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Sir Brian Urquhart (1919–2021)

Autor de Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey

7+ Obras 159 Miembros 1 Reseña 1 Preferidas

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Nombre canónico
Urquhart, Sir Brian
Otros nombres
Urquhart, Brian Edward (birth)
Fecha de nacimiento
1919-02-28
Fecha de fallecimiento
2021-01-02
Género
male
Nacionalidad
UK
Lugar de nacimiento
Bridport, Dorset, England, UK
Lugar de fallecimiento
Tyringham, Massachusetts, USA (at home)
Lugares de residencia
New York, New York, USA
Educación
Westminster School
University of Oxford (Christ Church College)
Ocupaciones
intelligence officer
international civil servant
autobiographer
peacekeeping expert
conflict resolution expert
bopgrapher
Organizaciones
British Army (Dorset Regiment|officer|Airborne Division|intelligence officer|T-Force|WWII)
United Nations (founding staff member|Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs)
Premios y honores
Sir Brian Urquhart Award (annual award for Distinguished Service to the United Nations named after him)
Brian Urquhart Center for Peace Operations (International Peace Institute's New York centre named after him)
Order of St. Michael and St. George (Knight Commander, 1986)
Order of the British Empire
Knighthood, 1986
Distinguished Peacekeeper Award, International Peace Academy (mostrar todos 7)
Four Freedoms Award
Biografía breve
Brian Urquhart was born in Bridport, Dorset, a son of Murray Urquhart, an artist, and his wife Bertha Rendall, a teacher. His father abandoned the family when Brian was six years old. After a time as the only boy at Badminton School for Girls, where his mother taught, he won a scholarship to Westminster School and then to Oxford University, before leaving to join the army on the outbreak of World War II. He was commissioned as an officer in the Dorset Regiment and later transferred to the Airborne Division as an Intelligence Officer. He was severely injured when his parachute failed to open in a training drop in 1942, leaving him with broken bones, compacted vertebrae, and internal injuries; he spent months in the hospital recovering. After his recovery, he served in North Africa and the Mediterranean, before returning to England to participate in the planning of airborne operations for the D-Day invasion of Europe in June 1944. In September 1944, at age 26, as 1st Airborne Corps Intelligence Officer, he assisted with the planning for Operation Market Garden, an ambitious plan to seize the Dutch bridges over the Rhine to spearhead the Allied advance into Germany. He became convinced from aerial reconnaissance photos and information from the Dutch Resistance that the plan was critically flawed, and attempted to persuade his superiors to modify or abort the operation. The episode was described by Cornelius Ryan in his 1974 book, A Bridge Too Far. (In the film version, Urquhart's character was renamed "Major Fuller" to avoid confusion with another officer of the same surname.) The subsequent failure and heavy casualties of Operation Market Garden vindicated his judgment, but he became deeply depressed and requested a transfer out of the Airborne Forces. He was posted to T-Force, a unit that searched for German scientists involved in nuclear research. He was one of the first Allied troops to liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945. His experience there partly spurred him to become involved in peacemaking at the United Nations. He became a top aide to Trygve Lie, the first Secretary-General of the United Nations, and then to Dag Hammarskjöld, his sucessor, and Ralph Bunche. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, he played a critical role in creating the first major U.N. conflict resolution and peacekeeping force and chose the blue helmets. In the early 1960s, he served as the main U.N. representative in the Congo, where he was abducted, brutally beaten, and threatened with death by disaffected Katangese troops. He survived to be appointed U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs in 1974, and continued to deal first-hand with the U.N.’s diplomatic efforts and peacekeeping operations to end conflict in areas such as Cyprus, the Middle East, Angola, and Namibia. He retired in 1986 and was knighted. Sir Brian published his autobiography, A Life in Peace and War, in 1987. Other works included Decolonization and World Peace (1989), based on lectures at the University of Texas, Austin, and biographies of Hammarskjöld and Bunche. He died at age 101 in 2021.

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Edward Mortimer has chosen to discuss Brian Urquhart’s A Life in Peace and War on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject – The UN, saying that: 



“…The autobiography of Brian Urquhart, whose life for the first 40 years of the United Nations was more or less synonymous with that of the organization. He joined it before it really existed, in 1945, as a very young British soldier. He was there right from the beginning, and was particularly involved in the creation and running of UN peacekeeping…”


The full interview is available here: http://five-books.com/interviews/edward-mortimer
… (más)
 
Denunciada
FiveBooks | Mar 16, 2010 |

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7
También por
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Miembros
159
Popularidad
#132,375
Valoración
½ 4.5
Reseñas
1
ISBNs
18
Idiomas
1
Favorito
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