmese government.^[19]

In 1978, U Thant's memoirs, View from the UN, were posthumously published, initially by the American publishing house Doubleday.

Personal life[link]

U Thant and his family, including brothers Khant, Thaung and Tin Maung, his mother Nan Thaung, and his daughter Aye Aye Thant and her husband, Tyn Myint-U, in 1964.

U Thant had three brothers: Pantanaw U Khant, U Thaung, and U Tin Maung.^[20] He was married to Daw Thein Tin. U Thant had two sons, but lost both; Maung Bo died in infancy, and Tin Maung Thant fell from a bus during a visit to Yangon. Tin Maung Thant's funeral procession, which was attended by dignitaries, was grander than that of the state funeral of Commodore Than Pe, a member of the 17-man Revolutionary Council and minister of health and education. U Thant was survived by a daughter, an adopted son, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren (three girls and two boys). His only grandson, Thant Myint-U, is a historian and a former senior official in the UN's Department of Political Affairs and the author of The River of Lost Footsteps, in part a biography of U Thant.

Named for him[link]

• The U Thant Peace Award acknowledges and honours individuals or organizations for distinguished accomplishments toward the attainment of world peace.
• A tiny island in the East River opposing the headquarters of the United Nations, U Thant Island, is named after him.^[21]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bernard J. Firestone (2001). The United Nations under U Thant, 1961–1971. Metuchen, N.J: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-3700-5. 
• Ramses Nassif (1988). U Thant in New York, 1961–1971: A Portrait of the Third UN Secretary-General. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-02117-8. 
• U Thant (1978). View from the UN. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-11541-5. 

	Southeast Asia portal
	Biography portal
	United Nations portal

External links[link]

• UN Photos of U Thant from the United Nations website
• Official U.N.S.G. biography from the United Nations website

v t e Secretaries-General of the League of Nations and United Nations League of Nations (1919–1945) James Eric Drummond (United Kingdom) Joseph Louis Anne Avenol (France) Seán Lester (Irish Free State) United Nations (since 1945) Gladwyn Jebb (United Kingdom)* Trygve Lie (Norway) Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden) U Thant (Burma) Kurt Waldheim (Austria) Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (Peru) Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt) Kofi Annan (Ghana) Ban Ki-moon (South Korea) * Gladwyn Jebb was provisional Secretary-General of the United Nations prior to the election of Trygve Lie

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Dag Hammarskjöld
Secretary-General of the United Nations
In office 10 April 1953 – 18 September 1961
Preceded by	Trygve Lie
Succeeded by	U Thant
Personal details
Born	Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (1905-07-29)29 July 1905 Jönköping, Sweden
Died	18 September 1961(1961-09-18) (aged 56) Ndola, Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland
Nationality	Swedish
Religion	Lutheran/Church of Sweden

Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld ( [dɑːg ˈhamːarɧœld] (help·info)) (29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish diplomat, economist, and author. The second Secretary-General of the United Nations, he served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. He is one of four people to have been awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize.^[1] Hammarskjöld remains the only U.N. Secretary-General to die in office, and his death occurred en route to cease-fire negotiations. American President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld “the greatest statesman of our century".^[2]

Early life[link]

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Hammarskjöld's birth house

Dag Hammarskjöld was born in Jönköping, Sweden, but spent most of his childhood in Uppsala. The fourth and youngest son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, Prime Minister of Sweden from 1914 to 1917, and Agnes Hammarskjöld (née Almquist), Hammarskjöld's ancestors served the Monarchy of Sweden since the 17th century. He studied first at Katedralskolan and then at Uppsala University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws and a Master's degree in Political economy. During this time he served for a year as the first Curator at Uplands Nation later moving to Stockholm.

From 1930 to 1934, Hammarskjöld was a Secretary on 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 at the Sveriges Riksbank and was soon promoted. From 1941 to 1948, he served as Chairman of the bank.

During this time Hammarskjöld also held political positions. Early in 1945, he was appointed an adviser to the cabinet on financial and economic problems. He helped coordinate government plans to alleviate the economic problems of the post-war period. In 1947, Hammarskjöld was appointed to a position with Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and in 1949 he became the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs. A delegate to the Paris conference that established the Marshall Plan, in 1948 he was again in Paris to attend a conference for the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. In 1950, he became head of the Swedish delegation to UNISCAN. In 1951, he became a cabinet Minister without Portfolio. Although Hammarskjöld served in a cabinet dominated by the Social Democrats, he never officially joined any political party. In 1951, Hammarskjöld became 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.

UN Secretary-General[link]

Hammarskjöld outside the UN headquarters in New York City

When Trygve Lie resigned from his post as UN Secretary-General in 1953, the United Nations Security Council recommended Hammarskjöld for the post. It came as a surprise to him.^[3] Seen as a competent technocrat without political views, he was selected on 31 March by a majority of 10 out of eleven Security Council members. The UN General Assembly elected him in the 7–10 April session by 57 votes out of 60. In 1957, he was re-elected.

Hammarskjöld 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 planned and supervised in every detail the creation of a "meditation room" in the UN headquarters. This is a place dedicated to silence where people can withdraw into themselves, regardless of their faith, creed, or religion.^[4]

During his term, Hammarskjöld tried to smooth relations between Israel and the Arab states. Other highlights include a 1955 visit to China to negotiate release of 15 captured US pilots who had served in the Korean War, 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 United Nations that year.^[5]

In 1960, the former Belgian Congo and then newly independent Congo asked for UN aid in defusing the Congo Crisis. Hammarskjöld made four trips to the Congo. His efforts towards 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 to, citing the memoirs of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, “equally represent interests of three groups of countries: capitalist, socialist and recently independent.”^[6] Hammarskjöld denied Patrice Lumumba's request to help force the Katanga Province to rejoin the Congo, causing Lumumba to turn to the Soviets for help. He personally disliked Lumumba and felt that he should be removed from office.^[7]

Death[link]

Flight path of Hammarskjöld's aircraft (pink line) and the decoy (black line), September 1961

Hammarskjöld's grave in Uppsala

In September 1961, Hammarskjöld learned about fighting between "non-combatant" UN forces and Katangese troops of Moise Tshombe. He was en route to negotiate a cease-fire on the night of 17–18 September when his Douglas DC-6 airliner SE-BDY crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Hammarskjöld and fifteen others perished in the crash.

A special report issued by the United Nations following the crash stated that a bright flash in the sky was seen at approximately 1:00 am the previous night.^[8] According to the UN special report, it was this information that resulted in the initiation of search and rescue operations. Initial indications that the crash might not have been an accident led to multiple official inquiries and persistent speculation that the Secretary-General was assassinated.^[9]

Hammarskjöld's death was a memorable event. The Dag Hammarskjöld Crash Site Memorial is under consideration for inclusion as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A press release issued by the Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo stated that, "... in order to pay a tribute to this great man, now vanished from the scene, and to his colleagues, all of whom have fallen victim to the shameless intrigues of the great financial Powers of the West... the Government has decided to proclaim Tuesday, 19 September 1961, a day of national mourning."^[8]

Official inquiry[link]

Following the death of Hammarskjöld, there were three inquiries into the circumstances that led to the crash:^[10] the Rhodesian Board of Investigation, the Rhodesian Commission of Inquiry, and the United Nations Commission of Investigation.

The Rhodesian Board of Investigation looked into the matter between 19 September 1961 and 2 November 1961^[10] under the command of British Lt. Colonel M.C.B. Barber. The Rhodesian Commission of Inquiry held hearings from 16–29 January 1962 without United Nations oversight. The subsequent United Nations Commission of Investigation held a series of hearings in 1962 and in part depended upon the testimony from the previous Rhodesian inquiries.^[10] Five "eminent persons" were assigned by the new Secretary-General to the UN Commission. The members of the commission unanimously elected Nepalese diplomat Rishikesh Shaha to head an inquiry.^[10]

The three official inquiries failed to determine conclusively the cause of the crash that led to the death of Hammarskjöld. The Rhodesian Board of Investigation sent 180 men to search a six-square-kilometer area of the last sector of the aircraft's flight-path, looking for evidence as to the cause of the crash. No evidence of a bomb, surface-to-air missile, or hijacking was found. The official report stated that two of the dead Swedish bodyguards had suffered multiple bullet wounds. Medical examination, performed by the initial Rhodesian Board of Investigation and reported in the UN official report, indicated that the wounds were superficial, and that the bullets showed no signs of rifling. They concluded that the bullets exploded in the fire in close proximity to the bodyguards.^[10] No other evidence of foul play was found in the wreckage of the aircraft.^[11]

Previous accounts of a bright flash in the sky were dismissed as occurring too late in the evening to have caused the crash. The UN report speculated that these flashes may have been caused by secondary explosions after the crash. The sole survivor, Sergeant Harold Julien, indicated that there was a series of explosions that preceded the crash.^[10][12] The official inquiry found that the statements of witnesses who talked with Julien were inconsistent.

The report states that there were numerous delays that violated the established search and rescue procedures. There were three separate delays: the first delayed the initial alarm of a possible plane in trouble; the second delayed the "distress" alarm, which indicates that communications with surrounding airports indicate that a missing plane has not landed elsewhere; the third delayed the eventual search and rescue operation and the discovery of the plane wreckage, just miles away. The medical examiners report was inconclusive; one report said that Hammarskjöld had died on impact; another stated that Hammarskjöld might have survived had rescue operations not been delayed.^[10] The report also said that the chances of Sgt. Julien surviving the crash would have been "infinitely" better if the rescue operations had been hastened.^[10]

Alternative theories[link]

Despite the multiple official inquiries that failed to find evidence of assassination, some continue to believe that the death of Hammarskjöld was not an accident.^[9]

At the time of Hammarskjöld's death, Western intelligence agencies were actively involved in the political situation in the Congo,^[9] which culminated in Belgian and American support for the secession of Katanga and the assassination of former prime minister Patrice Lumumba. Belgium and the United Kingdom had a vested interest in maintaining their control over much of the country's copper industry during the Congolese transition from colonialism to independence. Concerns about the nationalization of the copper industry could have provided a financial incentive to remove either Lumumba or Hammarskjöld.^[9] Belgium has since publicly acknowledged and apologized for its negligence in the death of Lumumba.

The involvement of British officers in commanding the initial inquiries, which provided much of the information about the condition of the plane and the examination of the bodies, has led some to suggest a conflict of interest.^[9][13] The official report dismissed a number of pieces of evidence that would have supported the view that Hammarskjöld was assassinated.^[10] Some of these dismissals have been controversial, such as the conclusion that bullet wounds could have been caused by bullets exploding in a fire. Expert tests have questioned this conclusion, arguing that exploding bullets could not break the surface of the skin.^[9][10] Major C. F. Westell, a ballistics authority, said, "I can certainly describe as sheer nonsense the statement that cartridges of machine guns or pistols detonated in a fire can penetrate a human body."^[14] He based his statement on a large scale experiment that had been done to determine if military fire brigades would be in danger working near munitions depots. Other Swedish experts conducted and filmed tests showing that bullets heated to the point of explosion nonetheless did not achieve sufficient velocity to penetrate their box container.^[14]

Sir Denis A H Wright, the then British Ambassador to Ethiopia, in his annual report for 1961 establishes linkage of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold’s death on 18 September to British refusal to allow an Ethiopian Military plane carrying troops destined to join the UN mission, landing at Entebbe and over-flying British territory to Congo. Their refusal was only lifted after the death of the Secretary General. A Foreign Office official noting his comments on file, wrote affirming no “skeletons” in British cupboard and suggesting the Ambassador's comments should be removed from the final, official ‘printed’ version of the annual report.^[15]

On 19 August 1998, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), stated that recently uncovered letters had implicated the British MI5, the American CIA, and then South African intelligence services in the crash.^[16] One TRC letter said that a bomb in the aircraft's wheel bay was set to detonate when the wheels came down for a landing. Tutu said that they were unable to investigate the truth of the letters or the allegations that South Africa or Western intelligence agencies played a role in the crash. The British Foreign Office suggested that they may have been created as Soviet misinformation or disinformation.^[17]

On 29 July 2005, Norwegian Major General Bjørn Egge gave an interview to the newspaper Aftenposten on the events surrounding Hammarskjöld's death. According to General Egge, who had been the first UN officer to see the body, Hammarskjöld had a hole in his forehead, and this hole was subsequently airbrushed from photos taken of the body. It appeared to Egge that Hammarskjöld had been thrown from the plane, and grass and leaves in his hands might indicate that he survived the crash – and that he had tried to scramble away from the wreckage. Egge does not claim directly that the wound was a gunshot wound.^[18]

In his speech to the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September 2009, Colonel Gaddafi called upon the Libyan president of UNGA, Ali Treki, to institute a UN investigation into the assassinations of Congolese prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, who was overthrown in 1960 and murdered the following year, and of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961.^[19]

According to a dozen witnesses interviewed by Swedish aid worker Göran Björkdahl in the 2000s (decade), Hammarskjöld's plane was shot down by another aircraft. Björkdahl also reviewed previously unavailable archive documents and internal UN communcations. He believes that there was an intentional shootdown for the benefit of mining companies like Union Minière.^[20][21][22] A US intelligence officer who was stationed at an electronic surveillance station in Cyprus stated that he heard a cockpit recording from Ndola. In the cockpit recording a pilot talks of closing in on the DC6 in which Hammarskjold was traveling, guns are heard firing, and then the words "I've hit it".^[23]

Honors[link]

• Hammarskjöld posthumously received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961, having been nominated before his death.
• Honorary degrees: The Carleton University in Ottawa (then called Carleton College)^[24] awarded its first-ever honorary degree to Hammarskjöld in 1954 when it presented him with a Legum Doctor, honoris causa. The University has continued this tradition by conferring an honorary doctorate upon every subsequent Secretary General of the United Nations. He also held honorary degrees from Oxford University, England; in the United States from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Amherst, Johns Hopkins, the University of California, and Ohio University; in Sweden, Uppsala University; and in Canada from McGill University as well as Carleton.^[25]
• On April 6, 2011, the Bank of Sweden announced that Hammarskjöld's image will be used on the 1000 kronor banknote, the highest-denomination banknote in Sweden.^[26]

Legacy[link]

• John F. Kennedy: After Hammarskjöld's death, U.S. President John F. Kennedy regretted that he 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.”^[2]
• Refusal to resign: One of Hammarskjöld's greatest moments was refusing to give in to Soviet pressure to resign. Dag Hammarskjöld: "It is very easy to bow to the wish of a big power. It is another matter to resist it. If it is the wish of those nations who see the organization their best protection in the present world, I shall do so again."^[27]
• In 2011 The Financial Times reported that Hammarskjöld has remained the benchmark against which later UN Secretary-Generals have been judged.^[28]
• Historians' views:
  • Historian Paul Kennedy hailed Hammarskjöld in his book The Parliament of Man as perhaps the greatest UN Secretary-General because of his ability to shape events, in contrast with his successors.
  • In contrast, the right-wing writer Paul Johnson in A History of the Modern World from 1917 to the 1980s (1983) was highly critical of his judgment.
• Libraries:
  • The Dag Hammarskjöld Library, a part of the United Nations headquarters, was dedicated on 16 November 1961 in honour of the late Secretary-General.
  • Uppsala University:
    

    

    The Dag Hammarskjöld Library in Uppsala
    There is also a Dag Hammarskjöld Library at his alma mater, Uppsala University.
• Buildings and rooms:
  • Columbia University: The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York has a Dag Hammarskjöld Lounge. The graduate school is dedicated to the principles of international peace and cooperation that Hammarskjöld embodied.
  • 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.^[29]
  • The Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations in Geneva, Switzerland has a room named after him.
  • Dag Hammarskjöld Stadium is the main football stadium of Ndola, Zambia. Hammarskjold's ill-fated flight in 1961 crashed in the outskirts of Ndola.
• Streets:
  • Dag Hammarskjölds Gade is a street in Aalborg, Denmark
  • Dag Hammarskjölds Väg is one of the longest streets in Uppsala, Sweden. There are several other streets in Sweden sharing this name.
  • Dag Hammarskjöld's Allé is a street in Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • The headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) in Santiago, Chile lies on Avenida Dag Hammarskjöld.
  • The headquarters of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German Society for International Cooperation, GIZ), is on Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg in Eschborn, Germany.
  • Dag Hammarskjöldlaan is a street in the town of Castricum, The Netherlands.
  • Hammarskjöld Road is a road in the town of Harlow, UK.
• New York City: A Manhattan park near the United Nations headquarters is called the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, as are several of the surrounding office buildings.
• Religious commemoration: He is also commemorated as a peacemaker in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on 18 September of each year.
• Schools: A number of schools have been named after Hammarskjöld, including Hammarskjold Middle School in East Brunswick Township, New Jersey; Dag Hammarskjold Middle School in Wallingford, Connecticut; Dag Hammarskjold Elementary School in Parma, Ohio; Dag Hammarskjold Elementary (PS 254) in Brooklyn, New York; Dag Hammarskjold Elementary School in Oakland (now an airport parking business) and Hammarskjold High School in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
• Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation:
  

  

  The Dag Hammarskjöld centre in Uppsala (housing the secretariat of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation)
  In 1962, the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation was created as Sweden's national memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld.^[30]
• Memorial awards:
  • Medal: On 22 July 1997, the U.N. Security Council in resolution 1121(1997) established the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal in recognition and commemoration of those who have lost their lives as a result of UN peacekeeping operations.^[31]
  • Prize in Peace and Conflict Studies: Colgate University annually awards a student the Dag Hammarskjöld Prize in Peace and Conflict Studies based on outstanding work in the program.^[32]
• Postage Stamps: Many countries issued postage stamps commemorating Hammarskjöld.^[33] The United Nations Postal Administration issued 5 and 15 cent stamps in 1962. They show the UN flag at half-mast and bear the simple inscription, "XVIII IX MCMLXI". The United States Hammarskjöld commemorative 4-cent value postage stamp, issued on 23 October 1962, was actually released twice. Famous for its misprint, the second issue is often referred to as the Dag Hammarskjöld invert.

[edit] Spirituality and Markings

In 1953, soon after his appointment as United Nations secretary general, Hammarskjöld was interviewed on radio by Edward R. Murrow. In this talk he declared: "But the explanation of how 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 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."^[34]

His only book, Vägmärken (Markings), was published in 1963. A collection of his diary reflections, the book starts in 1925, when he was 20 years old, and ends at his death in 1961.^[35] 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. In this letter, Dag writes, "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 W.H. Auden, a friend of Dag's.^[36] Markings was described by a theologian, the late 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."^[37] Hammarskjöld writes, 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."^[38] 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.^[39] In his foreword to Markings, the English poet W. H. Auden quotes Hammarskjöld as stating "In our age, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action."^[40]

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

Bibliography[link]

• 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.
• Urquhart, Brian, (1972), Hammarskjold. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
• Velocci, Giovanni, cssr, (1998), «Hammarskjold Dag», in Luigi Borriello, ocd – Edmondo Caruana, ocarm – Maria Rosaria Del Genio – N. Suffi (dirs.), Dizionario di mistica. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano, pp. 624–626.

See also[link]

United Nations portal

• Dag Hammarskjöld invert
• List of people who converted to Catholicism

References[link]