By Thant Myint-U
This LinkedIn piece may not be the bombshell it is for the bit about how the Nobel establishment pulled the carpet from under then UN Sec-Gen – U Thant’s feet on the Nobel Peace prize for 1965 but for other such stories the author’s impending book may contain. Interestingly, a grandson of the ex-S-G and a Cambridge trained Historian is someone on top of the ‘hierarchy of credibility’ as to put the authenticity of the Nobel establishment’s 1965 circumlocution beyond question.
In October 1965 everyone on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee voted to award that year’s prize to then U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, for defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, negotiating the ceasefire ending the 1965 India-Pakistan war, his other mediation efforts, and for his ongoing search for a peaceful settlement of the war in Vietnam.
Echoes of an expected war
Everyone except the chairman – Norwegian politician Gunnar Jahn – who effectively vetoed giving the prize to U Thant (even though the committee was meant to work by majority vote).
The Norwegian government had actually informed the Secretary-General that he would be receiving the 1965 Nobel Peace Prize (the full story’s in my upcoming book), only to tell him the decision had been reversed a few days later.
Jahn never explained why he changed his mind at the last minute. He would only say that U Thant was simply doing ‘his job’.
UN Under Secretary-General Ralph Bunche, himself a Nobel Laurate (for his work negotiating the 1949 Arab-Israeli Armistice Agreements) called Gunnar Jahn’s stance a “gross injustice to U Thant”.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, 2025
October 1965 was exactly the same time the Secretary-General’s opposition to Washington’s war in Vietnam (following a failed attempt to broker secret talks between Hanoi and the White House) was becoming more public and gaining traction both in the US and internationally, much to the annoyance of Lyndon Johnson, then up for reelection. A Nobel Peace Prize would have only boosted U Thant’s increasingly strident calls for an immediate ending to the bombing of North Vietnam.
In 1966 and 1967 the committee remained deadlocked with Jahn continuing to refuse U Thant’s selection; as a result, in both years no one won the Nobel Peace Prize.
What pressure Washington was able to bring to bear on the Nobel committee is not known.
