Internet Chat with Sir Brian Urquhart (1996)

Sir Brian Urquhart: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Thurgood Marshall Academic High School Students Chat with Sir Brian Urquhart, former Under-Secretary-General to the United Nations

On March 19, 1996, students from Thurgood Marshall Academic High School in San Francisco participated in an online "chat" session with Sir Brian. To prepare for the session, participating students first read Sir Brian's speech to the New York Museum of Modern Art Board of Directors, posted on this site -- in fact, the Institute's impetus in posting that speech was to help the Thurgood Marshall students prepare their questions. Below is a transcript of the session.

Photos of Sir Brian's family and of historical figures are from Sir Brian's autobiography, A Life in Peace and War, published by W.W. Norton & Co.

Thomas: Please explain the impact education has had on your life and career.

SirBrian: Education is the most important single factor in anyone's career. My mother was a school teacher and so from my earliest years I was at school both at home and at school. In my case my extended education was six years in the British army during World War II.

Thomas: Wow!! Very fascinating!

Daniel: Interesting

Gregory: My name is Gregory. Who would you consider was your mentor at the United Nations?

SirBrian: Without any question my mentor was Ralph Bunche, who was an African American from Los Angeles. Bunche did more than anyone to build the United Nations, and he was the most respected person in it and throughout the world. Ralph Bunche won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an armistice between Israel and the Arabs in 1948. He invented what we now call peacekeeping.

Frank: My name is Frank Castillo. My question is: Who inspired you or influenced you in your childhood to become what you are now?

SirBrian: My mother and her sisters, who were all teachers and who believed that sooner or later we must build a world peace organization which actually worked. That is why I joined the United Nations.

Daniel: What do you think was your greatest contributions to the UN?

SirBrian: I think that my contribution to the UN was to carry on Ralph Bunche's work in conflict control, peacekeeping, and negotiation of international disputes.

ZePrince: The UN is known to help countries all over the world but could you explain to me what the UN is doing to help Liberia with its civil war?

SirBrian: The UN came very late to the Civil War in Liberia because the African regional organization led by Nigeria took over the peacekeeping function.

ZePrince: Is there anything being done now to help Liberia?

SirBrian: Yes. The UN now has a mission in Liberia which is trying to maintain a cease-fire and get the different parties to agree to a settlement. The UN mission is still working there in extremely difficult conditions.

ZePrince: good

SirBrian: There are also various humanitarian efforts going on to try to assist all of the people caught up in the civil war.

Claudia: cool.

Ali: Hello Sir Brian, My name is Ali Ganji. What role does the UN have with the US troops in Bosnia? What's the UN's long-range plan for achieving peace in Bosnia?

SirBrian: The UN handed over the military side of the Bosnia operation to NATO last December.

Ali: Why did they do that?

SirBrian: The UN Security Council voted to hand over the implementation of the Dayton agreement to NATO, which has a much more powerful military organization. The UN still has a large refugee operation and a police operation which is part of the Dayton agreement. The UN and European Community will be doing whatever they can to see that the war does not start up again, but it is an extremely difficult situation.

Ali: I heard that the Serbs were not going with the Dayton Agreement?

SirBrian: The Serbs have greatly resented parts of the Dayton Agreement, particularly the evacuation of the three suburbs of Sarajevo. There will other places where they will equally resent the agreement, but at the moment they cannot do much about it.

Ali: Which other countries have sent troops to Bosnia other than US?

SirBrian: All NATO countries, i.e., Canada and the West Europeans and some of the Nordic countries.

Ali: How much of Bosnia does the Muslim/Croatian Government have? And how much do the Serbs have?

SirBrian: I think the Bosnian Croatian Federation has 52% of the country and the Serbs the rest. The Serbs were always the primarily agricultural population and therefore originally owned much of the land.

Claudia: Very interesting

Ali: How about Sarajevo? Who mostly controls that?

SirBrian: Sarajevo is controlled by Muslim Bosnian government now allied with the Croats.

Daniel: I agree Claudia

Garrick: me too

ZePrince: same here

Edwin: Hello. My name is Edwin and my question is: There are wars being fought over religious beliefs. How does the UN deal with the issue of religion's influence on peoples' lives?

SirBrian: Edwin, the UN is a secular organization and does not deal with issues of religious belief which it regards as a matter of freedom of choice. However, if religious rivalry leads to war or great loss of life the UN as a peace and humanitarian organization is inevitably involved.

Edwin: So that's how the UN deals with it, they let people have their own choice?

Damien: As personal assistant to Trygve Lie, what were the jobs that you had to do?

SirBrian: I was the all purpose handy-man and helper. I had to make practical arrangements. Sometimes write speeches, arrange for UN staff to advise the secretary-general and sometimes make suggestions myself which were usually disregarded. When one is young one always thinks one knows better than anyone else. There is nothing wrong with this.

Claudia: Go back to previous question: How do religious groups affect decision-making in the UN?

SirBrian: Claudia, I don't think religious groups directly affect decision making but they have a very important influence on governments in many parts of the world. I don't think we have yet found out how to use the great influence and potential for good of all the religious groups in the world.

Edwin: Can you give an example?

SirBrian: Yes, obviously in the Middle East, Islam and Judaism have a great influence on the way governments behave. In the former Yugoslavia the Russian Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and again Islam have a very important influence on the main groups of the population.

Claudia: What was it like working with Dag Hammarskjöld?

SirBrian: Ralph Bunche once said that he had learned more from Hammarskjöld than from any other man. Hammarskjöld was a most inspiring and unique person. He was an intellectual and an activist with a very strong sense of mission. He was extremely difficult to work for sometimes because he could not understand that other people were not as exceptionally gifted as he was. He was the most remarkable of all the secretaries-general of the UN and someone who really inspired and led the peoples of the world. Of course, governments did not very much like this.

Thomas: How did Hammarskjöld personally inspire you?

SirBrian:Thomas, just to work with someone who not only has a dedicated sense of mission but it is also quite obviously far cleverer than anyone else is both an inspiration and a great challenge.

Claudia: What made you want to write a biography on Dag Hammarskjöld?

SirBrian: Claudia, Hammarskjöld was a very private man and I thought that nobody had really understood who he was and what he did.

Claudia: Were you a personal friend to Dag Hammarskjöld?

SirBrian: No, I really was not. I worked for him for eight years but like almost everyone else I remained at a distance because I realized that Hammarskjöld fiercely protected his privacy. The only person who was a close friend of Hammarskjöld was Ralph Bunche, whom Hammarskjöld greatly admired.

Claudia: Was it hard to write about him, then?

SirBrian: I had access to all of his private papers and so could get to know him from a point of view which no one else had. I also already knew him very well from the outside, from having worked for him 12 to 15 hours per day for eight years.

Genika: My name is Genika Beasly. I would like to ask you... Under what circumstances did you first meet Ralph Bunche?

SirBrian: Genika, I first met Ralph Bunche in London in 1945 just after I had left the army. At that time he was the chief advisor to the American delegation on the UN preparatory commission.

Genika: Can you tell us one thing that most impressed you about Ralph Bunche?

SirBrian: There were several things that impressed me about Bunche: His complete honesty and integrity, his complete lack of pretension, his love of ordinary people, and his extremely funny jokes about powerful people. And his extraordinary intellectual capacity. You could suggest all sorts of clever ideas to Bunche who would very kindly examine them and tell you which would work and which would not. He was always right. He also had a capacity for work which I have never seen in anyone else. He would work right through the night and into the next day if he thought he had not done as good a job as he should.

Genika: What do you mean "love of ordinary people?"

SirBrian: He was an extremely kind man. And he never became self important or inconsiderate. Bunche thought that the people who really needed help in the world were those who had no influence or who were discriminated against or who were weak. He was much more interested in them than in hobnobbing with the rich and famous.

Genika: Why did Ralph get the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for all of the things you had mentioned about him?

SirBrian: Genika, Bunche got the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of the first Arab-Israeli War in 1949. This was something which no one else had been able to do. Any more questions?

Claudia: yes

Ali: Yes there are questions

Daniel: Yes, there is one more question

Garrick: Hi. My name is Garrick. I was just wondering how you felt about meeting heads of state from all over the world?

SirBrian: Garrick, my experience of heads of state is that some remain sensible human beings and others are overwhelmed by all the ceremony and public relations. I think it is extremely important that heads of state and their ministers meet often in the UN and elsewhere to discuss the vast problems which are going to determine what sort of lives people lead in the next century.

SirBrian: If that is the last question, I would like to thank you for a most interesting conversation and to congratulate on the really excellent questions which have made it possible.

Genika: A last personal question. Why are you called "Sir" Brian Urquhart? How did you get this title?

SirBrian: Genika, when I left the United Nations ten years ago the British government made me a knight for services to the United Nations. It really doesn't make any real difference.

Genika: Do you have any questions for any of us?

SirBrian: Yes, Genika, I would like to know if this conversation was useful and whether it helped you all to think about international affairs and the UN.

Genika: On behalf of our students and staff, we thank you for chatting with us "on line" and some of us may meet you tomorrow at your talk at our school on "An International Community; Fact or Fiction." And YES ... we did learn a lot from you and we hope to do it again!

SirBrian: Me too!

Genika: A few of the students here at the chat were part of the Academic Decathlon, and we had studied the United Nations vigorously.

SirBrian: This is my first experience on the Internet and I had a wonderful time! Good luck to you all!

Genika: We had a lot of fun learning about the UN.

Edwin: Thanks -- I'll probably see you tomorrow

Ali: I hope you enjoyed this chat, Sir Brian.

Genika: We hope to meet with you later tomorrow evening!! Thank you very much once again!!!

Claudia: Hope to see you soon.

For more information on Sir Brian Urquhart, see the "Changing United Nations" research gallery.