Talk:Dag Hammarskjöld

Death

"South Africa Archishop Desmond Tutu, head of the South African Commission still investigating and exposing the crimes of the apartheid era, has come upon documents said to point to a Western plot to kill U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold in 1961!" [1]

See also:

• Letters Say Hammarskjold Death Western Plot
• UN assassination plot denied
• Letters Say UN Sec-Gen Dag Hammarskjold's Death A Western Plot
• NOTES FOR MEDIA BRIEFING BY ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU

Humanitarian

I can't argue that he wasn't a humanitarian. He won the Nobel Peace prize..!

So I'll agree with Filipman on that one that category:Humanitarians is warranted. So lets stop reverting with the edit summary "trolling" or "vandalism". If you want to comment, do so here.

Fred-Chess 13:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed Cite

I have removed a citeation to [2] because it is broken. Problem remains that this is a needed cite, as the information presented is controversial. It is the Death Section, with the text "One TRC letter said that a bomb in the aircraft's wheel-bay was set to detonate when the wheels came down for landing." --DanielBC 02:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Assassination

It has been widely reported that the plane was shot down by a Belgian mercenary fighter-pilot. He was flying a French-made Super-Magister fighter jet. There were numerous accounts of this left out of the official report - reportedly because the accounts differed from one to the other. This has even been reported in popular media, in documentaries and interviews.

Then there is also the story of the Belgians actually throwing a party to celebrate the event at some royal palace. And even inviting a certain Swedish diplomat to the party, to his disgust.

Sources for this ? --El magnifico June 2006 (UTC)

I lived in the area of Ndola at the time of the incident. This is the first that I have heard of any Belgian jet. The only similar report was that a couple of Mustangs (WWII Vintage) flown by mercenaries that were seen in the area by two local boys but this was never substantiated. --Vumba 16:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually the local boys that saw Mustangs were only a few of many that saw strange things that night. Among these sightings were flashes in the sky before the crash, plane going down in flames, tracer fire from another aircraft, some saw/heard a jet - others a prop aircraft, some saw one plane - some more planes.

The precence of a Fouga-Magister fighter jet in Katanga is certain. We know this plane hit UN forces many times during peacekeeping operations, and we know it was flown by Belgian mercinaries. We know that the crew of Hammarskjölds plane was very experienced, and one of the most experienced in using airfields in this area. They never reported any problems, yet they just suddenly vanished.

We know that the CIA, SOE and the Belgian foreign office were in bed together, trying to maintain control of the Congo at all cost. Killing the UN secretary general was maby not such a big thing for them.--El magnifico 22:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In his autobiography Breaking with Moscow, Arkady N. Shevchenko, former Under Secretary General of the United Nations, wrote that the Soviet Union played a role in Hammarskjold's death. (Hardcover: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN: 5550208288; Paperback: Ballantine Books, ISBN: 0345329147) -- Poldy Bloom 05:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Interresting read. But whoever it was, I think we owe it to Hammarskjold to find whoever did this.--87.210.137.93 15:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the official UN report on the crash, Hammarskjold died of a broken neck after being thrown from the aircraft. Apparently he survived a few minutes after the crash. A Sweedish sergent also survived the crash, but died later from his injuries.

According to Christopher Robbin's AIR AMERICA (which the movie of the same name was based) the Aircraft on which Hammarskjold crashed was owned by one of many CIA front air charter services.

Brian Urquhardt's (former UN Undersecretary for Special Political Affairs and a protege of Ralph Bunche) biography of Hammarskjold dismissed the rumors of the plane being shot down or of any rumor of assination. -- Spacestevie 18:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

There are only 2 conspiracies surrounding Hammarskjölds death: 1. The rumor that the plane was shot down was perpetuated in order to conceal the reason for Hammarskjöld's sudden flight to Ndola in the middle of the night and 2. that the entire Rhodesian top brass, Lord Lansdowne and Moise Tshombe who were waiting at the airport at 3 a.m. all went home when the plane (whose lights were in sight) disappeared from the radar screens and a search-party was not sent out until 24 hours later. That Wikipedia perpetuates nonsensical, unfounded rumors and cites idiots like Egge is unacceptable. It is a well-known fact that can even be verified on Wikipedia (Operation Morthor) that Hammarskjöld travelled from Léopoldville to Ndola in the middle of the night in order to prevent a full-scale war that would have resulted due to the UN in the Congo having gone behind the Security Council's back and instigated a botched military coup in Katanga. Hammarskjöld was on his way to Ndola to apologize personally to Moise Tshombe, the British gov't having sent down Lord Lansdowne who dragged Hammarskjöld by the ear. This little embarrassing fact has conveniently been left out of every single media report on "the saint" Hammarskjöld and focus has instead been placed on the completely unsubstantiated claims that the plane was shot down. As for the testimonies of the Belgian mercenaries, the Swedish State Department's report clearly shows that all such claims are nonsense. Not only did the mercenaries' dates not match, but Fouga jets did not have sufficient fuel tanks to fly the distance claimed. The fact that such jets were used in Africa at the time is beside the point. The Swedish State Department's independent study conducted in 1991-93 after MI5 lifted its 30-year confidentiality seal on the Hammarskjold file was conducted by a senior diplomat who was personally at the scene of the wreckage 30 years earlier (he was the Swedish consul in the Congo in 1961) and asserts without a shadow of a doubt that there were no bullet holes in the fuselage and certainly none in Hammarskjöld's forehead. Egge's moronic claims to this were pure hearsay and a desperate cry for attention, for which he has been ridiculed. The report further showed that the crash of the Albertina (which was Swedish, not CIA), was without question result of pilot error. The pilots, however experienced, most likely made 1 of 2 errors: they either confused Ndola with Ndolo when conducting their flight plan, thereby flying in at the wrong altitude, or they mistook the analog altitude meters, which is easy to do. The plane crashed at just under 4 500 feet. There is a good chance that the pilots thought they were at 5 400 feet. This is not a beginner's mistake. It's the same error that one makes when looking at a watch thinking that it is 6:28 when it fact is 5:32 (confusing the hands). Last but not least, when a plane carrying the Secretary General of the UN, the most important man in Africa at the time, is about to land and the plane's lights are in sight, is it not odd that the airport is shut down and everybody sent home? This fact, while brought up repeatedly by the investigator, has conveniently never been reported by the Swedish or international media. To sum up: it was more convenient for the UN to have Hammarskjöld portrayed as a saint and instigate rumors about an assassination than to have the world know that he was to apologize for a military coup where 155 civilians, UN "peace-keepers" and Belgian soldiers were killed; and the two survivors of the crash may have lived if only a search party had been sent out when the plane went down (the claim by the airport chief that they thought the plane had "turned around" and gone back to the Congo is ridiculous seeing as they had radio contact). This, however, is not proof of an assassination, but proof of either incompetence / lethargy that they wish to conceal or that the dignitaries at the airport surmised that perhaps the plane was shot down by insubordinate soldiers with a surface-to-air missile and wanted to give them a chance to escape seeing as if that were so, Hammarskjöld would only have had himself to blame for not keeping UN-forces on a tighter leash. March 22, 2007

Thanks for your reply. Why do you think I wrote this in the discussion section ?? To get people to write intelligently on the matter of course ! Good stuff --noone can catch - "el magnifico" 18:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

However, calling these Belgian terrorists "soldiers" is an insult to soldiers around the world --noone can catch - "el magnifico" 18:54, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Personal life

Anybody who can verify this statement, feel free. Until then it is speculation and shouldn't be included in the main article.

It is widely speculated that Hammarskjöld may have been homosexual, although he was not open publicly about his sexual orientation and likely would not have identified himself as such Atrian 14:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Urquhardt's bio dismissed this rumor as well. He did state that Hammarskjold had a relationship earlier in his life, but that it did not end in marriage to the woman in question.-- Spacestevie 18:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Noble Lives examines how sexual orientation affected the careers of two historical figures generally accepted as gay, and a third whose sexual identity was in constant question during his lifetime. This unique book features comprehensive biographical accounts of Jazz Age author Glenway Wescott, Academy Award-winning composer Aaron Copland, and Nobel Peace Laureate Dag Hammarskjold, addressing the relationship between their homosexuality and their achievements in literature, the social sciences, music, diplomacy, and global politics. Noble Lives is the first English-language text to thoroughly--and objectively--explore the troubled sexuality of Hammarskjold, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations who died in a plane crash in 1961.

We know that Hammarskjold slept with Fernand Legros. Urquhardt write that Hammarskjold had a relationship with a woman when he was young, but that's all, and he didn't marry that woman. At the beninning of their lives, many homosexuals try to be "normal." He didn't marry because he was homosexual.

Legros has been described as a "playboy, millionaire, art dealer and CIA agent..." [108] A native Egyptian, with apartments in Switzerland, France and Spain, he was a homosexual whose lovers included the Secretary-General of the United Nations (Dag Hammerskjold) and members of French cabinet. [109] A naturalized American, Legros resorted to at least four passports: French, American, Canadian and British.

Actually, even the biographers that write that he "was not homosexual" dont state that he was heterosexual, but "asexual."

Contradiction

"Like his predecessor Trygve Lie, Hammarskjöld ended his term a lame duck, no longer on speaking terms with one of the UN's most important members, the Soviet Union. His bad relations with both the Soviets and the French led directly to financial crisis and the looming threat to bankruptcy, as both these governments refused to pay their peacekeeping dues. It would be up to his successor, U Thant, to rehabiliate the office of Secretary-General."

"Today Hammarskjöld is viewed perhaps as the greatest Secretary-General because of his ability to shape events in contrast to his successors. This view is one that is commonly shared by intellectuals around the world, such as the historian Paul Kennedy, who hailed Hammarskjöld in his book The Parliament of Man."

Maybe it's not directly contradictory (the judgment today as opposed to 40 years ago) but the 2nd claim should at least be elaborated. ugen64 20:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the "lame duck" thing. Is lame duck some sort of standard phrase in English? It seems POV to me. I found when it was added [3]. As I suspected, it was added by a user who's hardly made any other contributions. / Fred-Chess 23:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, "lame duck" is a phrase usually employed to describe a politician whose political effectiveness has been severely compromised or whose replacement has been elected. If Mr. Hammarskjöld had compromised his political effectiveness, then I suppose it would be accurate. I don't think of it as particularly pejorative or insulting, but a colorful and common phrase. It often crops up in discussing an American President's second term in office, if memory serves. See Lame_duck_(politics) for more details.--Foxhound 01:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Undue weight

The article as it stands gives too much coverage of the various conspiracy theories surrounding his death and not enough to the official account. I plan to address this. --John 17:26, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Even people against whom there are "conspiracies" can die by accident, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time etc - look at Spencer Perceval.

A better way of getting rid of" DH would have been to introduce a two-terms limit or similar: there would always be the possibility of "someone/something unexpected" being on the plane etc.