Peacekeeper a Life in Peace and War

By George Russell

These are dire times for the United Nations. It is near bankruptcy, and unilateralism by the Great Powers is still very much the order of the day. Rarely has the world organization seemed less apt to fulfill its initial aspiration, to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."

Thus there is something quixotic and timely about this memoir of a distinguished career spent under the blue-and-white U.N. flag. Its author does not redeem the battered organization in Turtle Bay but asserts elegantly that there is still nobility in the effort to give peace a chance.

Few public servants are better suited to making that case than Sir Brian Urquhart, a 40-year U.N. veteran who retired in 1986 after twelve years as Under Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, the U.N.'s premier troubleshooter. Urquhart traded compliments and barbs with most of the world's statesmen and zealots -- some of them interchangeable -- who created the U.N. and then forced it to referee conflicts in the Sinai, the Congo, Cyprus and Lebanon.

Urquhart recalls his peacekeeping duties with sardonic wit. Of a 1984 visit to Israel, he observes, "Private friendliness and public denunciation of the U.N. indicated that a national election was in progress." He reviews his triumphs, notably the Congo in the '60s, and disappointments, chiefly Lebanon in the '80s.

Urquhart served with every U.N. Secretary-General and has strong views on all of them. The first, the Norwegian Trygve Lie, he describes as an "unsophisticated man who relied . . . on peasant shrewdness" rather than brains or hard work. Dag Hammarskjold, killed in a 1961 plane crash in the Congo, was "shy but demanding, modest but arrogant, quiet but with a formidable capacity for anger and indignation," says Urquhart, who has also written a biography of the man.

Urquhart is scathing about two-term Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. The current President of Austria, he says, was an "energetic, ambitious mediocrity" who "demonstrated determination and even, on occasion, courage, but he lacked the qualities of vision, integrity, inspiration, and leadership that the United Nations so desperately needs." Urquhart says it was "mortifying" to discover that the man had lied with such energy about his Nazi past.

As a peacekeeper, Urquhart seems proudest of the U.N.'s long efforts in Africa. He was kidnaped, beaten up and almost killed by rebellious Katangese troops, an adventure he shrugged off with the epigram "better beaten than eaten." While he was willing enough to risk his neck for the U.N., Urquhart has no illusions about its bureaucratism and pettifogging ways. Why, then, should its fumbling efforts continue? Because, says Urquhart, "if you hold on to your belief in reason and compassion despite all political maneuvering, your efforts may in the end produce results." In the meantime, reason and compassion have produced a fine book.