Remembering Dag Hammarskjöld, Reflection #2

Photo: UN/DPI

Sunday, September 18 marks 50 years since the death of Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld, the only U.N. Secretary General to die while in office and the only person ever to receive a Nobel Peace Prize posthumously. Hammarskjöld was killed in an airplane crash in Zambia en route to cease-fire negotiations. Here, Kroc professor Bob Johansen reflects on Hammarskjöld’s life:

In reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the death of Dag Hammarskjöld, who was killed while serving the cause of peace and the mission of the United Nations, three attributes stand out in my mind:

First, he epitomized, at an early, influential moment in the life of the United Nations and perhaps better than anyone else since its founding, the highest calling of a consummate international civil servant. He placed service to the world community ahead of service to his own national group while championing the highest ideals of the U.N. Charter, particularly international peace, justice, and law.

He was a highly skilled negotiator – he would have to be politically astute and intellectually imaginative to be able to create any space at all for the U.N. to act between the two hostile armed camps squaring off during the height of the Cold War and in the context of an extremely dangerous nuclear arms race. Despite the daunting context, Hammarskjold was one of the first to embody what we today take for granted as “the international community.” Although consciousness of such a community barely existed at that time, he sensed that an incipient international community, which is still in the making, could and should be called into being. His world-class character, integrity, and unflappable mixture of firmness and flexibility helped bring the international community to life. He embodied this at a time when it required courage and willingness to face criticism. Face this he did, including loud public calls from the Soviet Union for him to resign, which he calmly refused to do while continuing to steer a course between Moscow and Washington.

Second, he combined political realism with a clear vision of world community focused on meeting the needs of all members of the human species. He accepted realities that he could not change, yet he was constantly on the lookout for addressing them in new ways that reflected the perspective of an incipient world community. While on that pioneering path, he undertook the major diplomatic innovation of establishing United Nations peacekeeping. This became the U.N.’s most effective instrument for dampening violent conflicts, yet it was not mentioned in the Charter. Because the Cold War prevented the major powers from employing the Security Council as it was designed, he, with the help of like-minded governments, created peacekeeping to enable the international community to insulate conflicts from Cold War adversaries and to remove them as potential flashpoints by drawing on middle powers and the nonaligned to prevent major Cold War rivals from intervening in conflicts that they would only exacerbate if allowed to enter.

Third, Hammarskjöld demonstrated a unique attitude toward the possession and use of political power. He held national political power as a Cabinet minister in Sweden before going to the U.N., and while Secretary-General he showed toughness in standing up to presidents and prime ministers. Yet he did not thirst for power or for recognition for himself so strongly that he let these override the humility required to relate successfully to both the powerful and weak of the world. He did not insist on fanfare or let the trappings of status interfere with working tirelessly, with modest means, to obtain results with other, often egocentric, powerbrokers. His writings display an unusual sense of the importance of self surrender as the way to self realization. It is not surprising that President John F. Kennedy called him “the greatest statesman of our century.”