A New Lecture Series

Dag Hammarskjold liked to be near universities, and the method of thought they inspired; and commitment to ideas of rationality and tolerance in international relation was the measure of his commitment to the United Nations. Radcliffe, and the Harvard-Radcliffe World Federalists, have shown the most acute recognition of this quality in the late Secretary-General, and the best possible commemoration of it, in their origination of a lecture series in his name.

Last night the first lecturer in the series, Mme. Rossel of Hammarskjold's own Sweden (the country from which his job usurped his political devotion, but never his cultural sympathy) spoke of the U.N.'s most personal and humanitarian works: the series started where it should, with individuals. But appropriate though this beginning is, the tough-minded Secretary-General would have encouraged a series that went on from here to lectures whose ideas might influence the expansion of the scope of international organization, and of respect for international law. The most tangible steps toward reform, development, and the relief of suffering, could never satisfy him so long as he felt the U.N. might help to mitigate the political forces that made reform impossible.