Sir Brian Urquhart and Nicholas Kristof Honored by UN Journalists

The Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists honored Sir Brian Urquhart, author, scholar and a former UN undersecretary-general, and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof at its annual luncheon at the U.N. on November 1. Mr. Urquhart received the Fund’s Hammarskjöld Inspiration Award and Nicholas D. Kristof was awarded the Chair Citation.

Born in Dorset, England, Mr. Urquhart served in the British army and military intelligence during World War II. Since then his career has been described as a history of the UN itself. He served as personal assistant to Trygve Lie, the first U.N. secretary-general, before working under Nobel Laureate Ralph Bunche. Considered the father of U.N. peacekeeping, he helped establish and shape the first peacekeeping forces, including those in Congo, Cyprus, Kashmir, Lebanon, and the Middle East. He served as undersecretary-general for special political affairs 1971-1985, after which he continued writing and speaking. He is the author of seven books, including Hammarskjöld, “A Life in Peace and War,” and his biography, A Life in Peace and War; has lectured at numerous universities, and is published in The New York Review of Books, among other publications.

Nicholas D. Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, writes columns that appear twice a week in the New York Times, on humanitarian issues and human rights abuses around the world, describing the living conditions of oppressed and deprived people. Mr. Kristof has lived on four continents. He has reported on six and traveled to more than 140 countries, including every Chinese province and every main Japanese island. In 1990 Mr. Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, then also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China's Tiananmen Square democracy movement. Mr. Kristof won a second Pulitzer in 2006, for commentary for his columns on the killings in Darfur and what the judges called giving “voice to the voiceless.”

The luncheon guests were welcomed by Evelyn Leopold, Fund chair, and heard from Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General. The 2010 Dag Hammarskjöld journalism fellows from Peru, Togo, Nepal and South Africa also spoke about their experiences.