UN veteran protected peace in hot spots

Changed by Arnhem bridge disaster

Sir Brian Urquhart, who has died aged 101, was a senior United Nations official through its first 40 years.

Urquhart was a key adviser to five secretaries-general. He brought not only an awareness of political and military realities to the task but a vital knowledge of governments and their representatives at the General Assembly in New York.

He exuded a cheery optimism along with a talent for small tasks, such as arranging the seating at meetings to the satisfaction of prickly participants.

He ended up as undersecretary-general for Special Political Affairs, responsible for co-ordinating all the UN's peacekeeping activities.

Brian Edward Urquhart was born in Dorset, England, on Feb. 28, 1919. After two years at Oxford, he joined the army, where he was soon appointed intelligence officer to Major-General “Boy” Browning of the Airborne Forces, and was posted to work with him on the Arnhem raid in Holland.

The 1st British Airborne division had little doubt about their ability to take the road bridge at Arnhem over the lower Rhine, but Urquhart obtained evidence that the 2nd Panzer Corps was refitting in the area.

Sure enough, Arnhem was a major disaster. Widespread public vindication only came 33 years later when A Bridge Too Far was published. It revealed that the operation had been strongly backed by Field Marshal Montgomery, who refused to listen to doubts.

After the Army, he was appointed MBE, and joined Gladwyn Jebb in organizing the committee to draw up a blueprint for the new UN.

After Dag Hammarskjold took over, Urquhart set up the International Atomic Agency in Vienna; handled the Suez crisis, the UN's first major peacekeeping operation; and co-ordinated troops from member states to form the UN's first international peacekeeping force.

He retired as UN undersecretary in 1986 and went on to publish several books.

Urquhart remained haunted by the Arnhem debacle.

“After it, I doubted everything, tended to distrust my own as well as other people's judgment, and became deeply skeptical about the behaviour of leaders.”

Urquhart had five children through two marriages.

Sir Brian Urquhart