A reporter from the internal newsletter of the United Nations Secretariat rather diffidently approached Dag Hammarskjöld in January, 1958, to interview him. It was a first. In all the years Hammarskjöld had served as secretary-general, no in-house journalist had taken the lift to the 38th floor to record a conversation. As reported in Secretariat News for February 14th of that year, the exchange was wide-ranging and engaging. Just at the end, a question so compelled Hammarskjöld’s interest that he returned to it a few days later in a private letter to a trusted Swedish friend. You’ll find below both the interview and Hammarskjöld’s later comment. No texts more compactly and richly convey his practice of diplomacy.
