The role of the Secretary-General: a personal history.

AuthorGazarian, Jean
PositionUnited Nations Secretaries-General

Ban Ki-moon has taken the "most impossible job in the world", as Trygve Lie famously said about the role of the Secretary-General. The Charter of the United Nations included the Secretariat among its principal organs, most certainly to grant some political prerogatives to the Secretary-General. According to the Charter, he is "the chief administrative officer of the Organization". It further stipulates that he "may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security".

In the early days of the United Nations, an atmosphere of extreme enthusiasm prevailed. Delegates were convinced they had adopted a system of collective security that would ban all wars forever, a feeling shared by Trygve Lie of Norway, who served as the first Secretary-General, from 1946 to 1952.

Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden took over the post in 1953. By then, the international situation had begun to deteriorate and the earlier euphoria was replaced by an atmosphere of extreme tension between the East and the West. Because the Security Council was almost paralysed by repeated vetoes of the Soviet Union, Mr. Hammarskjold often used quiet diplomacy, acting as a discreet mediator. On several occasions, he used the podium of the General Assembly to reply publicly to the attacks of Nikita Khrushchev of the USSR, who had advocated the replacement of the Secretary-General with three people: one from the East, one from the West and one from the South--the famous "troika".

U Thant of Burma (now Myanmar) was well known to the diplomatic community when he was appointed in November 1962 to replace Dag Hammarskjold, who had perished with 15 collaborators in a plane crash on peace mission to Africa. A humble man, but with very firm convictions, U Thant promoted in the General Assembly and during his missions abroad his motto of the "Three Ds": decolonization, disarmament and development. He often used quiet diplomacy to calm lethal tensions during the difficult period of the cold war.

Kurt Waldheim of Austria had held a number of diplomatic functions, including as Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Minister for Foreign Affairs before serving as the fourth Secretary-General from 1972 to 1981. Throughout his mandate, he travelled to conflict areas of special concern to the United Nations.

The appointment of Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru came as a complete surprise to him as he was...

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