Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld

Mr. Hammarskjöld, who became Secretary-General of the United Nations on 10 April 1953, was born on 29 July 1905 in Jonkoping, Sweden. He holds degrees in Law and Political Economy from the University of Uppsala. In 1933, he was Assistant Professor in Political Economy at the University of Stockholm. He also had a notable career in the field of finance: From 1936 to 1945, he was Secretary-General of the Swedish Government's Department of Finance; in 1946, he held the position of Specialist in Finance in the Swedish Foreign Ministry, with the rank of Envoy; he has also served as Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of Sweden and as Vice-Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation. He became Minister of State of Sweden in 1950, a post he occupied until his installation as Secretary-General.
Informal portrait of Mr. Dag Hammarskjöld, taken at one of his recent press conferences.