Lie was born in Oslo (then Kristiania) on 16 July 1896. He joined the Labour Party in 1911 and was named as the party's national secretary soon after getting his law degree from the University of Oslo in 1919. He married Hjørdis Jørgensen in 1921; the couple had three daughters, Sissel, Guri, and Mette.
Later he was elected to the Storting (Norway's Parliament). He was appointed Minister of Justice when a Labour Party government was formed by Johan Nygaardsvold in 1935. Lie was later named Minister of Trade and Industries and Minister of Supply and Shipping.
In 1940, when Norway was invaded by Germany, Lie ordered all Norwegian ships to sail to Allied ports. Lie was named as Foreign Minister of the Norwegian government-in-exile.
Lie led the Norwegian "delegation" (group) to the United Nations conference in San Francisco in 1946 and was a leader in drafting the rules to set up the United Nations Security Council. He was the leader of the Norwegian delegation to the United Nations general assembly in 1946. On February 1, 1946, he was elected as the first United Nations Secretary-General as a result of a compromise between the major powers, having only missed being elected President of the first General Assembly by a small margin. He gets much of the credit for securing the current site for the United Nations headquarters from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and establishing the offices there.
As Secretary General, Lie supported the foundation of Israel and Indonesia. He worked for the withdrawal of Soviet forces in Iran and a stop to fighting in Kashmir. He attracted the anger of the Soviet Union when he helped gather support for the defence of South Korea after it was invaded in 1950 and later worked to end the Soviet boycott of UN meetings, though his involvement has only little to do with the eventual return of the Soviet Union to the UN. He was opposed to Spain's entry into the United Nations because of his opposition to the Franco government. He also sought to have the People's Republic of China recognized by the United Nations after the Nationalist government was exiled to Taiwan, arguing that the People's Republic was the only government which could fulfill the membership obligations in full. This did not happen until the 1970s.
He has been criticized for his failures to facilitate negotiation in the Berlin Blockade, as well as his failure to bring about a more swift end to the Korean War. His critics argue that he was under the influence of a select few in the UN Secretariat. He has also been criticized for his arrogance and stubbornness.
Over objections from the Soviet Union, his term of office was extended by the General Assembly 46 - 5 in 1950. This was the result of a Security Council impasse, in which the US refused to accept any candidate but Lie, and the Soviet Union's absolute refusal to accept him again, due to his involvement in the Korean War. The Soviet Union refused to acknowledge him as secretary general in his second term, and after having been accused by Joseph McCarthy of hiring "disloyal" Americans (an allegation which he attributed to the rapid hiring of civil servants necessary after the creation of the organization), Lie resigned on November 10, 1952.
Lie remained active in Norwegian politics after his resignation from the UN. He was the Governor of Oslo and Akershus, Chairman of the Board of Energy, Minister of the Interior, and Minister of Trade.
Lie died on December 30, 1968 of a heart attack. He was 72 years old.
Nuclear force
Nuclear force is the force between nucleons. It is the force that pulls protons and neutrons into atoms. It is very hard to break the bond, or tie, between protons and neutrons in an atom, because nuclear force holds them together. When the bond is broken, this is called nuclear fission.
U Thant
U Thant (22 January 1909 – 25 November 1974) was a Burmese diplomat and the third Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1961 to 1971. He was chosen after his predecessor Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in September 1961.
"U" is a word in Burmese, roughly equal to "Mister." "Thant" was his only name. In Burmese he was known as Pantanaw U Thant. His home town is Pantanaw, so this means "Mr Thant of Pantanaw"
When U Nu became the Prime Minister of the newly independent Burma, he asked Thant to join him in Rangoon and appointed him as Director of Broadcasting in 1948. In the following year he was appointed Secretary to the Government of Burma in the Ministry of Information. From 1951 to 1957, Thant was Secretary to the Prime Minister. He also took part in a number of international conferences and was the secretary of the first Asian-African summit in 1955 at Bandung, Indonesia which gave birth to the Non-Aligned Movement.
From 1957 to 1961, he was Burma's Permanent Representative (Ambassador) to the United Nations, and became actively involved in negotiations over Algerian independence. In 1960 the Burmese government awarded him the title "Maha Thray Sithu" as a commander in the Pyidaungsu Sithu Thingaha Order (similar to an order of knights).
Thant began serving as Acting Secretary-General from November 3, 1961, when he was unanimously appointed by the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Security Council, to fill the unexpired term of Dag Hammarskjöld. He was then unanimously appointed Secretary-General by the General Assembly on November 30, 1962 for a term of office ending on November 3, 1966. During this first term he was widely credited for his role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis and for ending the civil war in the Congo.
U Thant was appointed to a second term as Secretary-General of the United Nations by the General Assembly on December 2, 1966 on the unanimous recommendation of the Security Council. His term of office continued until December 31, 1971, when he retired. During his time in office, he oversaw the entry into the UN of dozens of new Asian and African states and was a firm opponent of apartheid in South Africa. He also established many of the UN's development and environmental agencies, funds and programmes, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN University, UNCTAD, UNITAR and the United Nations Environment Programme.
He had also led many successful though now largely forgotten peace making efforts, for example in Yemen in 1962 and Bahrain in 1968. In each case, war would have provoked a wider regional conflict, and it was Thant's quiet mediation which prevented war.
Unlike his two predecessors, Thant retired after ten years on speaking terms with all the big powers. In 1961 when he was first appointed, the Soviet Union had tried to insist on a "troika" formula of three Secretaries-General, one representing each Cold War bloc, something which would have maintained equality in the United Nations between the superpowers. By 1966, when Thant was reappointed, all the big powers, in a unanimous vote of the Security Council, affirmed the importance of the Secretary-Generalship and his good offices, a clear tribute to Thant's work.
The Six Day War between Arab countries and Israel, the Prague Spring and subsequent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 leading to the birth of Bangladesh all took place during his time as Secretary-General.
He was widely criticized in the US and Israel for agreeing to pull UN troops out of the Sinai in 1967 in response to a request from Egyptian President Nasser. U Thant tried to persuade Nasser not to go to war with Israel by flying to Cairo in a last minute peace effort.
His once good relationship with the US government deteriorated rapidly when he publicly criticized American conduct of the Vietnam War. His secret attempts at direct peace talks between Washington and Hanoi were eventually rejected by the Johnson Administration.