U Thant: The Diplomat Who Defined the 1960s

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thant Myint-U talks about his new book Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s. It tells the story of his grandfather U Thant, the Burmese schoolteacher turned UN Secretary-General who guided the United Nations through some of the most dangerous crises of the 1960s, yet is now woefully forgotten or badly misremembered.

Thant explains:

U Thant’s forgotten role as UN Secretary-General during the great crises of the 1960s

His sociability, humour, directness, and moral imagination

How Buddhism shaped U Thant’s approach to crisis

How newly independent post-colonial states tried to remake the world order

Burma/Myanmar after empire: colonial destruction, weak institutions, and postcolonial state-building

The Non-Aligned Movement: Afro-Asian internationalism beyond the US–Soviet Cold War

Congo, Katanga and sovereignty: U Thant’s defence of postcolonial borders against neo-imperial fragmentation

The Cuban Missile Crisis: U Thant’s overlooked role in helping Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro de-escalate

Vietnam and the lost peace channel: U Thant’s ignored 1964 attempt to open talks with Ho Chi Minh

The Six-Day War and the UN-Israel rupture: UNEF, Nasser, Israel, and the myth that the UN abandoned Israel

U Thant’s late one-world vision, the decline of Bandung idealism, and the lost promise of postcolonial internationalism

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices