Hammarskjöld: A Life

11. Causal Chains

11 Causal Chains F or all its drama, the Peking negotiation was an elegant chamber composition marred only by occasional fits of coughing in the audience. The Middle East in 1956–57 wants some other description: always tumultuous and periodically violent, it drew into complex scenarios five regional states (Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon), two superpowers (the United States, the Soviet Union), and two European powers (Britain and France)—plus the UN. The region was churning with anger and mistrust, conspiracy and threat, outside pressures and a partially concealed but grim arms race. Both armies and small bands—the latter ranging from trained commandos to villagers and wandering shepherds—were poised to cross borders. To all of which Hammarskjöld said, in effect, what he said in May 1955 at a press conference exploring the chances of nuclear disarmament: “There have been no precedents or experiences which entitle us not to try again.”1 In the canon of Hammarskjöld statements, this is one of the most memorable; it too should be engraved on the walls of public buildings where serious matters are decided. The months preceding Hammarskjöld’s consuming engagement with the Middle East brought a sequence of successes. We have already noticed the June 1955 gathering in San Francisco to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the UN. A well-publicized event, earning Hammarskjöld his first Time magazine cover, that occasion also gave him what we have interpreted as a difficult personal passage when he measured the magnitude of the secretarygeneral ’staskagainsttherealityofinternationalaffairs.ThemonthofAugust saw a significant gathering at Geneva, the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. Opening that event, Hammarskjöld found a way to drop down from expected generalities to evoke what he perceived as the anguish and obscure guilt felt by millions worldwide—and the breath of hope now experienced. His central role in international affairs brought essentials into sharp focus, and he knew how to state them without diminishing the formality of public speech. “The exploitation of nuclear energy for social and economic ends,” he said, “will be a considerable relief from the oppressive thought that, in unlocking the atom, we had done no more 238 Hammarskjöld | A Life than unlock the most sinister Pandora’s Box in nature. . . . We all should render our thanks to the scientists who, by moving in this direction, will expiate on behalf of all of us that feeling of guilt which has so universally been felt, that man in his folly should have thought of no better use of a great discovery than to manufacture with its help the deadliest instruments of annihilation.”2 Urquhart has written that 1,400 scientists attended the two-week conference, masses of papers were read, and fundamental information was shared. In his eyewitness view the conference built “a new bridge . . . between East and West during . . . the most constructive and promising year for international peace since the beginning of World War II.”3 That the UN prepared and hosted the event was a sign of its growing maturity. Another sign, positive in itself and promising, was the admission during the fall 1955 session of the General Assembly of sixteen new member nations ranging from Albania and Austria at the near end of the alphabet to Spain and Sri Lanka further on. On principle and for practical reasons, Hammarskjöld favored universal membership insofar as politics would permit. We have heard him argue that “the idea of the United Nations as a club to which only the like-minded will be admitted, in which membership is a privilege and expulsion is the retribution for wrong-doing, is totally unrealistic and self-defeating.” Every new admission—Cambodia , Laos, Jordan, Nepal, Hungary, and others—introduced previously unheard perspectives and personalities and tied the UN more closely to the problems that each nation would face. United Nations Day, October 24th, found Hammarskjöld convening the musicians of many nations to offer a festive concert at UN headquarters and by radio to a large public. The performers’ names and their program can’t help but impress: Leonard Bernstein conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Russian virtuoso Emil Gilels in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto; Sir William Walton leading the orchestra in one of his own compositions; a New York chorus performing sections of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. In this annual setting, Hammarskjöld never failed to evoke the UN’s ideals and the world’s realities. This time he referred to...