COMPLEX GENIUS
Bailey, Sydney D.
Complex Genius Dac Hammarskjold: Custodian of the Brush-Fire Peace, by Joseph P. Lash. Doubleday. 304 pp. $4.50. Dac Hammarskjold and Crisis Diplomacy, by Richard I. Miller. Oceana Publications....
...Hammarskjold was a true neutral, not about principles, but in his actions...
...these few pages strike me as the least satisfactory in his book...
...He was a dedicated servant of the human race, convinced that there was an international interest in harmony with the true interest of all nations...
...He describes in detail how Hammarskjold dealt with a number of situations in which the United Nations was involved: the flyers imprisoned in China, Suez, Hungary, Lebanon and Jordan, Laos, and the Congo...
...Reviewed by Sydney D. Bailey Joseph Lash described a book of mine on the United Nations as "unnecessarily pedantic and labored" in a recent issue of The Progressive...
...No one could use these words about Lash's moving book about Dag Hammarskjold...
...Lash admired Hammarskjold and writes from intimate knowledge of what made that extraordinary man tick...
...The portrait is in focus even if it occasionally lacks definition...
...Richard Miller deals not so much with Hammer-skjold the man as with his diplomatic methods...
...He was a deeply religious man, though not in the conventional sense, and took a personal interest in the meditation room at U. N. headquarters...
...his faith was in truth, reason, and justice...
...He would let others talk and then quietly emphasize the common elements in supposedly conflicting positions...
...Lash mentions Hungary, but only briefly and incidentally...
...2.25 paper...
...He hated the notion that physical coercion should be the arbiter...
...344 pp...
...He possessed the rare quality of being a gifted listener...
...6 cloth...
...He believed himself to be a good administrator, though he disliked tidy organizational charts...
...It is difficult to portray in words this complex genius: subtle and yet straightforward, unobtrusive and yet constantly at the center of things, timid and yet fearless, an aristocrat who cared deeply for the underprivileged...
...Lash and Miller convey something of the flavor of Hammar-skjold's personality, his career of distinterested service...
Vol. 26 • July 1962 • No. 7
