VOLUME XIII, No. 4 - History

A Fatal Case of Empathy

December 21, 2022

András Nagy

Hungary and the UN, 1956–1963
Excerpt II

The surface-level events and those under the surface amounted to two entirely separate stories: one written for public consumption, the other the result of raw, sometimes brutal pragmatism behind the scenes. That for some this was hard to bear is confirmed by the story of Povl Bang-Jensen; as this story ended in tragedy, it also serves to illustrate the gravity of these contradictions. ¹

The Danish diplomat was not willing to accept the pragmatism, verging on cynicism, that characterized the United Nations’ treatment of the Hungarian question, because he saw the grave contradictions from close at hand, and because he believed in the institution he served. As deputy secretary of the Special Committee investigating the Hungarian question, he played a key role in the history of that question at the UN, first by his courageous endeavours, then because of his conflicts with the UN and the struggle that ended with his death. ²

Bang-Jensen was an international employee of the UN Secretariat, and so his official loyalty was to the UN rather than to Denmark’s mission to the UN. His background and his character did not fit into the ‘traditional’ notion of foreign service, as his experiences during the Second World War had taught him that sometimes instructions had to be weighed up rather than implemented blindly, since morality trumped loyalty. Thus did the words of Heraclitus become true of him: ethos anthropos daimon. ³

From 1939, Bang-Jensen lived in the US, where, after a decade of warm relations with the American political elite, he was at home in both a personal and professional sense. ⁴ When he became a UN officer, he joined the ‘UN family’, helped by his faith in the UN’s role and his many illusions that made the UN seem a force for good.

That this trust placed in the UN’s treatment of the Hungarian question was misplaced was shown by the Soviet veto at the Security Council, but there was also a growing number of doubts about the procedure in general. These included the quiet acceptance of the Kádár government’s legitimacy, the unusual delay in the preparation of the Report, and the fact that the errors and mistakes in the text were left uncorrected, that no special General Assembly session was convened, that the preparation of further reports was obstructed, and that an oddly unresponsive special representative was nominated. The question of why the General Assembly resolutions had been sabotaged against the interests of the Hungarian people likewise remained unanswered.

Bang-Jensen was aware of all of this, as in his position of deputy secretary he participated in the finding and selection of witnesses, through which he was able to see through the logistics of the operations of the Special Committee, from the most mundane details (interpreters’ equipment, rental of rooms, per diems) to the broadest perspective: the evidence the witnesses gave, their security, and the importance of their testimonies. He later took part in the elaboration of the text of the Report, and in the process of editing, standardizing, and correcting it. And this was where the conflicts began.

The tensions arising in the course of the Special Committee’s work—particularly in Vienna—could at first be explained as a by-product of the work being conducted in difficult conditions, and the fact that Bang-Jensen’s character and mentality were at odds with those of his direct superior, William Jordan, who was the secretary of the committee. But it was the actual writing of the Report that pitted all this as a stark conflict between the basic convictions of the two men, and this was where Bang-Jensen’s ordeal really began. The Report was to present the history of the Hungarian Revolution, with the intention of influencing history. The task was an extraordinary one, the material vast, and the time short—all factors that increased tensions. What had not been entirely clear during the committee’s work now came to the surface during the composition of the Report: the committee provided a framework for how the Report was to be elaborated, but then came the details, where the devil lay. The final decision on the chapters written by members of the secretariat no longer rested with the rapporteur, and the documents produced had to be approved by the committee itself. This meant that it was not facts, but politics, that played the key role; for Bang-Jensen, however, nothing mattered more than presenting the facts, the truth, and an exact description of the situation, as it was only on this basis that conclusions could properly be drawn.

The list of facts to be signalled would only grow, as light fell on many aspects, from the deportations to atrocities committed against civilians, the matter-of-fact reporting of which was a matter of principle.

As none of this received appropriate attention in the Report, Bang-Jensen continuously drew attention to the need to correct its inadequacies. At this stage, no one doubted his ‘admirable work’ for the committee, as was duly noted by its chairman, Alsing Andersen. ⁵ He thought it odd that most of his recommendations were not acted upon, and that there was no trace of many of his improvements in the version of the text to be presented to the Special Committee, while some of the errors he had corrected found their way back in later. He also encountered omissions and internal contradictions, and started to suspect that this could not all be a coincidence: the authenticity of the Report was being undermined, exposing it as a target for communist propaganda.

Bang-Jensen first turned to the rapporteur in writing. Then, with no meaningful response forthcoming, he tried to establish personal contact. Shann, the Rapporteur of the Special Committee, was not willing to listen to his objections, ⁶and instead ordered him to follow the official procedure; Jordan refused to look through the list of errors. Andersen, the chairman of the Special Committee and a fellow Dane, agreed with Bang-Jensen, but was unable to influence his colleagues. The final deadline loomed, and it seemed likely that on account of its errors the whole Report, and indeed the whole investigation, together with all the work that had been done on the Hungarian question, the UN’s only serious attempt at a political resolution to the situation, would be robbed of any credibility. Jordan would later claim that time was pressing, that 1,500 changes had already been introduced, and that Bang-Jensen was supposedly in a poor psychological state. ⁷

Following an episode in which Bang-Jensen approached Shann in the UN delegate’s lounge, leading to a disagreement over the Report and the events of that meeting, the rapporteur refused to communicate with anyone other than the Committee secretary, thereby giving Jordan effective control of the preparation of the Report. Jordan, meanwhile, had had enough of his troublesome colleague: he barred Bang-Jensen from further participation in the project and had the more important documents removed from his office, including his notes and the copies of his lists of errors. ⁸The UN leadership accepted Jordan’s position: the ‘path of service’ mattered more than the truth.

Bang-Jensen then tendered his resignation, which was not accepted, but he was unable to conduct his work as his conscience dictated, since he had no official influence on matters he felt responsible for. When he turned directly to Hammarskjöld, his mandate was officially suspended. ⁹Cordier, the undersecretary general of the UN, explained away Bang-Jensen’s objections by saying that he was ‘a very sick man’Cordier to Jordan, via Narayan: UNARM S-0009-0002-09. Cordier had previously described Bang-Jensen as ‘mad’. See: The Bang-Jensen Case. Report to the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary. United States Senate, 87th Congress, 1st Session, 14 September 1961, Washington DC, 35. Cordier’s amateur diagnosis was followed by that of Jordan, in a letter of 5 June 1957: ‘I have no doubt that Mr Bang-Jensen is a very sick man.’ ¹⁰ for wanting to meet the US president: Cordier was aware that Bang-Jensen wanted to share at the very highest level the news that several East Bloc diplomats at the UN wanted to defect, as well as his suspicion of Soviet interference.

The Danish diplomat was thus unable to follow the wording of the document precisely in its most decisive phase, and he was not even given a copy of the published version. ¹¹ His objections were brushed aside and not investigated: Jordan cited time pressures, and that the Report had been accepted by the members of the Special Committee. ¹² When Bang-Jensen’s story took a dramatic turn, and this question was also investigated, both Jordan and Shann declared that they had ‘carefully considered’ the deputy secretary’s objections. ¹³ In fact they had done nothing of the sort, even when Bang-Jensen wrote directly to the secretary general, who tried to call him personally on the phone, but by this time he had gone on holiday to Denmark with his family. Hammarskjöld even had calls made to the port to try to contact him, but it was too late. He then asked Bang-Jensen in a hand-written, personal letter that they meet once he was back from Denmark. ¹⁴

After Bang-Jensen’s return, Hammarskjöld did not find time to meet Bang-Jensen; instead, his deputy Ralph Bunche was given the task of looking into the matter. By this time it had become clear that concerning Hungary, neither a special session nor any additional reports were to be forthcoming; in short, the Hungarian question had been put to bed. All of this was well known to the talented and charismatic deputy secretary general, who was probably aware of the reasons for it; he also knew of Cordier’s supposed diagnosis of Bang-Jensen’s illness. In the Danish staff member’s reservations, and his references to sabotage and Soviet influence, Bunche saw merely a return to the Cold War hysteria that had almost made a victim of Bunche himself. He approached the issue with his heart, not his head, dismissing Bang-Jensen’s objections as ridiculous and refusing to examine his proofs. Bang-Jensen stated that the Special Committee and its rapporteur had been misled, that the mistakes in the Report were not unintentional, that he had not been allowed to correct them, and that it could not be ruled out that Jordan had been ‘pressured’. ¹⁵He added that an attempt had been made to ‘influence’ Secretary Jordan not to press for a further report. Jordan claimed there was not enough material at their disposal, although he had previously complained that there was an enormous number of documents to deal with. ¹⁶ He did not pass the documentation on to members of the Special Committee, just as previously he had attempted to filter out a number of key aspects of the issue. ¹⁷ All this could not be a mere coincidence, Bang-Jensen stated—and neither could it be an accident that no one had taken any of his previous objections seriously.

Bunche later interviewed the three other members of the UN Secretariat, Claire de Hedervary, Vernon Duckworth-Barker, and Marc Schreiber, in an ‘informal’ capacity; ¹⁸ for a meeting between a deputy secretary general and UN employees, this was decidedly unusual. Finally he consulted with Jordan, who contradicted Bang-Jensen’s reservations: the secretary of the Special Committee was authorized to present documents to the members as he saw appropriate, lest they be ‘deluged with material’. ¹⁹ The additional reports sent by Tamás Pásztor, a Hungarian refugee in Austria, to which Bang-Jensen had referred had not been read because ‘no one asked to see them’. ²⁰ Things came full circle: what they did not know about, they did not ask for, and this was considered satisfactory protocol for documents which people had often risked their lives to smuggle out of Hungary to the West.

Bunche’s concern was evident when Jordan pinned the blame for the communication breakdown relating to the deportations on the secretary general, just as when he had failed to mention to the members that Pál Maléter’s bodyguard had established contact with Western intelligence agencies. ²¹ Jordan later denied this, citing the difficulties in establishing the conditions necessary for the witness interview with Maléter’s close associate who had escaped Soviet prison and might have added key details to the already established facts of the case. Bunche added in confidence that ‘Jordan may lean over a bit too far’ in that ‘he quite likely has expressed such views to Bang-Jensen’. ²² By this stage, Bang-Jensen had written directly to Hammarskjöld of the ‘sabotage allegedly on your instructions’, which was quite a claim to make regarding the leader of the UN, especially since there was only indirect evidence for it. ²³ Instead of a more thorough deliberation on the issue, Bunche simply confirmed Cordier’s amateur diagnosis that Bang-Jensen was ‘mentally disturbed’ and might be capable of ‘physical violence either to himself or to others’. It was as though the plan for what would prove to be the last two years of Bang-Jensen’s life had already been worked out.

***

On the day the Hungarian question was put on the agenda, and the special representative for this very issue was giving a lecture hundreds of miles from Manhattan, Povl Bang-Jensen’s body was found close to his home in the early hours of the morning.

The relationship between the United Nations and the Danish diplomat entrusted with the Hungarian question had ended in July of that year, but, considering his removal to be illegitimate, he had not accepted the financial settlement he was offered, and had not given up on his struggle for justice. For his disciplinary case had nothing to do with the real conflict behind his dismissal; it was in the UN’s interests that he wished to vindicate himself and those who believed in him. He was employed on a temporary basis by the aid organization CARE, where his salary was much lower than at the UN. ²⁴

The way in which he had been removed from the UN, and the nature of the proceedings brought against him, only confirmed Bang-Jensen’s doubts. If previously he had only suspected it, by July 1958 he could be certain that something was amiss in the skyscraper in Turtle Bay. By this time, he was not constricted by the internal regulations of the UN, but neither did he want to harm the institution in which he had such faith. His lawyers studied the possibility of his legal rehabilitation, and many, both inside and outside the UN, came to his assistance, while others rejected his reservations. At the same time, many were concerned for his welfare—some for his life. ²⁵ In a hand-written, personal letter, Walter Andersen, a retired admiral, brought Bang-Jensen’s vulnerability, his fate, and the unusual aspects of the proceedings against him to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover, adding that in the course of a transatlantic sea voyage he had seen for himself how the Dane was in excellent emotional and intellectual health. ²⁶ Andersen received a reply, informing him that the FBI had no right to undertake an investigation until it was instructed to do so by the attorney general. ²⁷The CIA, meanwhile, conducted only a ‘discreet inquiry’ into Bang-Jensen’s current job and income, investigating his relations with the Danish Foreign Service and other diplomatic bodies, as if he were under suspicion. ²⁸

It is impossible to know what happened during the weeks preceding his death. At the end of the summer, at a meeting with people he did not know, Bang-Jensen was offered pieces of evidence that confirmed his suspicions. Further meetings took place, during which, as his friends recalled, he ‘stumbled onto something very big’. ²⁹ One evening in late October, he was out all night, but by this time he had cleaned the pistol he had bought during the war and carried it with him. His children recollected how at night they would place a tin bowl behind the front door of the house, so that it would rattle should anyone enter. Bang-Jensen knew that what he had got himself into was dangerous; he wanted to protect himself, and his family.

Documents from his last days suggest inauspicious developments, which the US authorities did not investigate at the time and have not investigated to this day. ³⁰ He was warned that he ‘should not underestimate’ the power of the forces opposed to him. He responded to this in a line of his farewell note: ‘I underestimated the forces I was up against.’ Supposedly, Bang-Jensen had been promised sound recordings by an unknown individual, who then ‘slammed the door in his face’—which must have been a pre-planned strategy. In September he warned János Horváth, one of the leaders of the Hungarian refugees in the US, that ‘they should not give up on him’, adding that he was now in contact with people who were ‘not friendly’. ³¹

The November morning on which the United Nations was preparing to debate the Hungarian question was the third day on which Bang-Jensen’s whereabouts were unknown. He had left home as on other mornings, and there was nothing unusual in his office, either: his raincoat, hat, and papers were all there. ³² It was Thanksgiving, which he always spent together with his family. When his wife reported that he was missing, his description was given to 24,000 police officers, and the news was urgently cabled to the director of the FBI, who instructed his subordinates not to investigate. ³³ The following morning’s newspapers wrote that a search of the nearby forested areas had begun. ³⁴ The fact that despite Bang-Jensen’s description being published and the newspaper headlines mentioning him, his body was only found three days later, by locals walking their dogs in Alley Pond Park, Queens, served to thicken the plot of the mystery further. ³⁵As did his lying by the road, his face clean-shaven, and his farewell note seeming to include secret messages. ³⁶ The NYPD immediately began an investigation, during which it would commit a number of grave errors. ³⁷ Interestingly, just when he went missing, Bang-Jensen’s attorney, Clifford Forster, prepared his wife ‘for the worst’. The New York FBI joined the investigation, only to be called off from Washington. ³⁸ And this was decidedly unusual, as was the reference in the police search call to Bang-Jensen’s ‘dark’ mental state, as if intended to foreshadow the possibility of suicide. ³⁹ Of course, he would have had reason to be in a dark mood, but also some cause to be in a bright one, not just because of his positive nature, but because he had real plans for that autumn: there was interest in him in high places, and new horizons beckoned, while expressions of simple solidarity continued to flood in. ⁴⁰ Many supported him in his struggle that came to an end on that November day.

The UN Archives reveals that UN leaders gathered every piece of information, newspaper article, and official document on Bang-Jensen’s disappearance and the records of the investigation into his tragic death. We find the police reports and the call for a search among Cordier’s papers, alongside descriptions of Bang-Jensen’s last days, including his wife’s mention of his possible ‘amnesia’. It is hard to explain why all this documentation had to be preserved on a staff member who by this stage had not been an active employee of the UN for sixteen months. ⁴¹

The UN Archives preserved the telegrams from Hammarskjöld and Mr and Mrs Cordier, conveying their sympathy to the grieving widow; even Gross, the prosecutor in the case against Bang-Jensen, reminiscent of a show trial, expressed his ‘deep sympathy’ to the family. The same Gross later wrote in confidence that the examination of the circumstances surrounding Bang-Jensen’s death was very unprofessional, and the police was slapdash in its handling of the affair: they did not question local residents, did not establish a precise time of death, did not look for the truck that drove up to the site, and did not investigate the documents that Bang-Jensen left behind. ⁴² In the light of all this, it is even stranger that the body was so quickly cremated, as if to avoid any further examination, even though the two autopsy reports came to different conclusions. ⁴³

It was not only the police whose work was inadequate, as US officials would later conclude—their negligence was inspired by the secret services. While the latter were aware of the failings of the investigation, they also stopped short of uncovering further evidence that would have established their own responsibility. When their role in the affair was later revealed, they merely repeated the charges against Bang-Jensen that the UN itself had formulated: ‘grave misconduct’, ‘dislike for Hammarskjöld’, ‘troubled behavior’, and suggested suicide as the cause of death. During the Senate investigation, one FBI high official announced that there was no factual basis for the claim that ‘the Soviets killed Bang-Jensen’, even though the FBI had documented the faults in the investigation and noticed the contradictions behind it. ⁴⁴The Assembly of Captive European Nations asked for the circumstances of the tragedy to be examined; CIA documents suggest that all this would have enjoyed the confidential approval of Allen Dulles. But it did not take place.

The great number of suspicious circumstances encouraged many to consider that nothing in this case could be unintended, and if UN leaders had any reason to be frightened, they were relieved by Bang-Jensen’s death. Some said that one day they would have to pay for this. For now, however, it was only Bang-Jensen who paid, and with his life. His funeral in Copenhagen was quiet but moving. His five children were around the urn, with Niels Bohr, the Nobel Prize winner physicist and friend of Bang-Jensen, and Henrik Kaufmann, Danish ambassador to the US, and other heroes of the Danish resistance among the mourners. The Danish foreign minister appeared in a private capacity, and the US Embassy was also represented.

Almost without exception, press coverage of the case condemned the United Nations, seeing a series of causal connections between Bang-Jensen’s doubts and reservations, the disciplinary procedure instigated against him, the character assassination this entailed, and finally his dismissal and his death. Rather than put an end to the story, the tragedy of the Dane’s death meant that it was no longer possible to keep a lid on what had happened to him.

Indeed, this is when the whole story was revealed to Hammarskjöld: several episodes had unfolded in his absence or without his knowledge. For example, he was not informed at the time about the ‘medical examination’ into Bang-Jensen’s mental state; it was described as ‘a friendly initiative on Bang-Jensen’s behalf’ that was kept confidential. ⁴⁵ The secretary general sent all this to Gross, as he did not consider the matter to be officially closed. Hammarskjöld’s concern was that Bang-Jensen’s death might only encourage ‘McCarthyish hysteria’, and while many former critics of the UN were now siding with Bang-Jensen, it was clear to Hammarskjöld that Bang-Jensen’s doubts were independent of any political motivation. ⁴⁶

Cordier described the doubts about security as ‘corridor gossip’, and the claims about the Eastern Bloc diplomats wanting to defect as mere rumour-mongering; everything Bang-Jensen was trying to prove was, as he saw it, ‘wholly without foundation’. ⁴⁷ The path from condolence to the stigma of unreliability was a short one: on 22 December, a ‘chronological reminder’ repeated the UN’s arguments regarding the Bang-Jensen issue, stressing that there had never been a problem in the UN with the management of confidential information. ⁴⁸Early the following year, another memorandum was published, in which, as part of the now posthumous campaign against Bang-Jensen, the ‘facts’ were laid out. A hundred copies were made, and the secretary general himself selected those to whom they were to be sent. One member of staff at the FBI drew a large question mark over the claim in a circulated UN document that information had never been leaked from the UN. ⁴⁹ Just how dangerous the information in Bang-Jensen’s possession was is evident from the suggestion by those working on the Senate investigation, a year and a half after his death, that his widow hand over his journals to the Senate for ‘reasons of personal security’. ⁵⁰ Previously attorney Clifford Forster recommended the investigation be halted ‘to protect the family’. ⁵¹

The press in the US, Denmark, and as far away as Australia had a clear sense of the scale of the problem in the United Nations and beyond it, if neither the police, the secret services, nor the politicians sought to get to the bottom of what Bang-Jensen had been unable to fully investigate. Two journalists, DeWitt Copp and Marshall Peck, attempted to finish what Bang-Jensen had started, seeking out the most important individuals and locations, getting all those who could have played a role in these events to talk, reading all the available documents—a helpful member of staff at the UN leaked information and papers to them⁵² —and talking to Bang-Jensen’s widow. That their book investigating the story provoked the ire of both the Soviets and UN high officials is testament to how well substantiated their conclusions were. Ultimately, US politics had no choice but to follow suit. ⁵³Washington had to make a statement, as Bang-Jensen had been an important ally during the war, and in the course of his conflicts he had on numerous occasions sought to deepen his relations with US politicians. A year or so after the tragedy, the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security undertook an investigation, hearing testimony from forty witnesses, requesting and assessing 5,000 pages of documents, then publishing a report. In this, however, they were unable to determine the level of Soviet influence at the United Nations, and made no mention of the contradictions in the work of the Special Committee; all along, they were merciful in their portrayal of Hammarskjöld. Secrets remained secret, not only about the UN in general, but about the precise cause of death. Those whose goal was to arrive at this vague outcome had done a good job. ⁵⁴

Many would conclude from Washington’s passivity that Soviet agents had gained influence at various key points of the US administration. It was to this danger that Bang-Jensen wanted to draw the world’s attention.

The Australian Foreign Ministry stated almost as a matter of record that the UN Secretariat was being used by the communists for the purposes of spying and gaining influence. ⁵⁵Canberra was implicated in the Hungarian question and Bang-Jensen’s fate because of its involvement in the work of the Special Committee, and so paid careful attention to the comments and statements relating to Shann. For it was Shann who had been unwilling to look at Bang-Jensen’s list of errors, only to deny this; it was Shann whom Bang-Jensen had passionately tried to convince of the report’s failings; and it was Shann whose letter the secretary general had cited when dismissing Bang-Jensen. Now all this had to be revisited in what had since become a tragic context, while Shann knew very well that the UN Secretariat was buzzing with Moscow’s agents. The Australian foreign minister published ‘guidance’ for members of the press, ⁵⁶but he could not control the content of Copp and Peck’s book. Shann, meanwhile, described the whole thing as ‘fiction’, thereby saving himself from having to confront his own role in Bang-Jensen’s fate. ⁵⁷

Shann wanted to share responsibility with those who had used him as a pawn, and cited the letters he had exchanged on the subject of Bang-Jensen with Hammarskjöld, Cordier, and Gross. Shann had, after all, servilely listened to both Cordier and Hammarskjöld, whether on the subject of sabotaging future reports or brushing aside Bang-Jensen’s well-founded accusations. Thus, although indirectly, he did damage to the cause he was working for, and unwittingly assisted the ‘Kadir régime’,⁵⁸ as it was misspelled in Canberra. The Australian foreign ministry might have objected to this assertion, calling it ‘nonsense’, and rubbishing Copp and Peck’s book, ⁵⁹ but it revealed its sense of political realism by noting on the basis of the US Senate investigation’s report that Bang-Jensen’s death was ‘murder rather than suicide’. ⁶⁰This statement, however, was not followed by further conclusions.

1
Povl Bang-Jensen began his career as a lawyer in his home country of Denmark, then continued his
studies in the United States. During the German occupation, he supported the Danish anti-fascist
resistance; after the war, he joined the United Nations. See: De Witt Copp and Marshall Peck,
Betrayal at the UN (New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1961); Bo Lidegaard, A legmagasabb
ár. Povl Bang-Jensen és az ENSZ. 1955–1959 (The Highest Price. Povl Bang-Jensen and the UN.
1955–1959) (Budapest: Magyar Könyvklub, 2000) (Danish Edition: 1998); András Nagy, A Bang Jensen ügy (The Bang-Jensen Affair) (Budapest: Magvető, 2005). Of the documents recently made
available in the UN Archives, thousands of pages deal with Bang-Jensen; the Federal Bureau of
Investigation holds 1,300 pages of material on him, part of which I was able to access.
2
Bang-Jensen’s body was found on 25 November 1959; to this day, it is not clear whether he was
killed or committed suicide.
3
Usually translated as: ‘A man’s character is his fate.’
4
His wife, Helen Nolan, was American, and they had five children: Karsten, Per, Lise, Lars, and
Nina. He was in contact with representatives of the US government from 1940 onwards.
5
Messinesi to Stavropoulos on 31 December 1957, UNARM S-0009-0002-09. ‘Bang-Jensen
on many occasions proved very helpful […] often sent little notes. I myself benefited a number
of occasions from the information he gave me.’ ACP, box 175. Andersen: ‘[…] he had done an
admirable work for the Committee.’
6
30 May 1957. Shann’s note. ACP 175.
7
ACP, box 175. Also: UNARM S-0009-0002-09. Jordan’s note: UNARM S-370-0041-02.
8
UNARM S-370-0041-02. Jordan’s note: ‘I arranged the removal from Bang-Jensen’s possession of the surplus copies of his statement of errors […] to put an end to the degree to which Bang-Jensen was undermining the work of the whole staff […].’
9
UNARM S-370-0041-02.
10
Cited in Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN, 289.
11
As Jordan recalls: ‘I do not know whether I instructed the secretariat not to let Bang-Jensen have a copy of the final draft. Quite probably I did.’ On 4 June 1957, Bang-Jensen phoned Jordan, who at Shann’s instruction had refused Bang-Jensen’s request to see the final version of the text. UNARM S-0009-0002-09.
12
See Jordan’s memo during Bang-Jensen’s disciplinary investigation. ACP, box 176.
13
UNARM S-370-0041-02.
14
In his letter of 6 June 1957 to Hammarskjöld, Bang-Jensen noted the omissions and errors that had remained in the Report. But in the same letter, Bang-Jensen insinuated something that could be highly sensitive for Hammarskjöld: ‘My only condition is […] honesty. I have seen enough to know that people can do terrible things, and still have other admirable or attractive sides to their character. […] I only feel sorry for those—whoever they are—who perhaps by some mistake, have placed themselves in a position from which they find it difficult to retrieve themselves.’ See: Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN, 177–180. According to the FBI, the secretary general slipped an informal letter to Bang-Jensen at one session of the Special Committee, in which he thanked him for his note, and suggested they meet in person. The FBI added that the secretary general was presumably vulnerable to blackmail, and in the knowledge of this Bang-Jensen could be in danger. BJI, box 33.
15
28 August 1957, UNARM S-0009-0002-09.
16
UNARM S-0009-0002-09.
17
Bang-Jensen to the secretary general, 28 August 1957, UNARM S-0009-0002-09.
18
UNARM S-0009-0002-09.
19
UNARM S-0009-0002-09.
20
UNARM S-0009-0002-09.
21
UNARM S-0009-0002-09. According to Bang-Jensen, ‘Mr. Jordan did not at that time maintain that he was acting on the SYG’s order but has done so later in similar cases.’ Pál Maléter, military leader of the Hungarian Revolution and Minister of Defence of the Imre Nagy government, was negotiating with high-ranking Soviet officers when he was arrested by the KGB on 3 November 1956. He was then imprisoned and executed in June 1958.
22
UNARM S-0009-0002-09.
23
Bang-Jensen to Hammarskjöld, 16 September 1957, UNARM S-0009-0002-09.
24
He worked as a legal adviser; he was recommended for this job by Bohr, Kauffmann, and US attorney Burling. Lidegaard, A legmagasabb ár, 160.
25
See the interviews held with the Bang-Jensen family, OSZK TIT. Also see: The Bang-Jensen Case and Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN, 272.
26
BJI, box 33.
27
BJI, box 33. The FBI had not begun an inquiry on a previous occasion. On 29 August 1958, it drew the attention of the Domestic Intelligence Division of the State Department to Bang-Jensen’s claims about the loyalties of certain UN employees. In line with Executive Order 10422, they found everything in order.
28
5 January 1959, BJI, box 33.
29
Lasky is cited in George Carpozi, Jr, ‘Mysterious Death of the Danish Diplomat’, Newsweek (1960). Also see: Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN, 268–270, and The Bang-Jensen Case, 46. Robert Morris talked to Bang-Jensen three weeks before his death: ‘[…] he had new information.’ BJI, box 33.
30
According to a source of information (11 December 1959), there was talk before Bang-Jensen’s death of outside influence and of various kinds of intrigue; the source (a woman) supplied two examples from the day before the tragedy. (Only part of the document is accessible for research.) BJI, box 33.
31
This has survived amongst the FBI’s documents, from the time of the US Senate investigation. BJI, box 33.
32
All these were placed in a box, which the investigators did not even look into after Bang-Jensen’s death, which caused dismay during the Senate investigation. See: The Bang-Jensen Case, 5.
33
Hoover received the cable on 24 November 1959 at 2.55 p.m., ‘Captioned individual disappeared on 11-23-59.’ His response: ‘Conduct no investigation in this matter.’ BJI, box 33.
34
Bang-Jensen’s disappearance was reported by his wife to Nassau County Police at 12.30 p.m. the following day. See Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN, 7, and Carpozi, Jr, ‘Mysterious Death of the Danish Diplomat’. Also see the 25 November 1959 article in The New York Herald.
35
‘Official Fired after Hungary Revolt Probe / Refused to Name Witnesses, Left L. I. Home Monday’, The Sun (25 November 1959); ‘Ousted UN Aide Missing, Wide Search Launched’, The Journal American (25 November 1959); ‘Ex-UN Probe, Enemy of Reds, Feared Slain’, cited in Carpozi, Jr, ‘Mysterious Death of the Danish Diplomat’.
36
Many people observed that covering up political murders as suicide was a favourite method of the KGB. The paper his suicide note was written on was of unknown origin, his message had no date (even though he always dated the notes he made), with the only markings being ‘Nov.’ and an unusual marking, ‘6A’, which may have been a reference to the address of the hearings in Vienna, i.e. Wallnerstrasse 6/a, but might in fact be ‘GA’, the abbreviation for the General Assembly. There was oily rust on the hand of the dead body, from a weapon that had not been used for long but was regularly cleaned, while the injury to the right index finger as described in the autopsy report could have been the wound of an inexperienced user of a weapon, from the fastener slamming back in place. The investigation did not cover the question of whether the shot was ‘absolutely close’ (within half an inch) or merely ‘close’ (within a foot or a foot and a half), though this would have clarified whether it was done by Bang-Jensen’s or someone else’s hand. See: Dr Lajos Kovács, Elemzés (Analysis), BJI, box 35. When his body was found, he had already been dead for a day, yet he could hardly have been lying for 24 hours on the path, because dogs would have found him. See: Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN, 23–27.
37
Such as the body turned over, a failure to secure evidence, and the acceptance of mutually incompatible post-mortem reports. See: Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN, 20–32.
38
At 11 a.m. on 25 November 1959, the Espionage Section of the FBI learned of Bang-Jensen’s disappearance, but a hand-written note on the paper said: ‘New York instructed to conduct no investigation.’ BJI, box 34, and The Bang-Jensen Case, 53. At 1.30 a.m. on 26 November 1959, the FBI announced it had found Bang-Jensen’s body, and the cause of death was suicide. (A document dated the previous day had described Bang-Jensen as unsuicidal.) BJI, box 33.
39
Cited in Carpozi, Jr, ‘Mysterious Death of the Danish Diplomat’. This was mentioned on a number of occasions: ‘Bang-Jensen, apparently without the knowledge of his wife, consulted three psychiatrists prior to his death […] talked of self-destruction […].’ See the text by the True Detective in the 9 February 1960 memorandum from the FBI. Of the three psychiatrists mentioned, one was the family doctor, the second assisted Bang-Jensen with his change of career, while the third unambiguously described him as unsuicidal. Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN. The FBI announcedon 25 November 1959 that its information was that Bang-Jensen’s emotional state was stable, and that he was living happily with his family. BJI, box 33.
40
On 26 November 1959, according to a close friend, E. Christiansen: ‘One month ago I had a long conversation with him about his possibilities for embarking on a new career […] the conversation which he had with the Danish FM had given hope for future possibilities.’ ACP, box 177.
41
The police reports carried by UPI and AP are among the Cordier documents, as are documents relating to Bang-Jensen’s last days. ACP, box 177.
42
BJI, box 33.
43
ACP, box 176. The 2 February 1960 FBI report states that ‘[XXX] also feels that criticism of the NYPD will impair our current relations with Steve Kennedy’. BJI, box 34. The conclusion of the US Senate investigation is also damning, as is that of investigative journalists studying the case. Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN, 47–49. The autopsy established that 30 ml of a brownish liquid had been found in the stomach, but no attempt was made to identify it. (See: Dr Grimes, Autopsy Report.) Copp and Peck, Betrayal at the UN, Notes. BJI, box 35. After Bang-Jensen’s death, an unknown caller informed the New York office of the FBI of the name of the chemical compound that could have come from the laboratories of communist secret service agencies: a depressant with self-destructive potential. All this was documented, but nothing was done. On 10 December 1959, Hoover wrote: ‘FBI laboratories are constantly available […] Jensen’s body was cremated in less than two days which destroys the identity of chemicals.’ BJI, box 34. The Danish consul was informed that the police would not release the files, but would respond to questions. The toxicological examination, which ruled out the presence of such chemical materials, was concluded on 15 December. See the correspondence of the Danish high consul in New York on the death of Bang-Jensen in December 1959, RA 119. G. 3/19. Pakke Nr. 3.
44
De Loach to Hoover, 31 May 1960, BJI, box 33.
45
16 March 1960, ACP, box 177.
46
Hammarskjöld to Stig Sahlin, UNARM S-1078-0064-0002-00001 UC. It is telling that the secretary general unambiguously referred to his death as a suicide.
47
ACP, box 177. See Cordier’s statement to the AP on 13 January 1960. A few days previously, a member of staff at the UN Secretariat, Vadim Aleksandrovich Kiriliuk, had been dismissed for activities ‘incompatible with diplomatic status’. See: Pierre J. Huss and George Carpozi, Red Spies in the UN (New York: Coward-McCann, 1965), 136–140.
48
22 December 1959. BJI, box 53. The CIA noted only that the chronology was an ‘accurate account’ of events. BJI, box 33.
49
See among the FBI files. BJI, box 33.
50
According to the FBI note of 8 May 1961. BJI, box 33.
51
Undated memo: ‘[…] drop the investigation—to protect the family’. BJI, box 33.
52
Claire de Hedervary was the source with whom they had secret meetings.
53
For the interview with the two authors, see: OSZK TIT. Their correspondence with a Soviet diplomat alludes to the reaction in Moscow (BJI, box 35), while for UN high officials their claims were nothing but libel. UNARM S-1078-0064-0002-00001 UC.
54
Regarding the suspicion of murder, on 17 February 1964, the FBI mentioned ‘unconfirmed allegations’, referring to the role played by Hungarian diplomats. BJI, box 33.
55
NAA A 1838.
56
NAA A 1838. January 1961. ‘Guidance to Australian press […] off the record or background.’
57
NAA A 1838. 25 January 1961. Shann to the Australian mission to the UN: ‘so-called facts […] reconstructed conversations are largely fictional’.
58
NAA A 1838. 10 February 1961. Publicity officer Ian Hamilton writes: ‘[…] any suggestion that Mr Shann had helped the Kadir [sic] regime was nonsensical’.
59
NAA A 1838. 23 January 1961.
60
NAA A 1838. 13 January 1961. Australian Embassy in Washington.

A Fatal Case of Empathy

András Nagy

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A Fatal Case of Empathy

András Nagy

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