Dialogue (part 2): every word counts
As noted in the previous entry, dialogue was centrally important to Dag Hammarskjöld as secretary-general. He was recognized worldwide as a cause of fruitful dialogue and a sustainer of dialogue even under very difficult circumstances. But he too could slip up. Brian Urquhart tells that story below.
In March 1959, Hammarskjöld met with the leaders of the Soviet Union at Sochi, on the Black Sea.
The meeting obviously had ups and downs:
In an effort to change the mood of the conversation, Hammarskjöld proposed a toast to "honest sinners now on record." Both Khrushchev and Mikoyan were disconcerted and asked if he meant "repentant sinners," and, when Hammarskjöld replied in the negative, they refused to drink the toast….
The next day Khrushchev took his guest for a row in a very small boat on the Black Sea…. As Hammarskjöld remarked in his letter of thanks to Khrushchev, "Although the boat trip was a bit on the silent side, not because of a lack of will but because there was no place for an interpreter, I shall always remember it with great pleasure. I have carefully noted that next time you will leave it to me to row you. A third time we may perhaps arrive at rowing with four oars." (Urquhart, 468)
At the unveiling in 1960 of a portrait of his predecessor as secretary-general, Hammarskjöld said:
In the development of an experiment of international cooperation like this one, every day counts, every action, yes, even every word counts in establishing the record on which the final outcome will be judged. (Public Papers 5, 294)
From a press conference, May 1960:
I do believe…that…dialogue is badly needed, but dialogue requires quite a few things: objectivity, a willingness to listen, and considerable restraint. Those are all human qualities. No one of them is very remarkable, but they are all called for….
(Public Papers 4, 606)
In many matters, profound seriousness can only be expressed in words which are lighthearted, amusing, and detached; such a conversation as you may expect to hear from someone who, while deeply concerned for all things human, has nothing he is trying to gain or defend. (Markings, 121)
Hammarskjöld’s proposed attitude of deep concern for all things human without trying to gain or defend is not a negotiator’s attitude. However, it sets the stage for sound negotiation, in which by definition there are stakes to defend or objectives to be gained. It assures all concerned that the person who may eventually sit across the table from you is thoughtful, even-minded. It is deliberately undramatic yet searching. Hammarskjöld would often ask journalists to report however and whatever they wished, but without creating more drama than justified by facts.
Yet every word counts, whether spoken in a relaxed and detached manner or highly focused. Which takes us to that dinner party in Sochi long ago, where among other things Nikita Khrushchev was carping at Hammarskjöld for his part in the award of the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature to Boris Pasternak (Hammarskjöld was a member of the Swedish Academy, which confers the annual prize). Thinking along literary lines and perhaps especially of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, which had found its way into the conversation, Hammarskjöld raised his glass to make a toast of Zen-like subtlety: "To honest sinners now on record." Difficult! Of whom was he thinking? The present company? Surely not—but… A Dostoevsky or Pasternak character—maybe Dr. Zhivago himself? And what is an honest sinner? Who keeps the record? Was the toast rude? Or amusing and detached? Too many questions! The Soviet leaders kept their glasses on the table; there would be no such toast. Shortly after, Hammarskjöld backtracked and proposed a more innocuous toast, but even so his Russian hosts questioned him closely before raising their glasses.
Hammarskjöld’s thank-you note some weeks later shows his subtlety of mind again in working order. He converts the famous rowing expedition into an invitation to progressive cooperation.
It was one of Hammarskjöld’s great strengths that he thought about all elements of political processes. Touched by thought, seen and considered, they could be more effective. In this instance, who wouldn’t acknowledge that "dialogue requires…objectivity, a willingness to listen, and considerable restraint." It’s a truism. Anyone who thinks seriously about dialogue would say the same thing, or something much like. Yet stated just in this way, with the authority of experience behind the words, it is compelling, as if everything inessential is gone and we are looking at the center.
