F.T. Liu, March 23, 1990
Date
2013-05-08
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Description
The interview was recorded at the Bronxville, New York, on March 23, 1990. The Interviewer was Sutterlin.
Before joining the United Nations in 1949 and working with Dr. Ralph Bunche in the Trusteeship Division, F. T. Liu worked for two years with the Chinese Embassy in Paris. In 1960, he moved with Dr. Bunche to the Office of Special Political Affairs, where he planned and organized peacekeeping operations. From 1963 to 1964, he served as senior political adviser to the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC). After that mission, he worked with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) and the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). He became secretary to the United Nations Good Offices Mission to Bahrain in 1970.
Conducted after his retirement from the United Nations, these interviews focus Mr. Liu's experiences serving on Peacekeeping Missions and the integral roles he played. In the first interview, conducted on 23 March 1990, he recalls when he became involved with ONUC. Mr. Liu reviews the entire mission, going into detail about its history, the difficulties that arose in the Congo's transition to independence, the main personalities involved and the relationships therein, and how the deaths of Patrice Lumumba and Secretary‑General Dag Hammarskjöld affected the dynamic. The second interview, conducted a few months later on 22 September 1990, centres around UNTSO and the Middle East Wars. In the same fashion, Mr. Liu discusses the history behind UNTSO and the two United Nations Emergency Forces (UNEF I and UNEF II) and the negotiations that helped to end the 1967 and 1973 Middle East Wars.
Keywords
The Congo Crisis, Initial UN contacts, Lumumba-Kasavubu rift, Attitudes of Western powers, Bunche-Hammarskjold link, Hammarskjold's use of article 99 of the charter, Withdrawal of Belgian forces, First and second Hammarskjold visits, Andrew Cordier as Acting Special Representative, UN protection of Lumumba, Westers suspicions of Dayal, Attitude of Kennedy Administration, Stanleyville regime, Hammarskjold's objectives in Katanga