Brian Urquhart Quotations

The mythology about the UN is absolutely breathtaking. People believe it costs a great deal of money to the United States. Completely untrue: it doesn't. The United States makes a net gain. People believe it's a world government, although the UN is a pathetically weak organization which improvises in emergencies to try to prevent the worst from happening.

No one on the Congo side had been given any experience whatsoever in how to run a country, ... There were (only) 17 people with university degrees in the whole Congo in those days.

It is hardly a process at all. It is more like a lottery. It has become a rather squalid competition with no set procedure, shrouded in Big Power secrecy. They don't even interview the candidates.

It was predictable he would not turn out terribly well as the head of a very very large and complicated and rich country,

(The U.N.) actually took a lot of trouble to protect him,