UN Secretary-General
When Trygve Lie resigned from his post as UN Secretary-General in 1953, the United Nations Security Council recommended Hammarskjöld for the post. It came as a surprise to him. Seen as a competent technocrat without political views, he was selected on 31 March by a majority of 10 out of eleven Security Council members. The UN General Assembly elected him in the 7–10 April session by 57 votes out of 60. In 1957, he was re-elected.
Hammarskjöld began his term by establishing his own secretariat of 4,000 administrators and setting up regulations that defined their responsibilities. He was also actively engaged in smaller projects relating to the UN working environment. For example, he planned and supervised in every detail the creation of a "meditation room" in the UN headquarters. This is a place dedicated to silence where people can withdraw into themselves, regardless of their faith, creed, or religion.
During his term, Hammarskjöld tried to smooth relations between Israel and the Arab states. Other highlights include a 1955 visit to China to negotiate release of 15 captured US pilots who had served in the Korean War, the 1956 establishment of the United Nations Emergency Force, and his intervention in the 1956 Suez Crisis. He is given credit by some historians for allowing participation of the Holy See within the United Nations that year.
In 1960, the former Belgian Congo and then newly independent Congo asked for UN aid in defusing the Congo Crisis. Hammarskjöld made four trips to the Congo. His efforts towards the decolonisation of Africa were considered insufficient by the Soviet Union; in September 1960, the Soviet government denounced his decision to send a UN emergency force to keep the peace. They demanded his resignation and the replacement of the office of Secretary-General by a three-man directorate with a built-in veto, the "troika". The objective was to, citing the memoirs of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, “equally represent interests of three groups of countries: capitalist, socialist and recently independent.” Hammarskjöld denied Patrice Lumumba's request to help force the Katanga Province to rejoin the Congo despite their being good friends, since Hammarskjöld saw the UN as a neutral force meant to avoid human rights violations in conflict areas and looked to diplomacy as a solution rather than military action. Lumumba then turned to the United States, but on landing in the US he was ignored and not received formally by President Eisenhower, who believed him to be a threat to US interests in the Congo region. This resulted in a desperate, fearful and worried Lumumba, now branded as a communist, to turn to the Soviets for help, as the best way available to him to safeguard the future of his Country .
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