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WERE MR. HAMMARSKJÖLD HERE, I’m certain that he would acknowledge where we are—in a house built, so to speak, by Alfred Nobel, and dedicated to his memory and values. The links between Dag Hammarskjöld and Alfred Nobel are richer than one might think—links historical and spiritual, as if they were both precipitated, though in different generations, out of the same vessel by similar chemistry. It might not have occurred to me to bring this relation to your attention and to explore with you its significance, were there not a surprising tie between them.
March 19: Alan Cowell, a senior NY Times correspondent, takes a clear-eyed look at issues surrounding the new investigation.
Read the story.
In mid March 2015, Secretary-General Ban named the three-person panel charged with investigating existing evidence and if possible collecting new evidence concerning the air crash that took the lives of Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 members of his party in central Africa, September 1961. Comprehensive articles have appeared worldwide, notably in the
New York Times and in the online
Consortium News.
This is the first publication of a letter written in January 2015 by Lennart Frank, a Swedish soldier/peacekeeper who was on duty in the Congo during Hammarskjöld’s fatal journey to Ndola. His vivid recollections shed a new light on the possibility of an attack from the air on the Secretary-General’s airplane.
A December 29 resolution in the General Assembly has reopened the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dag Hammarskjöld and all members of his party in an air crash in central Africa. The Secretary-General will appoint an independent panel of experts to examine existing evidence and, if possible, obtain new evidence. The Assembly calls on all member states to identify and reveal relevant information they may possess.
Some thoughts and words are altogether haunting—even a year after publication. Dr. Rowan Williams, retired not long ago from his post as Archbishop of Canterbury, now Master of Magdalene College (Cambridge), contributed some time ago to a
New York Times inquiry called “
Our Compass.”
The long path forward: The UN General Assembly will review new evidence bearing on the cause of the air crash that took Dag Hammarskjöld's life. The 1962 inquiry, deliberately suspended but not closed, will resume.
Anders Widmark, the Swedish pianist, jazz musician, and composer widely known in Scandinavia, has accomplished something of a miracle by daring to set lines from Dag Hammarskjöld’s
Markings in a jazz-pop idiom. Who would have thought, but it works brilliantly well, gives unexpected voice to the passion quietly present in many pages of
Markings.
