Peacemaker U Thant and the forgotten quest for a just world

The career of former UN Secretary-General U Thant represents both the potential for heroic diplomacy and its heartbreaking limitations, according to this intricate biography. Thant Myint-U (The Hidden History of Burma), a historian and Thant's grandson, recaps Thant's stint helming the UN and trying to resolve global crises from 1961 to 1971. His successes included the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when he shepherded America, the Soviet Union, and Cuba toward a stand-down, an effort that involved him restating American and Soviet demands as UN initiatives so neither side felt they were losing face. Thant also weathered frustrating failures, however; for years he tried, and failed, to get the U.S. to stop bombing North Vietnam in exchange for de-escalation and peace talks. Thant was also blamed for provoking the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors by removing UN peacekeepers from the Sinai at Egypt's behest--an account the author seeks to debunk by showing that most peacekeepers remained in place. Thant Myint-U's colorful narrative is a classic fly-on-the-wall crisis drama of the "in the Kremlin, Khrushchev raged" variety, and his warmhearted portrait of Thant paints him as a straightforward, reassuring presence, possessed of endearing quirks--he was obsessed with UFOs--but unflappable in his equanimity. It makes for an insightful and gripping appreciation of the vital, patient work of international relations. (Sept.)

Comprehensive biography of the long-serving United Nations secretary general. As Burmese historian Thant observes, U Thant (the "U" is an honorific, something like "Mr.") was, among many other things, "a central figure in averting nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis." Even so, Thant adds, U Thant seldom figures in standard histories of that episode and is underrepresented in the literature of the Cold War, one of the little-mentioned "non-white peacemakers on the world stage." When U Thant arrived in New York in 1957, on that same excluding non-white front, he had difficulty finding a place to live, landlords having been reluctant to rent to Asians. Thant adds, "African diplomats were celebrated at society dinners, but many were denied basic rights beyond the UN's carpeted corridors," including not being served in restaurants in still-segregated America. When U Thant finally settled in as the recently independent Burma's representative to the U.N., he was determined to address world issues: nuclear war, colonialism, international conflicts. He was clear-eyed about the fate of small nations in the contest between the U.S. and the USSR, and, although an anti-communist, he believed that Vietnam was fated to become a communist nation and that the choice should be made by the Vietnamese. That brought him into sharp conflict with the administration of Lyndon Johnson: "Thant's standing in Washington had deteriorated sharply because of his opposition to the war in Vietnam." In the bigger picture, Thant writes, U Thant had come to lead the U.N. among a powerful body of postcolonial leaders--Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno, Kwame Nkrumah--most of whom were dead by the time he left office, leaving him somewhat isolated. As Thant writes in this skillfully written biography, U Thant deserves credit for many things apart from his role in averting the Cuban Missile Crisis--including his deliberately "discreet" diplomacy in securing permission for Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. A welcome addition to modern diplomatic and world history. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.