kurt waldheim led United Nations with ‘prudence, perseverance and precision’

during deeply challenging time, says Secretary-General at memorial service

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the General Assembly Memorial Service for Kurt Waldheim in New York, 15 June:  

I join the General Assembly in solemn remembrance of the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations.

When Kurt Waldheim took office on 1 January 1972, the world looked very different than it does today.

The Cold War was still in its icy stages.  The People's Republic of China had just taken its seat in this Assembly.  The Middle East was to undergo upheavals that reverberate to this day.   Cyprus was to become a divided island, and more than 40 years on, its division has yet to heal.  The Vietnam War had yet to reach its end.

Kurt Waldheim’s 10 years at the helm covered a deeply challenging time in the world and in the life of our Organization.  He needed to deploy every diplomatic and political skill acquired over a long career, including as Austria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs.  He led the Organization with prudence, perseverance, and precision.

Kurt Waldheim’s initiatives as Secretary-General ranged from pursuing good offices in Cyprus, to visiting Tehran to seek a release of hostages at the United States embassy there, to appointing an envoy for the crisis ravaging Afghanistan and a mediator for the protracted Iran-Iraq war.

When he left office in 1981, the world had undergone profound changes which could hardly have been imagined 10 years before.

Almost two decades later, when I served as my country’s Ambassador to Vienna, I came to know Kurt Waldheim personally, after his retirement from his public life.  He was a man who had lived history.  The world had changed yet more, in even more unimaginable ways.

As I express my condolences today to Mr. Waldheim’s family, and to the people and Government of Austria, I pay tribute to him and to all my predecessors who have served in what has been called the most impossible job on the earth.

Thank you very much.

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For information media • not an official record