Letter from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Nunan (Dublin)
(Confidential)

The British Foreign Office are well satisfied with the appointment of Mr. Dag Hammarskjöld² to be Secretary General of the United Nations.

2. No doubt, they would have preferred it if the choice had fallen on Mr. Lester Pearson and, I understand, Mr. Pearson himself was very anxious to have the post. Failing Mr. Pearson, however, a better choice than Mr. Hammarskjöld could hardly have been made from the British point of view. He is well known and much liked in British official circles where his ability, intelligence and integrity are recognised and appreciated. The fact that he speaks English so well is regarded as a point in his favour. Above all, however, it is felt that Mr. Hammarskjöld will conform more closely than did Mr. Trygve Lie³ to the British conception of what a Secretary General of the United Nations should be. Although the charter of the United Nations deliberately gives wider powers of initiative to the Secretary General than did the covenant of the League of Nations, the British conceive that the Secretary General should be primarily an international civil servant, subordinating his own views to those of member governments. Mr. Trygve Lie at times arrogated to himself a somewhat larger role and did not hesitate to express his personal views on contentious issues as if he himself were entitled to be regarded as a world statesman.
3. Mr. Hammarskjöld’s father⁴ was Prime Minister of Sweden for a period during the 1914-1918 war and – although the British Government of the day had stern tussles with him in connection with the blockade – he used his influence with the middle and lower classes to keep Sweden out of the war at a time when Court circles were exerting themselves to bring Sweden into the conflict on the side of the central Powers.
4. Knowing Dag Hammarskjöld fairly well personally, I certainly agree with those who consider him a good choice for the post. He is a man of high principle and independent outlook with qualities which will stand to him well in his new appointment – patience, prudence, administrative ability and a very active and resourceful mind. If there can be any doubts about his suitability for the post they arise, to my mind, on two grounds. Although he can be very firm on occasion – it was largely due to his refusal to lend himself to an Anglo-Belgian compromise arrangement that Monsieur Marjolin⁵ was made Secretary General of the OEEC – he is rather retiring and self-effacing and may lack, especially in American eyes, the type of personality a Secretary General of the United Nations is expected to have. Secondly, his constitution is far from robust. It seems to me a question whether his health will stand up to the physical strains which the Head of an organisation like the United Nations must be prepared to undergo.
5. My Canadian colleague⁶ remarked casually in conversation yesterday that, if the Security Council succeeded in agreeing on the choice of a Secretary General, it was not improbable that an agreement with regard to the admission of new members to the United Nations would follow. There is, of course, no direct connection between the two things but, with the atmosphere at the United Nations what it is now, an agreement about the admission of new members must be somewhat nearer than it was before.