Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Finding Aid for the Brian Urquhart Collection of Material about Ralph Bunche, ca. 1932-1972
364
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Brian Urquhart Collection of Material about Ralph Bunche,
Date (inclusive): ca. 1932-1972
Collection number: 364
Creator:
Urquhart, Brian
Extent: 48 boxes (24 linear ft.)
2 oversize boxes
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Abstract: Sir Brian Urquhart (b.1919) was active in the organization and direction of the United Nations (UN) Emergency Force in Middle
East (1956) and responsible for the organization and direction of UN peace-keeping operations and special political assignments.
Ralph Bunche (1904-1971) was the undersecretary for special political affairs at the UN (1958-67) and undersecretary general
(1968). He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. The collection consists of papers of, about, and collected by Ralph
J. Bunche and later used by Brian Urquhart to write
Ralph Bunche: an American Life (1993). Items in the collection include manuscripts, his notebooks, project files, audiotape recordings, clippings, travel
photographs, and memorabilia.
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library, Department
of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Language:
English.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Copyright to portions of this collection has been assigned to the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections. The library
can grant permission to publish for materials to which it holds the copyright. All requests for permission to publish or quote
must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian, Department of Special Collections.] Credit shall be given as follows:
[c in circle] The Regents of the University of California on behalf of the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections.
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Advance notice required for access.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift of Brian Urquhart, 1995.
[Identification of item], Brian Urquhart Collection of Material about Ralph Bunche (Collection 364). Department of Special
Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Sir Brian Urquhart was born on February 28, 1919; educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford University; served
in the Dorset Regiment and Airborne Forces during World War II; personal assistant to Gladwyn Jebb, Executive Secretary of
the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations, London, 1945-46; personal assistant to Trygve Lie, 1st secretary general
of the United Nations, 1946-49; member, Office of Undersecretary General For Special Political Affairs, 1954-71; active in
organization and direction of UN Emergency Force in Middle East, 1956; assistant to the secretary general's special representative
in the Congo, 1960, and UN Representative in Katanga, Congo, 1961-62; responsible for organization and direction of UN peace-keeping
operations and special political assignments; Assistant. Secretary General of the UN, 1972-74; publications include
Hammarskjold (1972) and
Ralph Bunche: an American Life (1993); Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan, on August 7, 1904; AB, UCLA, 1927; AM, 1928, and Ph.D., 1934, Harvard University;
professor at Howard University from 1929-1950, and at Harvard, 1950-1952; in 1948 joined Permanent Secretariat of UN; Undersecretary
for special political affairs, UN, 1958-67; became Undersecretary general in 1968; awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1950; died
in New York, on December 9, 1971.
Sir Brian Urquhart has led an extraordinary life, much of which has been spent in and around the United Nations system --experience
which accounts for his international stature and visibility in current debates over the future of the United Nations and the
role of UN security forces in the post-Cold War era. It is fair to say that he has become the central figure in the dialogue
over renewing the United Nations system.
Born in England in 1919, Brian Urquhart was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. After serving in the
British army and military intelligence during World War II in North Africa and Europe, he served as a personal assistant to
Gladwyn Jebb, who
established the preparatory commission of the United Nations in London. Since 1946, Sir Brian's professional life has been,
in many respects, a history of the UN itself. He was personal assistant to the first Secretary-General (Trygve Lie) and subsequently
served in various capacities under Ralph Bunche between 1954 and 1971. Over this period, Sir Brian was centrally involved
in the conferences on peaceful uses of atomic energy, the Congo crisis in the early 1960s, and peacekeeping in Cyprus, Kashmir,
and the Middle East. In the period after 1972, Brian Urquhart was one of the principal political advisors of the Secretary-General,
and served as the Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, working on Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, and Namibia,
among others. He retired from the United Nations Secretariat in 1986.
Across this extraordinary career, Sir Brian has written several books, including brilliant biographies of Dag Hammarskjöld
and Ralph Bunche. He has also written an autobiography,
A Life in Peace and War, published by Harper & Row. His books on decolonization, and more recently on reforming the United Nations system, have projected
him into the international limelight of transnational politics. A tireless speaker and activist, Sir Brian is deeply involved
in the events surrounding the fiftieth UN anniversary. His pieces on the UN volunteer force and the responsibilities of the
UN system published in The
New York Review of Books in 1993 and 1994 have set the terms of the debate for all future discussions of rethinking the UN system.
Conversations with History: Sir Brian Urquhart. 1998.
Online. Berkeley Multimedia Research Center. Internet. 9 April 1998. http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/cwh/urquhart/.
Collection consists of papers of, about, and collected by Ralph J. Bunche and later used by his colleague and biographer,
Brian Urquhart. Includes manuscripts, his notebooks, project files, audiotape recordings, clippings, travel photographs, and
memorabilia. The notebooks document more than five decades of Bunche's evolution as a political thinker and carefully preserve
the origin and genesis of his major published and unpublished speeches, essays, articles, and other writings. Project files
include research materials consulted by Bunche, reports generated by him and/or his affiliates, and photocopies of business
correspondence. Audiotapes include transcriptions of taped interviews with Bunche, mostly from the 1960s. Clippings and memorabilia
include articles by and about Bunche, along with reviews and letters to him.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Urquhart, Brian--Archives.
Bunche, Ralph J. (Ralph Johnson), 1904-1971.
United Nations--Officials and employees.
Diplomats--Archival resources.
Ralph Bunche Papers (Collection 2051). Available at Department of Special
Collections, UCLA.