Trygve Lie

Norwegian diplomat

• Born: July 16, 1896
• Birthplace: Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway
• Died: December 30, 1968
• Place of death: Geilo, Norway

The first official secretary-general of the United Nations, Lie led the organization through the perilous first years of the Cold War.

Early Life

Trygve Lie (TROYG-vah lee) was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway, the son of Martin and Hulda Arnesen Lie. In addition to operating a boardinghouse in Kristiania, Lie’s father supported the family by carpentry, even traveling across the sea for work in the United States. The younger Lie married Hj rdis J rgensen in 1921 and together they raised a family of three daughters, Sissel, Guri, and Mette. Lie joined the Norwegian Labor Party Youth Organization in 1911, and after graduation from the University of Oslo Law School in 1919, he was named assistant to the labor secretary and then national executive secretary of the Labor Party.

Life’s Work

After several years as a legal consultant in the national labor union, Lie was elected to the National Parliament and appointed minister of justice in the new Labor Party government of Johan Nygaardsvold. He served there from 1935 to 1939, and subsequently held posts as the minister of trade and industries (1939) and the minister of supply and shipping during the early years of World War II.

With the Nazi invasion of Norway in April, 1940, Lie saved the Norwegian fleet by acting quickly in ordering all ship captains to shelter their vessels in the ports of the Allies. Appointed in 1941, he served as the foreign minister for the exiled Norwegian government and as foreign minister in the Labor Party government following the war.

In April, 1945, Lie was the leader of the Norwegian delegation at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, chairing the commission that drafted the provisions for the U.N. Security Council. The following year he led the Norwegian representatives at the U.N. General Assembly in London. On February 1, 1946, the eleven-member Security Council selected Lie as the first secretary-general of the United Nations, a selection readily approved by the General Assembly. The U.S. contingent, however, did not support Lie, preferring instead Lester B. Pearson , the Canadian ambassador to the United States.

Relations between the United States and Soviet Union were strained, and the Soviet Union refused to support Pearson, who they viewed as a close ally of the United States. Lie, however, who came from a small, neutral country, emerged as an acceptable compromise candidate. In addition, Lie had gained fame as a war hero when he saved the Norwegian fleet from the Nazis by directing its relocation to England in 1940.

Lie served the global community during the early years of the Cold War, a time of strained relations and suspicions between the superpowers and the heightened paranoia of McCarthyism in the United States. His tenure was marked also by heated arguments between the United States and the Soviet Union. He drew criticism from the Soviets, who argued that he was a puppet of the Americans, but also drew criticism from the United States as a suspected Communist sympathizer. He put pressure on the Soviet Union to remove its forces from Iran, an unpopular move with the United States and Great Britain; worked to end the fighting in Kashmir; and encouraged the members of the United Nations to recognize the People’s Republic of China, a position that drew the wrath of the U.S. government.

Given the excesses of the Francisco Franco government, he objected to Spain’s entry into the United Nations. He was a firm supporter of democracy and gave a nod to nationhood for both Indonesia and Israel. His efforts to aid negotiations during the Berlin Blockade and Korean War were deemed failures, for which he was duly criticized in the international press. His opposition to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in 1950 was an unpopular stance with the Soviet Union, and it was the Soviet Union that ultimately ended his tenure as secretary-general.

The proceedings to elect the next secretary-general exemplified Cold War politics in microcosm, as the United States firmly supported Lie while the Soviet Union worked for his ouster. The U.N. Charter specified that a candidate for secretary-general must receive approval from the General Assembly. Even though the assembly voted 46-5 (8 abstentions) to extend Lie’s tenure, the Soviet Union balked. The Soviets then started a boycott and refused to cooperate with Lie, thus setting in motion the twilight of Lie’s political career at the United Nations. In light of these developments, Lie resigned his position as secretary-general on November 10, 1952. He was succeeded by Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld .

Following his U.N. service, Lie served Norway as minister of the interior, minister of trade, governor of Oslo and Akershus, and chair of the energy board. He was named mediator for a border dispute between Italy and Ethiopia over the Italian colony of Somalia in the late 1950’s.

A heart attack while in the Norwegian mountain settlement of Geilo claimed this pioneering diplomat in 1968 at the age of seventy-two.

Significance

As secretary-general, Lie was active in global politics. He encouraged debate and issued regular statements on timely political and substantive issues. Controversial at times, he grappled with the proper balance of power and procedure for his prominent position, believing firmly that the position should develop slowly.

Remembered as a tough, pragmatic politician with occasional displays of bad temperament, Lie left a lasting mark on the position of secretary-general as well as on the organizational procedures of the world’s preeminent political arena. His crowning achievement in global diplomacy was his work in the development of a program for lasting peace, specifically, a ten-point plan circulated among member nations and eventually taken up in the General Assembly. Lie envisioned a stronger United Nations than what it ultimately became, however, and he never achieved the new world order he sought so passionately.

The Lie era at the United Nations could well be characterized as a time of Cold War tension and acrimony and unrelenting uneasiness throughout the world. The era also fostered a feeling held broadly in the United States that the United Nations was strongest when the United States was at the helm of the international body.

Lie was also a key figure in developing and executing the plan for the construction of U.N. headquarters in were chosen. He brought his idea for the new facility to New York mayor William O’Dwyer and city planner Robert Moses, and was instrumental in getting a gift of land at Turtle Bay in Manhattan from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The United Nations was relocated to the New York site in 1952, a complex comprising the General Assembly Hall, Secretariat Building, and the Conference Building for the Security Council.

The Trygve Lie Gallery, an art gallery in New York, and a statue at Furuset Senter on the east edge of Oslo honor his contributions, and though he has retained respect for his service to the world, his image as a leader of the world’s great political body has been eclipsed by his successor, Hammarskjöld. From obscure roots in Norwegian politics, he was an unlikely candidate for the office of secretary-general, but his hard work and political agility distinguished him as a solid leader and a major architect of the United Nations as an organization. He is one of a handful of politicians from very small countries who has risen to international prominence. He embodied Norway’s contemporary national image, one that embraces idealism, pragmatism, and international cooperation.

Bibliography

Barrows, James. Trygve Lie and the Cold War: The U.N. Secretary-General Pursues Peace, 1946-1953. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1989. An analysis of Lie’s leadership skills, and his weaknesses, as he led the United Nations during its earliest years.

Gaglione, Anthony. The United Nations Under Trygve Lie, 1945-1953. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2001. Summarizes the issues, personalities, and challenges faced by Lie in his leadership role at the United Nations.

Hamburger, Philip. Matters of State: A Political Excursion. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 2000. Contains an essay on the work and contributions of Lie, with a focus on his ten-point plan for lasting global peace.

Kille, Kent J. From Manager to Visionary: The Secretary-General of the United Nations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Examines how the leadership abilities of seven secretaries-general affected the United Nations’ efforts to address threats to world peace and security.

Lie, Trygve. In the Cause of Peace: Seven Years with the United Nations. New York: Macmillan, 1954. An autobiographical account of the first years of the United Nations, including discussion of the major issues faced by Lie during his tenure as secretary-general, including the Berlin Blockade, the Truman Doctrine, and the Palestinian question.

Meisler, Stanley. United Nations: The First Fifty Years. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995. A concise history of the United Nations, with a chapter on Lie and the difficulties he faced in attempting to evacuate Soviet forces from Iran.