World peace was the dream of Dag H.

Senior citizens around the world remember the contributions made by the late Dag Hammarskjöld as Secretary-General of the United Nations.

He perished more than 57 years ago (Sept. 18, 1961) in a mysterious airplane crash in Central Africa…while trying to attain a peaceful resolution to the Congo crisis there.

It’s vitally important to introduce his legacy to more recent – and future – generations.

In a brief autobiography written for a radio program in 1953, Hammarskjöld spoke of the influence of his Swedish parents: “From generations of soldiers and government officials on my father’s side, I inherited a belief that no life was more satisfactory than one of selfless service to your country – or humanity. This service required a sacrifice of all personal interests, but likewise the courage to stand up unflinchingly for your convictions.”

“From scholars and clergymen on my mother’s side, I inherited a belief that, in the very radical sense of the Gospels, all men were equals as children of God, and should be met and treated by us as our masters in God.”

As a young man, Hammarskjöld was a scholastic all-star, earning a doctorate in economics as well as a law degree at Uppsala University in Sweden, an esteemed institution of higher learning that was founded in 1477. It is here that he also studied the humanities, with emphasis on linguistics, literature, theology, history, art and music. He was fluent in four languages.

In athletics, he was described as “competent in gymnastics, a strong skier and a mountaineer.” In short, Hammarskjöld qualified as a “Renaissance man,” a person with “many talents and areas of knowledge.”

Hammarskjöld was selected as the U.N. Secretary-General in April 1953, succeeding the organization’s first Secretary-General Trygve Lie of Norway, who served six years and had resigned in November 1952.

Lester B. Pearson of Canada received a sufficient number of votes to win the seat, but he was vetoed by the Soviet Union. (A well-respected Canadian diplomat, Pearson nearly became the first Secretary-General in 1946, but he was vetoed by the Soviet Union then, too.)

Unexpectedly, Soviet ambassador Valerian Zorin declared that he would be voting for Hammarskjöld on the next ballot. The announcement set off a flurry of diplomatic activity. Hammarskjöld represented Sweden at the United Nations, but not much was known about him or his qualifications.

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the U.S. ambassador, was quite satisfied, however, and said Hammarskjöld “may be as good as we can get.”

The Soviets had hoped to seat a Secretary-General who would focus on administrative issues and refrain from participating in political discussion. Hammarskjöld was deemed “harmless” by the Soviets. Hammarskjöld’s reputation at the time was, in the words of biographer Emery Kelèn, “that of a brilliant economist, an unobtrusive technician and an aristo-bureaucrat.”

Regarding the latter compound modifier, it is true that Hammarskjöld grew up in a castle in Sweden, and his family was part of Sweden’s societal upper crust. Assuming, however, that Hammarskjöld would be “more concerned with procedure or policy than with people’s needs” proved to be a vast misjudgment of the man’s character. Hooray and dagnabbit, Dag was no puppet!

The Christian side of Hammarskjöld was revealed by famed journalist Pauline Frederick. She said Hammarskjöld often referred to the United Nations headquarters building in New York City as “just a house” – noting that “this house must have one room dedicated to silence.”

He was instrumental in creating the “Meditation Room.” Hammarskjöld personally planned and supervised its every detail. The room is 30 feet long, 18 feet wide at the entrance and 9 feet wide at the other end, giving it a wedge-shaped appearance.

Frederick quoted Hammarskjöld as saying, “We want a stillness and a setting in which no noise would impinge on our imagination.”

There are no chairs, only benches. In the center of the room is a 6.5-ton rectangular block of iron ore, polished on the top and illuminated from above by a single spotlight. Hammarskjöld saw it as “a meeting of the light, of the sky and the earth...it is the altar to the God of all….”

The room was completed in 1957 and is open to the public. Hammarskjöld wrote a message that continues to be distributed to the visitors:

“We all have within us a center of stillness surrounded by silence. People of many faiths will meet here, and for that reason there are simple things that speak to us all with the same language. There is an ancient saying that the sense of a vessel is not in its shell but in the void. So it is with this room. It is for those who come here to fill the void with what they find in their center of stillness.”

Many voices have suggested that the world needs more leaders like Dag Hammarskjöld. Leaders of this magnitude, unfortunately, are few and far between. We celebrate that he came along when he did.