Correspondents' Correspondence Waldheim's Style

...On December 10, 1954, after 11 American fliers who were members of the UN Command had been imprisoned by Chinese Communists, the General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring that the detention was in violation of the Korean Armistice Agreement and requesting the Secretary General to seek their release...

...In a situation like the present one, the role of the Secretary General comes into very sharp focus, for he is the chief administrative officer of this so-called Parliament of Mankind and is, at least theoretically, "neutral...

...Under the UN Charter, the Security Council's five permanent members-China, France, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United States—and its 10 others elected by the Assembly for two-year terms, have primary responsibility for maintaining peace and security...

...The Chinese charge d'affaires in Stockholm asked Uno Willers, Director of the Swedish Royal Library, which just happened to be exhibiting Chinese books, what Hammarskjold might like for his birthday...

...It was not until Sunday, November 25, that Secretary General Kurt Waldheim called a hurried press conference to announce he had "sent a letter to the Security Council to convene an urgent meeting [because there was] a threat not only to the peaceful relations between the parties, but to the entire world...

...He has not attempted to get himself invited to Qum for a face-to-face meeting with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, preferring instead to confine himself to telephone talks with officials in Teheran...

...But a similar code limited to persons having diplomatic status, applicable to all except two of the 50 Americans being held in Teheran, has long been in force to no effect...

...The tall, taciturn, well-tailored diplomat, who has managed to travel to many countries during his tenure, is often characterized as a "prisoner" of the Third World...

...Consider, for example, the latter's handling of a crisis not unlike the Iranian one...

...The challenge of the Peking experience, and the way he helped to solve it, dominated Hammarskjold's style for the rest of his life...

...In the UN, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Poland argued that the complaint had been initiated by the United States to cover up its aggressive designs against China...

...Again, at a press briefing by his spokesman, Rudi Stajduhar, after Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbza-deh and the militants holding the Americans had reiterated their intention to conduct "spy trials," I pressed the question: "Has the SG any plan formulated in his own mind to make some effort to see the hostages personally...

...Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden (1953-1961), a civil servant, diplomat and poet...

...Certainly his cautious, legalistic style—immersing himself ponderingly, as Stajduhar put it, in the "how, who, when, and so on" of crisis-situations, is in marked contrast to Hammarskjold's bold if quiet diplomacy...

...Delays ensued, and frustrations...

...He actually sent his Under-Secretary for Public Information, Ahmed Bok-hari, down to the press, and Bokhari entertained the press with descriptions of Peking's weather and a synopsis of a Chinese opera they had attended...

...Chinese Foreign Minister Chou En-lai insisted the airmen were "spies," not UN personnel, and complained about American pressure...

...Willers told the charge that the release of the American fliers would be the best birthday gift...

...I recall that he took with him as his legal adviser Sir Humphrey Waldock, an Oxford professor of international law—who, by coincidence, is now the Britisher on and President of the International Court of Justice, which has ruled that the American hostages in Iran should be released...

...However, he devised a formula whereby they invited him in his capacity as SG...

...In fact, he died?some say was killed by design—in a plane crash on September 18, 1961, while enroute to Katanga Province to try for a peace settlement in the war then raging in the Congo, now Zaire...

...The present SG, Kurt Waldheim of Austria, 61 years old, is a career diplomat who began his second five-year term at the UN on January 1,1977 and appears to be gearing up for a third term in 1981...

...William C. Powell, for 14 years the UN press chief and SG spokesman —and now Director of Information for the independent UN Association of the U.S.—remembers that mission: "It was quite clear to Hammarskjold that the Chinese would not receive him on a mission as specific as this, since China was not in the UN...

...Inevitably, too, those of us who have been covering the United Nations since its inception tend to recall how earlier Secretaries General saw their role and developed their own style of meeting crises...

...He replied tersely: "I don't think it makes much sense to rush there...

...In fact,' he said later, 'I went cod-fishing, and I did not catch a single cod, so even the cod kept out of the picture, which was quite appropriate and in line with my intentions.'" Then, on August 1, Radio Peking announced the release of the 11 fliers...

...Hammarskjold spent about a week in Peking, and when he came back, he didn't announce anything...

...and U Thant of Burma (1961-1971), a schoolteacher, journalist and devout Buddhist...

...As Urquhart writes: "It stimulated in him a new taste and new ideas for using his office and his position to tackle difficult problems, and in later years he tended to recall it as a measure of the tension and quality of other crises...

...Kurt Waldheim, it is clear, does not conceive of his office in this fashion...

...The code, whose acceptance December 18 was privately cited by many delegates as the Assembly's only real achievement, took three years to negotiate and must be ratified by 22 of the United Nations' 152 member states before it becomes operative...

...He believed deeply in getting things done through "quiet diplomacy," meaning person-to-person discussions with leaders on both sides of disputes...

...In July, Hammarskjold went to his house by the sea in Sweden, where he said he wanted to celebrate his 50th birthday quietly...

...Three men have held the post previously: Trygve Lie of Norway (19461953), a tough former labor leader who helped to draft the Charter...

...The Council, though, did not become "seized" of this crisis, to use the UN parlance, for 21 days...

...I think there are enough people already there...

...And observers here have been wondering whether his style is not one reason the Iranian crisis is still with us.-Gertrude Samuels...

...The Secretary General was asked one question: Would he be going to Iran...

...The reply began stumblingly, then turned emphatic: "He has to know first what is the Iranian formula: how, who, when, and so on...

...But he also said he wanted to continue his "friendly" discussions with Hammarskjold...

...I think the correspondents appreciated the delicacy of the situation...

...Hammarskjold, meanwhile, got in touch by cable with government officials in China (not then a member of the World Organization), and expressed his desire to meet with them in Peking...

...I think one must have the assurance that such a trip is useful, helpful...

...Brian Urquhart, the Under-Secretary General for Special Protocol Affairs, writes of the days that followed in his eloquent biography, Hammarskjold: "He had been anxious to stay out of the limelight...

...Article 99 of the Charter, he noted, says that the Secretary General "may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security...

...oirespondents' orresponaence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS Waldheim's Style United Nations—It was pure coincidence that as world attention focused on the crisis in Iran, the 34th General Assembly adopted without dissent an "International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages...

...So following the occupation of the American Embassy last November 4 by Iranian militants, speculation here centered on what action might be pursued formally by the Security Council—and even more, given his position and past precedents, informally by the Secretary General...

...Then he will do what he can...

...His suggestion was accepted, and he left for Peking that day, December 10...

...Of the three, Hammarskjold had the greatest impact...