H&H Lipsey Book Review_article 4/26/13 11:16 AM Page 112 Sir Brian Urquhart (one of Hammar - With Endnotes and Bibliography, this BOOK REVIEWS skjöld’s principal assistants in the United is a 752-page study of Hammarskjöld’s Nations Secretariat) had already written life that follows a man who was the what Lipsey himself describes as “the youngest son of a Swedish Prime best biography we shall ever have” of Minister and unexpectedly was thrust Hammarskjöld before Lipsey set to into what his predecessor described as the work. Lipsey, however, had unparalleled world’s most impossible job. As Secretary access to private correspondence and the General from 1953 until his plane best translators from Swedish to help crashed (or was shot down) in what was him to understand the subtleties of then Rhodesia in 1961, Hammarskjöld what Hammar skjöld described as his played a part, sometimes successful, “negotia tions with myself … and sometimes not, in salvaging peace and with God” in his private notebook, justice from violence and hatred, in posthumously published as MARKINGS. China, the Middle East, Suez, Tunisia, Even more important, I feel, is the fact and the Congo. Lipsey gives us front row that my friend Roger Lipsey has spent seats at all the great occasions when the his own lifetime of experience and world “let Dag do it” and not least in his search in trying to live an awakened life famous confrontation with the head of in today’s world. He is fascinated by the USSR, Khrushchev, demanding the Hammarskjöld’s spiritual journey, which Secretary General’s resignation, which was formed by his selfless devotion to a the General Assembly, after listening to service not just to the idea of peace but Hammarskjöld, declined to give him. to “that something or someone” that Lipsey gives us a vividly intimate look at Hammarskjöld felt as the Source of all these dramatic events. all that is. Lipsey admires the lonely During the first four years of courage of a man who had almost no Hammar skjöld’s tenure, I was assisting companions on this journey but many the Canadian Foreign Minister (later others who were mainly interested in Prime Minister) “Mike” Pearson at the HAMMARSKJÖLD: A LIFE frustrating his attempts at practical United Nations. We often met with ROGER LIPSEY. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS, 2013. PP. 752. $35 compromises that would advance peace, Hammarskjöld, but I had to wait for Reviewed by James George if even in the most modest steps. Lipsey’s book to read some of the Hammarskjöld wrote in MARKINGS a private notes Hammarskjöld and his S ROGER LIPSEY’s magnificent life of the most month before his death, “In our era, the staff were exchanging during the night- remarkable United Nations Secretary General, road to holiness necessarily passes long debates of the Suez crisis in 1956, A Dag Hammarskjöld, reveals, it has taken fifty years to through the world of action” and Lipsey while Hammarsjkjold and Pearson were begin to understand the inner dimensions of this great diplomat recognizes Hammarskjöld as a man hastily inventing a UN Peacekeeping who, more than any other person, embodied the spirit of actually aware of living the frictions of Force in response. internationalism and gave voice to the world’s crying need for daily life as a spiritual discipline. Only a Of course I had little idea of peace in a world of warring nations. fellow-spirit could have the intuitive Hammarskjöld’s spiritual nature until Great men do not appear every day, and when they do it understanding that Lipsey brings to the MARKINGS was published after his tragic takes time to recognize their true greatness. It seems to me appreciation of Hammarskjöld’s death. What I did know at that time, that this is because their greatness lies in their unseen greatness. For Hammarskjöld was not and appreciated, was Hammarskjöld’s relationship to that which is the Source of all life and of all only, I would say, the greatest Secretary courage in insisting on creating within meaning in our ordinary world, whether or not we dare to call General but a spiritual exemplar for our the Secretariat building what he called a that source God. “global village” today. Quiet Room, which he felt was needed 112 | PARABOLA SUMMER 2013 | 113 H&H Lipsey Book Review_article 4/26/13 11:16 AM Page 112 Sir Brian Urquhart (one of Hammar - With Endnotes and Bibliography, this BOOK REVIEWS skjöld’s principal assistants in the United is a 752-page study of Hammarskjöld’s Nations Secretariat) had already written life that follows a man who was the what Lipsey himself describes as “the youngest son of a Swedish Prime best biography we shall ever have” of Minister and unexpectedly was thrust Hammarskjöld before Lipsey set to into what his predecessor described as the work. Lipsey, however, had unparalleled world’s most impossible job. As Secretary access to private correspondence and the General from 1953 until his plane best translators from Swedish to help crashed (or was shot down) in what was him to understand the subtleties of then Rhodesia in 1961, Hammarskjöld what Hammar skjöld described as his played a part, sometimes successful, “negotia tions with myself … and sometimes not, in salvaging peace and with God” in his private notebook, justice from violence and hatred, in posthumously published as MARKINGS. China, the Middle East, Suez, Tunisia, Even more important, I feel, is the fact and the Congo. Lipsey gives us front row that my friend Roger Lipsey has spent seats at all the great occasions when the his own lifetime of experience and world “let Dag do it” and not least in his search in trying to live an awakened life famous confrontation with the head of in today’s world. He is fascinated by the USSR, Khrushchev, demanding the Hammarskjöld’s spiritual journey, which Secretary General’s resignation, which was formed by his selfless devotion to a the General Assembly, after listening to service not just to the idea of peace but Hammarskjöld, declined to give him. to “that something or someone” that Lipsey gives us a vividly intimate look at Hammarskjöld felt as the Source of all these dramatic events. all that is. Lipsey admires the lonely During the first four years of courage of a man who had almost no Hammar skjöld’s tenure, I was assisting companions on this journey but many the Canadian Foreign Minister (later others who were mainly interested in Prime Minister) “Mike” Pearson at the HAMMARSKJÖLD: A LIFE frustrating his attempts at practical United Nations. We often met with ROGER LIPSEY. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS, 2013. PP. 752. $35 compromises that would advance peace, Hammarskjöld, but I had to wait for Reviewed by James George if even in the most modest steps. Lipsey’s book to read some of the Hammarskjöld wrote in MARKINGS a private notes Hammarskjöld and his S ROGER LIPSEY’s magnificent life of the most month before his death, “In our era, the staff were exchanging during the night- remarkable United Nations Secretary General, road to holiness necessarily passes long debates of the Suez crisis in 1956, A Dag Hammarskjöld, reveals, it has taken fifty years to through the world of action” and Lipsey while Hammarsjkjold and Pearson were begin to understand the inner dimensions of this great diplomat recognizes Hammarskjöld as a man hastily inventing a UN Peacekeeping who, more than any other person, embodied the spirit of actually aware of living the frictions of Force in response. internationalism and gave voice to the world’s crying need for daily life as a spiritual discipline. Only a Of course I had little idea of peace in a world of warring nations. fellow-spirit could have the intuitive Hammarskjöld’s spiritual nature until Great men do not appear every day, and when they do it understanding that Lipsey brings to the MARKINGS was published after his tragic takes time to recognize their true greatness. It seems to me appreciation of Hammarskjöld’s death. What I did know at that time, that this is because their greatness lies in their unseen greatness. For Hammarskjöld was not and appreciated, was Hammarskjöld’s relationship to that which is the Source of all life and of all only, I would say, the greatest Secretary courage in insisting on creating within meaning in our ordinary world, whether or not we dare to call General but a spiritual exemplar for our the Secretariat building what he called a that source God. “global village” today. Quiet Room, which he felt was needed 112 | PARABOLA SUMMER 2013 | 113 H&H Lipsey Book Review_article 4/26/13 11:16 AM Page 114 because “we all have within us a center With this faith, in prayer you descend into matter—he was a monastic. Also, with of stillness surrounded by silence.” This yourself to meet the Other. the help of Susan Williams’s latest was not a priority among his mostly very In the obedience and light of this union, findings, Lipsey says that the jury is still See that all stand, like myself, alone secular colleagues who would have out on whether Hammarskjöld’s last before God, found very different uses for the space. In that faith … everything has meaning.” flight crashed or was shot down, but it For readers of Parabola, I think it will now looks more likely that those, both be of less interest to compare Urquhart’s black and white, who wanted him dead, biography with Lipsey’s more nuanced OW DID Hammarskjöld succeeded, and that their cover-up is at account of Hammarskjöld’s outer life develop such deep experiential last unravelling.