Word: hammarskjolds
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Small. As the week began, the uncommitted scarcely realized how important they had become. Then Nikita Khrushchev strode to the podium to roar Dag Hammarskjold into submission. Hammarskjold, cried Khrushchev, had tried to justify "the bloody crimes perpetrated against the Congolese people by the colonialists and their stooges. It is not proper for a man who has flouted elementary justice to hold such an important post as that of Secretary-General." Khrushchev demanded that Hammarskjold "muster up enough courage to resign...
...Hammarskjold sat, his head bowed, listening to the blast. Replying, he leaned forward in his seat, spoke over his folded hands. "It is very easy to resign," he said. "It is not so easy to stay on. It is very easy to bow to the wish of a big power. It is another matter to resist...
...reminded the hushed Assembly that if he resigned, Khrushchev would insist on replacing him with a three-headed Secretariat. This, said Hammarskjold, "would make it impossible to maintain an effective executive. By resigning, I would, therefore, at the present difficult and dangerous juncture, throw the organization to the winds. I have no right to do so because I have responsibility to all those member states for which the organization is of decisive importance-a responsibility that overrides all other considerations...
...assembled delegates burst into applause. When it subsided, Hammarskjold continued in his careful English: "It is not the Soviet Union or, indeed, any other big powers which need the United Nations for their protection; it is all the others. I shall remain in my post during the term of my office as a servant of the organization in the interests of all those other nations, as long as they wish me to do so." All across the big semicircle, delegates, white, black and brown, rose in a standing ovation. In their midst, Nikita Khrushchev derisively pounded his thick fists...
...figurative arm around everyone in sight, from Nehru to Sukarno, and whirled into and out of receptions given by half a dozen small countries. His most bewildering display was at a big shindig in the Soviet Union's Park Avenue mansion, where Khrushchev greeted an astonished Dag Hammarskjold with an affectionate bear hug. Explaining his antic behavior to a crony, Hungary's ill-starred Janos Kadar, Khrushchev said: "In the Caucasus Mountains they have a custom-while a man is under your roof he is your friend, but when he goes outside you can slit his throat...