I recently heard someone say that Dag Hammarskjold was a terrible Secretary General of the UN. I have never?

Question

before heard anything but praise for the man and his work. I didn't get a chance to follow up on this comment but it made me curious. The person who made the remark is intelligent and more knowledgeable about world events than I am and old enough to have a least a vague memory of Hammarskjold when he was alive. What did Hammarskjold do or not do that would cause a negative assessment from someone who would not say such a think lightly?

Answer 1

Dag Hammarskjold was a typical cautious Swedish diplomat, Secretary General of the UN during the 1950 - 1960-s.  He never had the courage to speak up against the Sovietunion, China and the Warsaw Pact countries. When some organisations asked him to make enquires to the Soviets about the fate of Raoul Wallenberg who saved thousands of Jews in n**i occupied Budapest and was taken by the advancing Red Army, Hammarskjold replied that he is not starting WW III for the sake of Wallenberg. Ironically when Hammarskjold visited Congo during the crisis, the Soviet backed communist rebels shot down his UN marked plane. When you drive at the border region between Congo and Zambia, you can see the area where the plane was found. Perhaps one day the old Soviet archives will be open and we will know that what happened to the hero Raoul Wallenberg and Dag Hammarskjold.

Answer 2

Dag Hammarskjold was indeed a quiet and cautious diplomat. The problem lay with the personal perception of what ought to be in the political arena.

Dag was absolutely NOT the 'big bull of the woods' type of leader, which to some people means not a leader at all. Theodore Roosevelt was such a leader, much but not all of the time. The politicized motto "speak softly but carry a big stick" was often felt to be a humorous jest by most because Teddy was not a soft-spoken man. Nonetheless, when he helped negotiate a peace between Russia and Japan, he did precisely that. The big stick (strong military ability) was merely what he brought to the negotiating table to show he deserved to be there between the two warring beligerants. It wasn't a club to hold over them, forcing them to comply, it was just that he was in their league so he earned the right to be heard.

This was essentially Dag's problem. He couldn't address the big players with the enormous confrontation between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., yet some might consider that his sense of grace and civility may have influenced both of these nations to guard against hot-headed action. Dag may very well have averted or at least delayed that which would have turned the Cold War into a nuclear hot war in its early years.

One of the strategies that Dag employed that was an inspiration to subsequent U.N. Secretaries General was that until both sides are ready to talk, talk is all you have. Dag looked beyond bluff and bluster and had the patience to let leaders have their say, then calmly bring them back to the more focussed discussion at hand.

Dag Hammarskjold was a diplomatic equivalant of Gandhi or Mother Theresa, a good man trying to calm an angry world in touching people and places where he could make an effect, leaving the loud and boisterous to beller until they wanted to get serious at negotiating out their differences.

So if aggressive leadership is more your style, consider too, that as with our country's beginning, some leaders lead with an expectation and understanding that their government organization wasn't supposed to control the world, merely constructively steer their little part of it. To some, therefore, Dag was dreadfully awful, but I think he was awesome.